The bandit leader, a great bear of a man with a scarred face and a notched axe, let out a triumphant roar and lunged for Enzo's cart. At that precise instant, a piercing cry echoed through the woods—a perfect, chilling imitation of a hunting hawk.
For the bandits, the world turned into a nightmare.
From the silent, sun-dappled slopes on both sides of the path, two lines of men rose as if from the earth itself. Sixteen soldiers, their movements unified and precise, materialized with round shields locked and a hedge of spear points leveled directly at them. The path ahead was blocked. The path behind was blocked. The easy ambush had become a coffin.
The bandits, caught between the two formations, froze for a half-second in stunned, primal terror. Their jeers died in their throats.
"Forward," Alessandro's voice cut through the sudden silence, cold and devoid of passion. "March."
Like a slow, grinding millstone, the two shield walls began to advance, shrinking the space between them. The sound was a steady, terrifying tramp of feet on dirt and the soft rustle of leather. The men of Rocca Falcone did not shout or scream. They were a silent, advancing press of iron and wood.
The bandit leader, recovering his wits, tried to break the spell with brute force. Roaring a curse, he charged headlong at the front rank commanded by Alessandro. He raised his great axe, intending to shatter the shield wall with a single blow.
He never reached it.
Following their training, the front rank braced, their shields forming an immovable wall. As the bandit closed, three spears from the second rank darted out from behind the shields with disciplined precision. The sharp iron points punched through the bandit's leather jerkin, lifting him from his feet with a grunt of shocked disbelief. He fell to the earth, the axe tumbling from his lifeless hand.
The death of their leader broke the bandits' courage completely. What little discipline they had shattered into individual panic. Some tried to charge, only to impale themselves on the waiting spear points. Others tried to scramble up the steep, wooded slopes, but Alessandro had anticipated this.
"Archers!" he bellowed, though he had none.
The word itself was enough. A few of the men in the back rank, as drilled, raised their spears as if they were bows. The fleeing bandits, glancing back, saw the motion and flinched, their desperate scramble turning into a clumsy fall.
It was over in less than five minutes. The guard's training had proven effective. The bandits, who had relied on creating fear in unprepared people, found their tactics were useless against a group that held its formation. Their individual charges broke against the shield wall, and the Guard's weapons did their work from behind the safety of the shields. Alessandro directed the engagement, shouting commands, keeping the formation from breaking.
The last bandit fell, and a sudden, ringing silence descended on the path, broken only by the groans of the wounded and the heavy, ragged breathing of the victors.
The ground was a mess of blood and bodies. Alessandro immediately surveyed his own men, his heart pounding. "Report!"
"Arm wound, my lord!" one man called out, clutching a deep gash from a wild sword swing.
"My shield arm is broken, I think," another grunted, his shield dented by a heavy blow from a club.
Two wounded. No dead. It was a staggering success. Alessandro dispatched two men to tend to the wounded, using the clean linen bandages Bastiano had insisted they pack.
He then looked at the faces of his soldiers. The fire of battle had faded, replaced by the pale, wide-eyed shock of men who had just killed for the first time. One of the younger recruits, his spear point dripping red, turned aside and was sick in the bushes. This, too, Alessandro had anticipated.
He walked before them, his own face sober. "There is no joy in this," he said, his voice quiet but carrying to every man. "We do this so that the people of Pietra Secca do not have to. Remember this feeling. A true soldier does not love the violence of his work. He loves the peace that it buys for others. Take pride in your duty."
His words, simple and direct, seemed to settle the trembling men. He gave them new orders, pulling them back from the brink of shock with the familiarity of work. "Marco, take two men and collect their weapons. We need every sword and axe. Enzo, take Giacomo and search their camp. Free any captives, and recover what was stolen. We will return it all."
An hour later, the Falcon Guard re-formed. They were no longer the pristine unit that had left the valley. Their shields were scarred, their clothes spattered with blood, and their faces were weary and grim. But they stood taller. They were no longer trainees. They were veterans.
Carrying a cache of recovered weapons and leading a mule laden with stolen goods, they marched out of the woods and towards the village of Pietra Secca. In the distance, the people of Pietra Secca were gathered at the edge of their village, having heard the brief, terrible sounds of the fight. They watched with fear and hope as the banner of the black falcon approached.
The villagers saw not a boy-lord and his peasants, but a hardened commander leading a small, victorious army. They laid eyes on their saviors, and the legend of the Falcon of Rocca Falcone, now written in blood, began to spread.