They had all endured hardships in their own lives. But those trials had brought them together, had hardened the bonds between them that nothing—not a horde of Eirdkilrs, a traitorous Princelander, or the threat of certain death—could sever.
The thought of that filled Aravon with a measure of peace. Peace that would carry him through the storm of bloodshed of death that awaited him now.
Chapter Thirty-Five
“Captain.”
Colborn’s voice snapped Aravon awake. His head jerked up, his eyelids fluttered open, and a groan escaped his lips.
For a moment, he’d almost believed the battle had been a dream. A nightmare of howling barbarians, a deafening dissonance of clashing steel, awash with blood and gore, the screams of the dying. The screams, shrieks, and gasps of the dying nothing more than his exhausted mind tormenting him with his past as he slept.
Yet, as Aravon stared up into the masked face of his Lieutenant, dismay sank like a stone in his stomach. It hadn’t been a dream. The blood staining Colborn’s armor, the exhaustion dragging down his strong shoulders, and the crimson dripping from his longsword and shield told Aravon it had been all too real.
“Here.” Colborn held out a skin of water. “I brought us some food and drink.”
“Us?” Even just speaking the word required an enormous amount of effort.
“Figured after the day we had, you were better left here to rest.” With a little shrug, Colborn leaned against the far wall of the mine entrance and slid to a seat. He sighed in relief and, pulling up his mask a few inches, stuffed a bite of Shalandran flatbread into his mouth. “So I went and sorted out dinner,” he said, his mouth full. “What little there is.”
Aravon’s insides still churned—even with the cool evening breeze whispering through the mine entrance, the stink of spilled guts, rotting flesh, and blood dried and fresh hung thick in the tunnel—but he forced himself to take a mouthful of water. If nothing else, to wash the taste of blood from his mouth. His own blood. An Eirdkilr attack had nearly taken off his head, but he’d escaped with nothing more than a nasty bruise to the cheekbone. And an aching right side from where a stumbling Shalandran had driven an armored elbow into his ribs. The bruises in his chest, the pain of his shoulder—wrenched as he blocked a wild thrust of an Eirdkilr spear—and the fire burning in his legs conspired against him, holding him trapped in his seated position. Even just the act of lifting the waterskin to his lips proved arduous.
He swallowed the blood-tainted mouthful—no sense wasting what little water remained—and, with a hiss of pain, tossed the waterskin to Colborn. The skin plopped between the Lieutenant’s feet with barely a splash.
“How bad?” Aravon managed to form the words with less effort. That sip of water had helped to flush the bitter, metallic taste of battle from his mouth. A glance at the deep, near-black darkness outside the mine told him he’d been asleep here for the better part of two hours. He’d fallen to his seat in exhaustion after the Eirdkilrs’ final evening assault and remained there, undisturbed, as the living moved around him, carrying away the dead.
“Seven more.” Colborn’s voice was quiet. “Another twelve badly wounded. Stonekeeper’s going to have his hands full.”
“Aye.” Aravon’s gaze slid toward the tunnel floor. He couldn’t remember what color the stone had been—the same dark grey as the roof, perhaps—now, there was only the dark, rust-colored muck of mingled dust, blood, and gore. The bodies of the slain Eirdkilrs had been dragged toward the ever-growing barricades—now three of them, stretched across the breadth of the tunnel—of human flesh that guarded the mine’s entrance and slowed the barbarians’ assault. Those Indomitables beyond Rangvaldr’s aid would be stripped of their armor and weapons and laid beside the corpses of their comrades in the silent, dark mine galley Lord Morshan had designated as their temporary crypt. Though the screams and wailing of the wounded had faded, the mine still rang with the sounds of their torment.
Yet the wounded were fortunate; they would live to fight another day. Or, at the very least, to live another day.
The Eirdkilrs had renewed their assault shortly after dawn and kept it up all throughout the day. More than twenty Indomitables—hardened, experienced soldiers accustomed to a life of fighting—had collapsed from sheer exhaustion at the nonstop battling. Only the ceaseless courage of Lord Morshan and his Keeper’s Blades kept the Shalandran line from breaking. Aravon, Colborn, and Noll had thrown every shred of strength into the effort of holding the mine entrance.
Somehow, impossibly, they’d managed to repel the Eirdkilrs. Once more, time and time again. For hours, until it seemed that nothing existed but flying blood, howling Eirdkilrs, the crash of steel on steel, and the unrelenting pumping of his arms and legs. Soldiers fighting for their lives and the lives of their families. Teeth gritted, swords held in hands long ago gone numb from fatigue, boots slipping on blood-slicked stones. Shouting defiance as they hacked at Eirdkilrs and absorbed the pounding punishment of massive axes, spears, and clubs. Men too hard-headed to accept that they were outnumbered, that the enemy would eventually break through. Soldiers, brave to the last.
At this rate, last would come all too soon. Rangvaldr was a heartbeat from collapse. He’d nearly killed himself healing the twenty-five wounded in the previous day’s skirmish, and a few hours of rest hadn’t sufficed to restore his strength. Aravon didn’t know if the Seiomenn had the stamina to get those twelve wounded back on their feet. With the seven dead, that left fewer than ninety Indomitables to fight alongside Lord Morshan, the Keeper’s Blades, and the only soldiers Aravon could spare.
Just under a hundred of us to keep them at bay. He glanced over at the waterskin Colborn had drained. And unless we get more food and water, we’ll die of thirst and hunger before they kill us.
“Here.” Colborn tossed Aravon a bit of food. “After a day like today, it’ll feel like a Camp Marshal feast.”
Aravon caught the chunk of grain cake and stared at it. With effort, he forced himself to put it in his mouth, chew, and swallow. He could taste nothing beneath the bitter tang filling his mouth, but the presence of food threatened to bring up the contents of his stomach. How could anyone eat so close to the gutted, bloodless, and rotting bodies of their enemies? How could any man, Princelander or Shalandran, contemplate sustenance when death lurked in the darkness twenty yards away? Only ten Indomitables stood guard behind the corpse barricade—far too few to stop the Eirdkilrs from storming in, yet all that could be spared for the nighttime vigil.
How distant those memories of Camp Marshal seemed now. A lifetime ago, those weeks spent training alongside Colborn and the others. The nights of study, trekking through the marshlands or curled up in bed beside Snarl. The visits from Duke Dyrund, the quiet moments they’d shared. The laughter, camaraderie, and kinship of the soldiers focused on their training, on preparing themselves for the mission they knew awaited them.
They’d never have that again, that simple, easy leisure. Too much had passed for them to ever feel relaxed like that. They had lost friends, family, and comrades. They’d defeated impossible odds and overcome difficulties no one else on Fehl could have even considered. The bonds of steel formed in hardship and turmoil also weighed heavy on their hearts.
And Duke Dyrund would never be there again. Never share a table with their company, raise his voice in a bawdy tune, or challenge Noll and Belthar to a drinking contest. Aravon would never hear the quiet encouragement in the Duke’s voice, feel the warmth in the man’s solemn gaze. Those days were far behind them, and nothing would bring that back.
“Sorry.”
Aravon looked up at Colborn’s quiet word. He cocked his head. “For what?”
“For reminding you of him.” The Lieutenant’s ice-blue eyes locked on Aravon, his look apologetic. “With the shite time we’re having, grief’s the last thing you need on your plate.”
“No, there’s nothing wrong with bringing him up.” Aravon sighed and leaned his head back
against the stone wall. “If anything, it’s those memories that keep me going in the hard times.” He blew out a breath. “Thinking about those good times is sometimes, sometimes, enough to help me forget about the bad. About the fact that his body’s somewhere on a wagon—hopefully headed north toward the Princelands, but I can’t really be sure until we get out of here. Or that one of the three people who knew I still existed is now dead. That, unless we can actually win this thing and find out who’s the traitor, my family’s going to be in danger.”
Colborn’s eyes widened behind his mask. “Swordsman! I hadn’t even thought of that.”
Aravon nodded. “I’ve been trying not to think about it, but it’s bloody hard. Why do you think I’ve been playing with the Eirdkilrs all day long?”
Colborn swept a lazy gesture toward the mine entrance. “A few more out that way if you need to keep taking your mind off things.”
Aravon chuckled. “I’m good for now, thanks.” His smile faded, the mirth draining away, leaving only a dark, cold void in his chest. “But it’s times like those nights we spent at Camp Marshal, or like this”—he indicated himself and Colborn—“that help me keep on going. The memories of the good times is sometimes all we’ve got to hang on to when the night’s darkest.”
“Aye.” Colborn’s eyes darkened, and he remained silent for long moments. “You’re luckier than most, that way,” he finally said.
Aravon cocked his head. “How’s that?”
“You’ve got enough good memories to outweigh the bad.” Colborn’s voice was thick, his eyes dark as a storm-tossed sea. He picked up a bloodstained rock from the ground and toyed with it, his gaze never meeting Aravon’s. “Some of us…well, bad comes in all shapes and sizes, harder to look past when the only good in your life died before you could remember.”
Aravon’s eyebrows rose beneath his mask. He’d never heard Colborn speak of his mother before.
“Did anyone ever tell you what she was like?” he asked, his voice quiet. With a grunt, he pushed off the rock wall and leaned forward. “Your grandmother, that Captain Leish in your father’s guard, anyone who knew her before...?”
Again, silence elapsed as Colborn’s eyes grew unfocused, distant. For long seconds, he relived some memory—painful or pleasant, Aravon couldn’t know. When he spoke, his voice was thick, strained.
“Beautiful, that’s the one thing Eira and Captain Leish said. Her spirit, that is. Kind, gentle, generous, a quick smile and a laugh like the Lady’s Bell in Whitevale.” He met Aravon’s eyes. “A will as hard Odarian steel and a sharp tongue to match.”
Aravon nodded. “Having met her mother, your grandmother, I can only imagine.” The white-haired Eira had struck him as the sort of woman who did as she pleased, disapproval of others be damned. When speaking of caring for Branda, there had been a defiant look in her eyes, as if daring him to try and tear her from the side of her patient.
“But after my father…” He broke off with a violent shake of his head. “After Lord Derran”—the words dripped vitriol and disdain—“took her from Saerheim, she was never the same again. Finding out she was pregnant…that was the last straw, Captain Leish told me. Two days after I was born, after she’d stuck me with a Fehlan name and made Lord Derran swear he’d keep it, she left.”
“Left?” Aravon’s eyebrows shot up. “Where did she go?”
Colborn shrugged, but it seemed as if the weight of the world pressed on his shoulders. “Lord Derran never told me. I don’t think he knew.” He gave a bitter shake of his head. “Or cared beyond the fact that she’d left him with me to deal with. Captain Leish might have said, but I almost believe he found it a mercy that he never learned what happened to her.”
“And her family?” Aravon asked. “Your grandmother, or her brothers in Saerheim?”
“If they knew, they never said.” Anguish glittered in Colborn’s blue eyes. “But the way they looked at me…” He trailed off with an almost imperceptible shudder. “Almost as bad as the way he looked at me. Worse, in a way. Hate, now that was something I’ve learned to live with. Being hated hardens you, makes you strong. You grow damned strong to prove to the bastards that you’re stronger than their hate. But being ignored, being shunned?” He shook his head. “That’s a kind of cold no fur could ever keep out.”
Aravon wanted to say something, to offer some word of reassurance to his brother-in-arms. But what words could make up for years of mistreatment and hardship? Empty platitudes, meaningless in the face of such suffering.
“The day I learned I could kill Eirdkilrs, that was the day I found my purpose.” Colborn’s fist closed around the bloodstained chunk of stone, squeezing so tight Aravon half-expected the rock to crumble to dust. “I saw that hate in their eyes—the way they hated me for what I was—and it felt like coming home. All I have to do is keep standing up to them, keep being stronger than their hate, and I win.” He gestured toward his sword, still edged crimson. “Making them suffer and bleed is just a bonus.”
Ice slithered down Aravon’s spine. That look, that tone of voice, they held such emptiness, an icy edge that chilled Aravon to the core. Colborn spoke as if he had nothing else to live for.
And it was a lie.
“Horse shite.”
Colborn’s head snapped toward Aravon. “What?”
“You heard.” Aravon snorted. “That’s a load of horse shite.”
Anger flared in Colborn’s eyes and his leather gloves creaked as his grip on the stone tightened.
“You make it sound like you’re a monster.” Aravon shook his head. “But that’s just his voice speaking. Lord Derran. That’s his poison, but that’s nothing like the man I’ve seen.”
Colborn stiffened and though the mask hid his face, Aravon could feel the sudden reticence emanating from every fiber of the man’s being.
“The Lieutenant who cared enough to bring me this”—Aravon waved the scrap of bread, little more than a mouthful—“isn’t some cold, empty husk powered by hate and vitriol. He’s a good man, a decent man, one who cares about his fellow man. Not just the soldiers under his command, but even those he gets thrown in with by sheer rotten luck.” He gestured to the Indomitables. “The monster you described would be hurling himself at the Eirdkilrs just to taste their blood and hear their screams. The Ghoststriker I fought with today—that I’ve fought with for months now—cares more about protecting than hurting.”
The tension in Colborn’s spine and shoulders loosened, the protective barriers in his eyes slowly coming down.
“You say your mother was kind, gentle, quick to smile and laugh, with a hard will and sharp tongue.” Aravon grinned. “Sounds like you inherited a lot more of her than you realized.”
Colborn grunted a noncommittal response, but Aravon could see the light once more returning to the man’s eyes.
“Your father’s hatred may have hardened you, like you said, filled you with a burning desire to prove him wrong. But no matter what, that could never totally erase that bit of your mother—the goodness you inherited from her. He could never fully stomp it out, no matter how much he tried.”
Aravon leaned forward and thrust a finger at Colborn, “You never broke. Not when he tried to break you, and not now that the Eirdkilrs are trying to break you every damned day of our lives. But you haven’t grown hard or brittle like iron. Instead, you’ve become like tempered steel—no matter what life throws at you, you refuse to shatter. A resilience unshakeable and unbreakable. And through it all, that gentle nature and kindness is what makes you a damned good soldier, a damned good Lieutenant, and a man I’m honored to call my brother.”
For long moments, Colborn stared at him, a whirlwind of emotions in his eyes. Finally, he managed a nod. “Thank you, Captain.” He spoke in a quiet, hoarse voice, and had to swallow before continuing. “I—”
“Captain?” Belthar’s booming shout cut off whatever Colborn had been about to say. A moment later, the big man himself appeared around the corner of the tunnel,
huffing and puffing. In place of his huge double-headed axe, he carried a steel pick axe like those used by the Shalandran miners. Dirt and dust stained him from his helmeted head to his booted toes, and he appeared as exhausted as Aravon felt. Yet his eyes sparkled with a glimmer of hope and eagerness. “Ah, Captain, perfect! Lord Morshan sent me to find you.”
Aravon made to leap to his feet, but found his muscles refused to cooperate, locked up after too much time sitting down after hours of battle. He held out a hand to Belthar, who gripped his forearm and levered him to his feet.
“Thanks.” Aravon nodded. The day had left him more drained than he’d realized. “Tell me you’ve got some good news.”
A smile broadened Belthar’s face, and he gave an emphatic nod. “The news we’ve been hoping for all this time.”
Hope surged within Aravon’s chest. Can it be?
Before he could ask the question, before he could give voice to his faint hope, a scream echoed in the tunnel behind him. A scream of pain, cut off in a wet gurgle. The next instant, another scream, followed by a shout of “The Eirdkilrs are attacking!”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Aravon spun toward the mine entrance in time to see a stream of Eirdkilrs hurtling down the passage. The Indomitables, stationed twenty feet back from the mouth to stay out of the Eirdkilrs’ line of bow fire, barely had time to leap to their feet and raise shields and swords before the giant barbarians were leaping over the pile of corpses and descending upon them. The first two soldiers died in a spray of blood and brains, giant axes and clubs crushing Shalandran skulls and staining the walls a gory crimson.
Steel and Valor: An Epic Military Fantasy Novel (The Silent Champions Book 3) Page 28