As if to stress the weight of those words, from the trenches a heavy cannon was fired with a deafening boom and a ball slammed into the wall, raising dust. At the same moment, a trebuchet brandished its mighty arm and sent a half-hundredweight boulder into the centre of the town. A catapult standing in position hurled a flaming barrel of pitch on a similar trajectory, accurately, for smoke rose up from the roofs at once.

“For by fire and by His sword the Lord will judge all flesh,” said preacher Markolt, who was present at the conversation. “And the slain of the Lord shall be many.”

“Amen,” Prokop finished the sentence. “The raids and forays and this bellum cottidianum are costing the Czechs too much. Plauen and the others are burning fields and robbing crops while Prague is starving. That must stop. I’ll show them terror.

“After the storm,” he finished, biting his moustache, “I’ll turn the town over to be looted and the population to be slaughtered. Our warriors are sharpening their knives.”

“Even,” Scharley asked with a sneer, “if they offer a ransom?”

“Indeed.”

“Especially,” Markolt interjected again, “since they didn’t—”

“I won’t hold back the warriors.” Prokop cut him off. “They’d probably kill me if I tried. I know what you want, physician. Plenty of refugees took shelter in Plauen, you suspect that your lady may be among them. But I cannot help you. This is war.”

“Hejtman—”

“Not another word.”

Scharley and Samson drew Reynevan away. They held him back when he was itching to steal into Plauen, beyond the walls. They had a hard time convincing him it would be suicide.

The bombards fell silent soon after noon. The onagers and trebuchets stopped hurling missiles. A thundering signal rang out from the trumpets. Unfurled pennants and standards fluttered. Battle cries resounded. Five thousand Taborites charged to storm Plauen.

It was all over in two hours. They scaled the walls with ladders and destroyed the gates with battering rams. They crushed the resistance and put the defenders to the sword. They showed no mercy.

By the third hour, they had captured the castle and slaughtered all the defenders. Soon after, the Dominican convent—the final point of resistance—fell.

And then the massacre began.

Before it grew dark, Plauen was in flames and rivers of blood were flowing through the streets and hissing from the fire. The fires turned night into day, but the murderous work didn’t stop, the cries of the dying didn’t abate until dawn.