The Fall of Aquila

Floriana Tyrannus watched ancient Aquila burn. The horizon darkened a sickly grey as smoke reached up to embrace the sky. The death of Scorpius had left the city in disarray. The Senate panicked and argued as to what to do next, even as the Dawi host encircled the suburbs.

The enemy armies had formed a tight cordon around the city that prevented any escape. The Dawi had worked their way through the slave districts and slums on the southern banks of the Tiban, “liberating” the humans as they marched deeper toward the bridges that marked the boundaries of the ancient citadel. The vampires tried to press-gang the slaves into fighting but the humans would simply throw down their weapons and flee to the Dawi lines to claim amnesty. The warriors let them past, uninterested in the humans. Their grudge was with the vampires.

War engines had been drawn up along the river bank as the Dawi consolidated their hold on the southern half of the city. Floriana looked on in quiet dismay as the machines hurled their fiery payloads high over the walls and into the northern districts. Lavish villas, sprawling palaces and colonnaded gardens- all of it went up in flames. The government buildings were ablaze, the fire dancing from the roof tops like wild hair blown by a gale. In all directions aristocrats and senators attempted to flee or fight or plead to find themselves a way out. But the Dawi blockade held them fast, and they burned within their ancient city or fell under the merciless blades of their conquerors.

“Fools,” she muttered under her breath, “if only you had listened to Scorpius sooner”. His coup had come too late, Floriana had realised. The invasion against Aquila was unstoppable, the fall of the great empire fated from the moment their enemies realised the true nature of those in power. The Dawi would never rest until the vampires were utterly destroyed. The undead were wholly anathema to them, it seemed, something altogether despicable and reviled. There was no chance for peace or negotiation. One side or the other would prove victorious and the vanquished would be reduced to dust. “If only we had acted sooner...”

Floriana contemplated how different the course of history might have been. Glavius and his cronies had assured them all that Aquila was safe. There would be an age of plenty, the feasting halls drenched with the blood of a thousand slaves drained each night. They had allowed themselves to become complacent and now they paid the terrible price for two centuries of weakness. She cursed Scorpius for being too late. She cursed her Uncle Dominus for dying in battle, cursed her grandfather Aquilus Magnus for passing before his time... The great dictators who could have saved them even now, but who had long since died and left the rule of Aquila to lesser men.

The last aristocrats in the city mounted a forlorn attack. From the hilltop, Floriana could see the doomed charge of a score a young noblemen, beautiful and proud upon great black chargers. They galloped full tilt down the boulevard that led from the senate house, a last act of heroism reminiscent of the triumphs of legend. They crashed gloriously into the midst of the Dawi lines, scattering warriors before them. Then they slowed. Then they were surrounded as the infantry closed on them and dragged them from their horses. Amidst the toppled ruins, the crumbling columns and the rent statues of the heroes of Aquila, the last scions of the vampiric families were extinguished. Their empty display of pride and defiance ended as quickly as it began under the blades of the relentless foe. There would be no glory, only ruthless destruction.

“What a terrible waste,” Atia sighed gently as they watched the nobility of Aquila crushed beneath the hammer-blow of the Dawi army. Floriana turned to her cousin, and set her mouth in grim contempt, “They deserve their fate. They were not fit to rule Aquila. Our grandfather would have...”
“Our grandfather died a long time ago,” Atia interrupted, though her voice was patient. She placed her hand gently on Floriana’s as if to sooth the seething bitterness in her. “It is too late to rue the fall such men. We must look to our own future.” She smiled, a calm smile that held a glimmer of cunning.

They were the only two left. Floriana and Atia had stolen away in the night. They had first tried to board the ships at the dock, only to find the Iron Fleet of the Dawi waiting in the harbour. Instead they fled south and disguised themselves by mingling with the slaves that trudged through the Dawi lines to safety, far from the battle lines. Dressed in rags and reeking of the slave filth was almost more than Floriana could bear. But it had saved her. No one looked for two noblewomen amongst the hordes of dirty, bedraggled humans. It seemed the Dawi despised slavery almost as much as they hated the vampires. They had taken pity on the humans and treated them kindly. The human emperor Karl the First had granted asylum in the Holy Sigmarite Empire to all of the freed humans. They would be given new homes and new lands on which to thrive, free of the tyranny and fear they had known for all of their miserable lives.

Aquila lay in ruins. House Tyrannus had fallen. But their legacy would burn brightly one day, Floriana would see to that. She and Atia would bide their time. And when they rose again there would be no room for weakness, or decadence, or the empty trappings of ‘civilised’ life.

“Idle dreams, for now...” she mused. Floriana straightened herself and raised the shawl over her head to once again obscure her face. She turned from the burning vista for the last time, stifling her anguish and bitterness, pressing it deep down within her. It would be the seed that would slowly nurture and grow in the darkness, she told herself, until one day it would bloom into a new vengeful dynasty. Floriana dreamed of power lost and power that would yet be.

The Dawi gently shepherded the humans on, the flock of refugees moving ever westward to their new lives...blissfully unaware of the wolves in their midst.