When General Basim Quaraz gave the order, the first ranks advanced through the dust and smoke with measured pace, their formation steady despite the chaos that had preceded them. Behind them came more, and more still, until the ground before the breach seemed filled with motion.
Within Beirot, Marshal Lannes stood behind the inner barricades and watched them come.
"Hold your fire," he said, his voice calm but carrying.
The men obeyed, though their grip tightened on their muskets. The militia stood among them, less steady, eyes fixed on the approaching mass.
Closer.
Closer still.
"Now."
The first volley tore into the attackers at close range. Men fell in clusters, the front ranks collapsing into the broken stone of the breach. A second volley followed, then a third, each one cutting deeper into the advancing line.
For a moment, it seemed enough. Until the second wave struck.
The defenders met them with steel.
Bayonets drove forward. Muskets swung. The narrow confines of the breach turned the fight into something intimate and brutal; men pressed so close that there was no space for manoeuvre, only for endurance.
"Hold!" Lannes shouted. "Do not give ground!"
They held.
The first assault broke against them, and the attackers forced back under the weight of resistance. Survivors stumbled away from the breach, dragging the wounded, leaving the dead where they lay.
A cheer rose from the defenders.
It did not last.
Basim did not hesitate.
"Again," he said.
Fresh troops moved forward immediately, stepping over the fallen, their momentum unbroken. The bombardment resumed even as they advanced, cannons firing over their heads, striking deeper into the city, forcing the defenders to fight under constant pressure.
Inside, the strain deepened.
"Western barricade is taking fire!" an officer called.
"Send militia!" another answered.
"They are already there!"
"Then send anyone who can stand!"
Lannes moved through it all, his presence steadying the line where words alone could not.
"Rotate the front!" he ordered. "No man fights until he falls. Pull them back, replace them!"
It was done as best it could be. But the numbers pressed in.
The second assault lasted longer.
The attackers gained ground within the breach, forcing the defenders to back step by step. For a moment, the line wavered, the pressure threatening to break it entirely.
Then Lannes himself stepped forward.
"Here," he said, placing himself at the centre of the line.
The men saw him. And they held.
A counter push drove the attackers back, reclaiming the lost ground, forcing them once more out of the breach. The cost was high, bodies piled upon bodies, the space choked with the dead.
Still, the line stood.
Outside, Basim watched with narrowed eyes.
"They bleed," one of his generals said.
"Yes," Basim replied. "But they do not break."
He considered the breach, the repeated failures, the stubborn resistance. "Then we widen it," he said.
The guns shifted.
What had been a single opening became the focus of every available cannon. Shot after shot struck the already shattered wall, breaking more stone, widening the gap, turning the narrow choke point into something far more dangerous.
Within the city, Lannes saw it.
"They mean to overwhelm us," an officer said.
"Yes," Lannes replied.
He looked at the line, at the men who had already fought for days without rest, at the militia who stood beside them with fear and resolve in equal measure. "Then we make them pay for every step."
The third assault came through a wider breach.
This time, the attackers flooded in with greater numbers, their formations less constrained, and their ability to press forward increased. The defenders were forced to spread, their tight formation loosening under the strain.
Fighting erupted not just at the barricade, but beyond it, spilling into the streets behind.
"Fall back to the second line!" an officer shouted.
Lannes shook his head.
"No," he said. "We hold here."
He turned to the artillery crews positioned behind the barricade.
"Fire into the breach."
They hesitated only a moment.
Then they obeyed.
At near point-blank range, the cannons roared, blasting into the advancing enemy, tearing gaps through their ranks. The effect was devastating, halting the momentum, throwing the attackers into disarray.
The defenders surged forward again, reclaiming ground, forcing the enemy back once more.
Hours passed. The assaults did not stop.
Wave after wave came, each one pressing harder, each one testing the limits of the defenders' endurance. The sun rose high, then began its slow descent, and still the fighting raged.
Casualties mounted on both sides. Within Beirot, the cost was staggering.
"Half the line is gone," an officer said, his voice hollow.
"Then the other half holds," Lannes replied.
It was late in the day when the turning point came.
Basim, frustrated by the repeated failures, moved forward to observe the breach more closely. He rode with his staff, positioning himself where he could see the flow of the battle, where he could direct the next assault personally.
"They are weakening," he said. "One more push and they will break."
He raised his arm to signal.
At that moment, a cannon fired from within the city. The shot tore through the air with a deafening roar.
It struck Basim's horse first, shattering bone and throwing both rider and mount to the ground. The force of the impact carried through, the iron ball ripping through his leg before burying itself in the earth beyond.
For a moment, there was silence around him.
Then came the screams.
"General!"
Men rushed to his side as he lay in the sand, blood pouring from the ruin of his leg. He tried to rise, to speak, but the pain was overwhelming, his body refusing to obey.
"Get him back!" one of his officers shouted.
They carried him from the field, his command broken in an instant.
The effect was immediate.
Without Basim's direct control, the coordination of the assaults faltered. Orders became delayed and confused. Units that had been ready to advance hesitated, uncertain.
Within Beirot, Lannes saw the shift.
"They falter," he said.
He did not hesitate.
"Counterattack."
The defenders surged forward.
What had been a static defence became sudden aggression. The exhausted soldiers of the 9th Corps, supported by the remaining militia, pushed into the breach, driving the disorganised attackers back.
"Forward!" Lannes shouted.
The momentum reversed.
Where before the defenders had been pressed, now they pressed. The attackers, shaken by the loss of their commander and the sudden resistance, began to give ground.
The breach was cleared. By nightfall, the assaults had ceased.
The Sultunate army withdrew from the walls, their formations pulling back beyond effective range. Fires burned where the battle had been fiercest, casting flickering light over the ground littered with the dead.
Within Beirot, silence fell at last. Lannes stood at the breach, his uniform torn, his face marked with exhaustion.
"It is over," one of his officers said.
"For now," Lannes replied.
The siege lifted the following day.
With their commander gravely wounded and their losses mounting, the Sultunate forces withdrew, abandoning the attempt to retake the city.
Beirot held. But the cost had been severe.
Of the 32,000 infantry, half were either injured or dead. The cavalry had been reduced, their numbers cut. The militia, though they had stood, had suffered heavily.
The city itself bore new scars, layered upon the old.
Lannes looked out over the battlefield one last time.
"They came with everything," an officer said.
"Yes," Lannes replied.
He turned back toward the city.
"And we gave them nothing."
The victory was theirs.
But like all victories in this war, it had been paid for in blood.