It couldn't have been more than three days, but it felt like an eternity. The moment the walls were assaulted and arrow met flesh it was like that. He had held a speach, but he knew the end result. The besieging forces were simply too great for them to hold all the walls of the town. For every place they held the attackers off the walls, a dozen more had found their way up atop the parapets, slaying all those who opposed them. The walls fell soon after that, and he ordered the retreat to the castle. Oh so few had rallied to his call. The entirety of the house of Arescod was on his shoulders now, as none of his family's banner had returned. Henry saw that there were still Ascalonian flags raised high on several towers, but he knew that he could not relieve them.
The second battle saw his final compatriot fall. With what men he had left, he could only really hold out in one of the towers, and that's what he did. Time after time he fended off murderous clansmen who tried to take his life, and he could only thank his forefathers for the clockwise-turning staircases. Henry held, despite suffering countless lesser wounds, and the day ended with but a single Ascalonian banner still afly.
But even that was not to last. While every man, both lesser and greater, had only retreated with wounds from under his blade, fire was his nemesis in the last hour. Retreating to the topside of the tower with less than half a dozen men under his command, he had faced his doom a thousand times over. There was nothing in his mind when he organised the final charge at Sarrer d'Tan men, for he had thought that his life was over and over, until it became a mere nuisance in his mind.