The Seven Streams by Warwick Deeping

The Duchess Lilias, white sinner that she was, had fled from Agravale and taken horse for the East Lands with all her men. Great fear had seized upon those in the city when the northern sky had gleamed with the fringes of the fire. Under cover of night they had fled in a panic out of Agravale, men, women, and children, the monk and the merchant, the great lady and the hag. Unreasoning fear had seized on every heart, for they remembered the sacking of Ronan's town, and the foul deeds done by their soldiery in the province of the Seven Streams. Rumour had mouthed the report in Agravale that the heretics and the men of the north would sack the city in revenge for the harrying of the Seven Streams. When news was brought of Benedict's overthrow, there was much wailing through all the city. In their panic the whole population fled out of Agravale, after gathering such valuables as they could carry-gold cups, precious stones, money bags, bales of silk. Many of the aged and the sick were left within the walls, abandoned in the fierce terror of the moment. As for the priests, they were the first to be gone, having a jealous reverence for the ecclesiastical sanctity.

Thus when Blanche's trumpets rang out before the walls there came no shrill counterblast, no bristling up of spears. They seemed to challenge a city of the dead, white and voiceless, sunk in the mystery of the solemn woods. The gates were open, the streets silent, the towers and battlements devoid of life. There was no brave clamour to tell of courage, no clangour of bells, no blowing of trumpets.