Steel and Valor: An Epic Military Fantasy Novel (The Silent Champions Book 3)

by Andy Peloquin

  Again, he felt foolish speaking the words. He hadn’t dreamed of peace like Duke Dyrund; he’d never known anything beyond war and the Legion, never dared to hope for anything better than a life spent defending his home and family from the Eirdkilrs. Yet in that moment, as they left his lips, they felt…right.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be back.” The burden of duty settled atop Aravon’s shoulders, a heavy encumbrance indeed. “The way the mission’s shaping up, there’s a good chance this is the last time I set foot in Icespire. But I can leave, knowing you’re watching over them. In death, just as you did in life.”

  Pushing off the headstone, he rose to his feet, stepped back, and straightened. His right fist thumped against his leather breastplate in the Legion salute.

  “Until we meet again, Your Grace.” Tears slid down Aravon’s cheeks, soaking into his leather mask. “Never in this life, but most certainly in the next.”

  He remained like that for long moments, spine ramrod straight, fist pressed against his shoulder, a final honor for a great man, a mentor, and a friend.

  Then he moved on. Three short steps to the black granite headstone that stood next to Duke Dyrund’s grave.

  “Traighan of Icespire,” the inscription read. “Paragon of strength and courage.”

  Strength and Courage. The motto of the Legion. General Traighan had been a man of exceptional strength of will—a will of iron that nothing could break. His courage had never wavered in the face of hordes of Eirdkilrs. A Legionnaire to the end.

  Aravon opened his mouth but no words came out. Long seconds passed and still his mind remained a blank. He hadn’t known what to say to his father for years. Now was no different.

  Sorrow settled over him, a leaden blanket that had grown far too familiar in recent months. A burden that grew heavier with every passing day.

  He recognized the name inscribed into the stone—a name sung in dozens of songs, revered by every Legionnaire on Fehl—yet for all its familiarity, it brought him only a strange sense of dissociation. The man the world had known as General Traighan was the same man Aravon had known. The man of legend, the bulwark of strength and courage, a soldier.

  Even in the privacy of his home. Aravon had never known the man beneath the name, beneath the legend. For all he’d idolized his father, had wanted to follow in his footsteps, what had he truly known of the man?

  A raging drunk. A silent, mournful drunk, too. And a sorrowful one who wept when he thought no one watched.

  That taciturn bastion of courage, as reticent and cold as stone. The force of nature, as icy as the wind that howled off the Frozen Sea in winter, as tempestuous as a blizzard. A man as familiar to Aravon as the glow of Icespire, yet as unknowable.

  This man, this person who should have been the most important person in his life, who he should have known as well as he knew himself and should have loved as he loved his wife and sons, had lived and died a total stranger.

  The grave held the fleshly remains of his father—a father he’d never truly had. A father he would never truly get to know. A father who had left a hole in Aravon’s heart, wide and deep enough that nothing could ever fill it.

  Mylena was the love of his life, Rolyn and Adilon his pride and joy. Yet, for all that, a piece of himself was still missing.

  The piece that now lay here, in the grave. A piece he would never get back.

  Aravon had lost two parents the night his mother passed into the Long Keeper’s arms. Though the soldier had lived on for years, the man he’d considered his father had died that day. The day General Traighan had come home to find his wife stone cold, gone to the Long Keeper’s arms two days earlier. He’d never had a chance to see her, hear her final words. Not even the finest Legion horse could cover those two hundred miles from his Legion post to Icespire in time to get him to his dying wife’s bedside.

  But in that moment, Aravon had a better understanding of the man. Of the burden he’d borne for the sake of the wife he loved, the child he’d raised.

  General Traighan had given his life in service to the Princelands. He had accepted the responsibility of being away from home and family, because it was the duty he felt compelled to fulfill. Beneath the burden of command, the weight of knowing that his actions would send men to their deaths, he had made the choice to give up the one thing that civilians took for granted: his family.

  He had turned his face away from the ones he loved and left them behind, for Prince and country. And when he returned home to find that half of his family had been torn from him, a part of him had died that day.

  Would I have been any different? The question echoed in Aravon’s mind. If I came home to find Rolyn or Adilon dead, or Mylena taken by illness to the Long Keeper’s arms, would I have reacted any differently?

  The Duke’s death had struck him a painful blow, one that had come perilously close to shattering him. He had gone torpid, lost in his mind and drowning in sorrow. Only the mission and his men had kept him from descending into the darkness of grief. He’d survived because of them. They had pulled him through, and he’d forced himself to keep moving because he owed it to them.

  Again, after the General and Duke’s funerals, he had nearly slipped back into that insensate void of anguish. He’d drunk himself blind and forgot about his men, his mission, and everything else but his misery. Only the assassination attempt on Lord Virinus, a threat to his life and those of his Grim Reavers, had snapped him back to reality.

  “I guess, in a way, that makes us more alike than either of us knew.” The words spilled from his lips beyond his control. Once they began, he couldn’t cut off the flow. “I always hated you for that. Hated you for being miserable, for being in such pain after her death. Hated you for taking it out on me. Hated that the few times you came home from the war long enough to speak a few words, those words always echoed your disappointment. That’s a heavy burden to place on a young man’s shoulders, and the weight of it only made me hate you all the more.”

  He sucked in a ragged breath. “But I think I get it now. You hated what you had to do. How you had to let us go, and how you felt like you never really got us back. After she died, you hated yourself for not being there. Eventually, it just grew easier to hate, until you didn’t know how to come back from that.”

  A grim smile twisted his lips. “I suppose that’s one lesson I learned soon enough. I learned what hate and guilt do to a person. How it eats them alive from the inside out until nothing’s left but that empty husk that I saw every time I looked at you. And because of that lesson, I knew I’d never do to my sons what you did to me.”

  Those words felt so spiteful, edged with bitterness and hatred. Exactly what he’d told himself to avoid, but his emotions, now unbottled, could not be stoppered up.

  “All the other lessons you taught me, even the ones I didn’t want to learn, I’ve still got those locked away down deep.” Again, another deep breath. “I am who I am because of you, General. Had you not been the way you are, I’d never have left home, never have joined the Legion, never worked as hard as I did to become the Captain I wanted you to be proud of. So there’s that, I guess.”

  He raised the bottle and took a deep drink. The rotgut, a mixture of distilled malted grain and rye mash, burned a long, blazing line of fire down his throat, the taste bitter on his tongue.

  “I’m sorry, Father.” The stinging liquor deepened the rasping hoarseness of his voice. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there at the end. Or for years before that. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you…” His voice cracked and tears flowed anew. “…tell you how much I loved you. Because I did, Father. I do. No matter what. Whatever kind of man you were, whatever our differences, beneath it all, I loved you.”

  The Duke’s words to him, spoken back in Storbjarg all those long weeks ago, flashed through his mind. “And I guess, in your own way, you loved me, too.”

  For years, Aravon had tried to run from it, to brush it aside or reject it outright, but that had been nothing m
ore than a self-defense mechanism. How could he accept that he loved someone who was eternally disappointed in him? Those dearest were the ones who could inflict the most pain, and few people in his life had inflicted as much pain as his father.

  And yet, the fact that he felt that pain was proof enough.

  He stood straighter and raised the bottle once more. “Thank you, General. For being the example of strength and courage to live up to. Thank you for living a life that I can aspire to, that I can hold up to my sons as a paragon of strength and courage.” He poured a few drops of the stinging liquor onto the grass around his father’s grave. “And thank you, Father, for…for being my father. For all your faults and failings, it’s because of you that I’m here today.”

  Again, he snapped to attention, fist to shoulder in the Legion salute. A torrent of tears streamed down his cheeks, more than ever in his life. He made no attempt to stop them. They needed to be let out, needed to release those emotions pent up within him. With that flow, the weight from his soul would be lifted. All his life, he’d lived in the shadow of his father. Of the hero of Steel Gorge, the great General of Icespire. Of the man who had burned the truth of his disappointment into Aravon’s mind with every snarling word.

  But now, with the General gone, the shadow hadn’t lifted, simply become more…distant. Like the man himself, a collection of memories that lived on in Aravon’s mind. Memories more bad than good, certainly, but enough good remained to cling to. Not to absolve the man of his actions or excuse the hurt he’d caused, but to bury them with his body. And in putting that to rest, Aravon allowed himself to move on, to shoulder the load of duty and service that fell to him.

  He could only carry so many burdens at once. By letting go of his anger at his father, he freed up strength to bear the weight of command. Of doing what needed to be done, no matter how difficult or painful. And the thought of leaving his family again, after what they’d just endured, that brought more pain that he’d ever imagined.

  The faces of his wife and sons flashed through his mind. Mylena—as beautiful as the day he left her, perhaps even more so, with the strength of spirit that had drawn him to her in the first place. Rolyn and Adilon, grown so much since the last time he’d seen them that he barely recognized them.

  He had just saved them, just gotten them back after a threat of certain death. And now he had to leave them again. Doubtless for the final time.

  Yet, as he read the inscription on the General’s tomb, he heard his father’s rich, thundering voice in his mind. “Strength and courage, Aravon. A Legionnaire weathers any storm, bears any load, fights any battle, because if we do not, there is no one else to do it. We are the first and last line of defense between the enemy and our families. Never forget, Aravon, and never fail to fight until your last breath. Only then can you stand tall before the Keeper’s judgement.”

  Aravon straightened, gave the tombstone one final salute. “Strength and courage, Father.”

  He broke off after a moment, turned to march away. Yet once again, the simple inscription etched into his tombstone caught his eye. “Aravon of Icespire, beloved son, husband, and father. To the end he marched, brave soldier.”

  Grim determination hardened in the core of Aravon’s being. He would live up to those words, would march to the end. For his father’s sake, for the sake of his family, and his own. That was the sort of man General Traighan had shaped. That was the legacy he left behind.

  The hole in his heart remained, yet it had somehow grown smaller, the wound less ragged and raw. Though he would never truly be at peace with his father, a part of that ceaseless turmoil had been laid to rest here and now. As he strode through the cemetery, the burden on his shoulders had lifted. Just a bit, barely a fraction of the load he carried, yet it was enough. Enough that he could keep fighting, keep marching unencumbered.

  His eyes drifted to the south and west, beyond the towering mansions of the nobility and retired military heroes of Icespire. Smoke still rose from the Outwards, and small fires ran rampant through the People’s Markets, the Glimmer, Littlemarket, Eastway, and Portside. But the dark grey haze that had hung over the city mere hours ago had gone, carried away on the ocean’s breeze. Though the sun shone down on a grim spectacle—homes crumbled and buildings burned to blackened ruins and ash, thousands of Princelanders and Eirdkilrs lying dead in the streets, turning the cobblestones red and flooding the gutters with blood-soaked mud—it shone nonetheless on a city that still stood. Weeks, perhaps even months, would be needed to restore order, but order would be restored.

  That was an outcome far better than anyone could have hoped for the night before.

  Chapter One Hundred Six

  Colborn stood waiting for him at the arched entrance to Icespire Memorial Gardens. “Thought I’d give you a few moments.” The Lieutenant fell in step beside Aravon and, together, they strode north and west toward the Northbridge.

  They walked in silence for long moments. Aravon spoke first. “How’d it feel?” he asked. “Hitting him like that?”

  Colborn shot him a sidelong glance. “Lord Derran?”

  Aravon nodded.

  “Better than I expected.” After a moment’s silence, he added. “And worse. Empty. Like all these years I’ve spent hating him were...” His words trailed off.

  “Wasted.” Aravon finished the statement.

  “He’s nothing but a self-loathing coward. All this time, I was worried I’d turn out like him, but one look at him last night, and I could see that we are nothing alike.”

  Aravon smiled. “If your grandmother’s any indication, I’d say you took after your mother’s side. You certainly inherited Eira’s sharp tongue.”

  Colborn chuckled. “You’re not the first person to tell me that.”

  They fell silent again as they reached the Northbridge. This time, the Ebonguards let them pass, even offered a respectful salute and made way for them to march over the bridge.

  Colborn broke the silence once they stepped onto Palace Isle. “Seeing her on the roof, being dragged off by the Eirdkilrs, I felt fear. For her, and for me, that I’d lose her. The only family I’ve got. That scared me even more. Made me realize that she matters more than I wanted to admit. That my people matter. When this is all over…” He drew in a breath. “I don’t know.”

  “No, you should.” Aravon stopped and turned to Colborn. “Half of you is Fehlan, Colborn. You should explore that part of yourself. As a wise man once said, you can’t know who you are until you understand where you came from.”

  “Been talking with Rangvaldr again?” Colborn cocked his head.

  Aravon snorted. “I feel like the revered Scholar Denethar might be a tad offended to know you mistook his philosophical treatise for the words of an Eyrr Seiomenn. Trust a half-savage like you to think that way!”

  Colborn laughed. “Spoken like a pompous Azure Islander.”

  “Hey, I only grew up here!” Aravon threw up his hands. “I never wore the fancy perfumes and costly silks.”

  “But you did attend all those extravagant soirees.” Colborn adopted the haughty self-importance of a nobleman—awfully similar to Lord Derran’s derisive tone the previous night. “A night of luxury spent dining and dancing with the finest men and women in the Princelands. Nay, on any land!”

  “All those dancing lessons have come in handy saving your ungrateful arse far too many times to count.” Aravon drove an elbow into the man’s ribs. “And the last time, what, ten hours ago?”

  “Is that what you call it?” Colborn shook his head. “Not quite how I remember it.”

  “Oh, we’ll have a chance to make sure you remember it right once the others confirm it.” Aravon grinned beneath his mask. “Unless you were the one to kill the great Asger Einnauga. No?” He gave a dismissive wave. “Now, if you’re done making a damned fool of yourself, we’ve got to get to the Prince.”

  With a nod, Colborn fell into step beside him, all trace of humor fading. “You sure about this?” the Lieu
tenant asked in a somber voice.

  “You have doubts?” Aravon led the way through the arched entrance into the courtyard, toward the double doors that opened into the Palace itself.

  “A bloody barrelful of them!” Colborn shook his head. “What you’re going to propose is about as suicidal as dancing arse-bare through an Eirdkilr camp. Only difference is that there’ll be a lot more snow.” A long moment of pensive silence elapsed between them. “It’s the right call, don’t get me wrong.”

  “But?”

  “But not many men could leave their families behind after what just happened.” Colborn’s voice was quiet, heavy with meaning. “And no one would blame you for wanting to stick a bit closer to home for a while.”

  “What I’m going to propose is the best way I know how to make sure something like this never happens again.” Aravon’s jaw clenched, his fists tightened at his side. “And yes, it’s going to kill me to leave them again, but if we pull it off…”

  He didn’t want to speak the words aloud, didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the chances of success. Though he didn’t believe in Legionnaire superstitions, he’d do everything in his power to avoid misfortune, even if that meant keeping his hopes and desires buried down deep until they could come true.

  “Good.” Colborn nodded. “Just making sure we were in lock-step on this one.”

  They entered the Palace, and when they asked a servant for directions, they were informed Prince Toran sat in the northwestern gardens with the Princess and his children. With a grateful nod, they strode through the Palace, the ringing of their boots on the marble-tiled floors echoing loud in the high-vaulted domes and ceilings of the ornately adorned corridors.