The Last March: A Grimdark Epic Military Fantasy Novel (The Silent Champions Book 6)

by Andy Peloquin

  Lieutenant Vorris’ head snapped around at Koltun’s quiet words. The shadows in his eyes hardened, grew flinty, then softened as he recognized the speaker. “I know.” His voice was heavy, burdened. “Or at least, I’m as close to certain as I can be that it was the right choice.”

  “Be bloody damned certain, no doubt about it.” Koltun fixed the man with a piercing stare. “I’m all for a knock-down-drag-out fight, Swordsman’s honest truth, but there’s a difference between that and fighting a battle you’re certain to lose.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “You saved the lives of every man and woman here.”

  Lieutenant Vorris cast a glance over his shoulder, staring at the long, straggling column following him.

  “He won’t see it that way.” The shadows darkened in Lieutenant Vorris’ eyes.

  Koltun snorted. “Our good Captain Hadrick couldn’t see his way to finding his ass in broad daylight with both hands and a full Battalion.” He grimaced. “But even he’s not foolish enough to come down on you for your actions.”

  “You don’t know him like I do.” Lieutenant Vorris’ mouth twisted into a grimace. “He won’t accept the loss of his stronghold without kicking up an unholy fuss.”

  “Let him!” Koltun snarled. “The moment we’re in the clear, General Traighan will hear of the battle. He’ll make sure nothing Captain Hadrick does to you has any long-lasting effects on your career.”

  “It’s not my own career I’m worried about.” The officer shook his head. “It’s the soldiers. I’ve spent the last years under his command doing everything I can to shield my men from him. But without me there, I’m worried about what he’ll do to punish them for what he perceives as cowardice.”

  “Then we won’t give him that chance.” Koltun’s jaw clenched. “We ride ahead, weather that particular storm on our own. When the men catch up, he’ll have blown himself out of piss and fury.”

  The shadows in Lieutenant Vorris’ eyes darkened, the lines of tension around his face growing deeper. Yet he simply nodded. “So be it.”

  Koltun twisted in his saddle and searched for the nearest Screaming Howlers. “Thog!” he called.

  The huge Praamian looked up from where he marched near the head of the column.

  “Grab Dannick and mount up. We’re riding ahead.”

  Thog shot him a questioning glance, but when Koltun offered nothing further, he simply nodded and set about obeying the command. Gathering up Dannick from farther back in the column, he re-commandeered the horses he and the other Screaming Howler had lent to a pair of wounded soldiers. Five minutes later, their small party of four galloped up the Cliffpass, leaving the marching soldiers and civilians behind.

  It took them just over half an hour to reach the rearmost of the slow-moving women, children, and elders. Dozens of faces turned toward the sound of their horses’ hooves, panic twisting in their expression, yet they soon grew relieved as they recognized Lieutenant Vorris.

  Women and children pressed around the four riders as they reached the column, and the air rang with questions as anxious wives asked about husbands, mothers inquired after the wellbeing of their sons, or daughters begged for news of their fathers. Lieutenant Vorris could offer them no comfort, but insisted to all who asked that they would soon be joined by their men and the civilians that had stayed behind to fight. He didn’t mention how few had survived.

  Up the trail they rode, past the tired women struggling under the weight of their infants, the children—some barely able to walk—weeping from exhaustion after hard travel. The age lines on the faces of the elderly men and women of Highcliff Motte had deepened beneath the road dust and the toil of their forty-five-mile journey. The wounded soldiers and civilians lying on the wagons had grown even weaker from blood loss, lack of food and water, and hard travel. Some wouldn’t live through the night.

  Captain Hadrick rode at the front of the column, a proud figure of shining armor, gleaming cloak, and fresh helmet plumes. He looked for all the world like a conqueror riding into a defeated city, not like a coward fleeing his death. The sight filled Koltun with fury, setting the acid in his stomach roiling.

  At the sound of the hoofbeats, Captain Hadrick turned in his saddle—a task made difficult by his heavy gut—and his brow furrowed at the sight of the four riders. “Lieutenant Vorris?” His eyes darted to Koltun and the two Screaming Howlers riding behind them. “What is the meaning of your presence here? I left you in command of the defen—”

  Lieutenant Vorris drew his horse to a stop just in front of the Captain, and Captain Hadrick reined in as well.

  “Highcliff Motte has fallen, Captain.” Lieutenant Vorris spoke the words in a tone utterly devoid of emotion, giving the report in a flat monotone. “We did everything we could to hold the walls, but the Eirdkilrs came over the cliffs. In the end, our defenses were overwhelmed and we were forced to sound the retreat.”

  “We?” Captain Hadrick’s eyes narrowed. A half-sneer, half-snarl tugged at his upper lip. “Just the four of you?”

  “Of course not!” Koltun snapped. He could feel the anger boiling within him, threatening to rise to the surface in a torrent of furious invectives directed at Captain Hadrick. It was only with great effort that he managed to speak in a tone approaching civility. “We made certain to pull out as many Legionnaires and civilians as we could, then collapsed the Cliffpass behind us. But that will only hold the Eirdkilrs for so long. As soon as the men catch up, it would be wise to move with all haste if we want any hope of reaching safety.”

  His words carried through the Cliffpass louder than he intended. Murmurs and hushed whispers ran through the column as the women, children, and elders fretted over or spoke of being reunited with their loved ones that had remained behind to fight.

  But Captain Hadrick’s face showed none of their excitement. “How many?” he asked, his tone almost petulant.

  “Two hundred and thirty-three.” Lieutenant Vorris’ jaw muscles worked. “Eighty-seven Legionnaires, the rest civilians.”

  “Just two hundred?” Captain Hadrick’s voice rose into a dangerously shrill register. “You abandoned the wall with nearly three-quarters of the forces left to you?” His eyebrows climbed as high as his words. “Did my order to stay and hold the wall at any cost mean something else in your mind, Lieutenant? Or did you simply decide that it was better to cut and run to save your hide, even if it meant sacrificing what is very likely the single most valuable military fortress on the entire western half of this Keeper-damned continent?”

  Koltun wanted to snap back, “Cut and run like you did, you bastard?” But as he struggled to rein in his disdain and disgust for the cowardly Captain, Lieutenant Vorris spoke first.

  “No, sir.” The Lieutenant met his Captain’s gaze without hesitation, his head held high and his spine straight. “You entrusted me with the command of the defense, which meant not only the walls of stone and the gate of wood and steel, but the soldiers under my charge. My actions were taken in what I believed was their best interests.”

  “What you believed?” Captain Hadrick’s face reddened and a vein popped out on his neck. “You had your orders, Lieutenant. Stay and hold the bloody wall!”

  “Yes, sir.” Lieutenant Vorris’ fist tightened on his reins. “I understood your orders perfe—”

  “If you understood them, then you should not have ignored them!” Captain Hadrick was fairly shrieking, so loud and angry his horse danced beneath him. “You believe you acted in the best interests of the Legion? Then we shall see what a Legion tribunal has to say about that!”

  Koltun’s burning anger turned red hot. “All due respect, Captain—” he snarled.

  “Silence, Sergeant!” Captain Hadrick shrieked. “One more word out of you, and I’ll have Sergeant Pellyn and his quartermaster corps strip and flog you here and now!”

  Koltun’s hand gripped the wooden stock of his crossbow so tight his knuckles turned white. He had no fear of the portly quartermaster or the four equally rotund
Legionnaires that served as his aides, nor of Captain Hadrick. But if he pushed the Captain too far, Hadrick would carry out his threat. Koltun would be forced to decide whether to permit the punishment or take a stand against the Captain—an action that could have dangerous consequences in their precarious situation.

  And so, though it went against every instinct, he forced himself to bite back his angry words. Not for the Captain’s sake, but for the sake of the men who would surely wind up dead without him to temper whatever wool-headed plan Captain Hadrick came up with next.

  With a self-satisfied expression, Captain Hadrick turned to Vorris. “Lieutenant Vorris, on the accusation of desertion and acts of cowardice, you are hereby stripped of your officer’s rank and demoted to the rank-and-file, where you will remain until such a time as you stand before a military court to answer for your actions.” He lifted his head, his face taking on a lordly look of arrogance. “Were we not in such dire straits, I would have you clapped in irons and held in the stockade. But it will be punishment enough to have you face the enemy head-on, as you refused to do in Highcliff Motte.”

  The sheer gall of the Captain astounded and enraged Koltun. He’d just finished accusing Lieutenant Vorris of doing precisely what he’d done when he agreed to lead the civilian evacuation. Now, by stripping Lieutenant Vorris’ rank, he had just deprived his pathetically insufficient force of the one officer who might give them a fighting chance at survival.

  Dread sank like a stone in Koltun’s gut. The bastard’s done it. He could find no words, but could only stare as Lieutenant Vorris stripped his officer’s stripes from his armor and cloak. He’s officially killed us all.

  Every man, woman, and child would die because of Captain Hadrick.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “He did what?” Caela’s voice echoed off the rocks with such intensity that Koltun feared she would start another collapse. The Screaming Howler’s face turned dark red with anger, her eyes flashing. “Give me the order, Sarge, and I’ll put a bolt in him so fast he won’t have time to piss his pants!”

  More than anything, Koltun wanted to give the order. He’d fumed every step of the ten-minute ride back down the Cliffpass to rejoin the survivors of the battle. But doing that wouldn’t solve their problem—a problem that had just grown ten orders of magnitude since Captain Hadrick opened his mouth.

  “You know I would if I could.” Koltun met the gazes of the ten soldiers and one Secret Keeper standing around him. Even Arch-Guardian Dayn looked on the verge of apoplexy; he’d doubtless heard the stories of Lieutenant Vorris’ quick thinking actions on the walls. “But what happens if I do? We take out Captain Hadrick, what happens to Ninth Company? Without their Captain, who gives the orders? And how can the Legionnaires simply ignore our killing their commanding officer? They’d be forced to arrest us for insubordination and murdering a superior—”

  “Who, we can all agree, deserves murdering as much as any man alive,” Thog rumbled. He, like Caela, didn’t bother tempering his voice. On Koltun’s order, the Screaming Howlers had reclaimed their horses and ridden a short distance down the Cliffpass—for a bit of privacy for a company meeting away from prying eyes and listening ears. They needed to know of this latest development immediately. And, Koltun knew, he’d have to keep his soldiers from doing anything hasty.

  “Aye, no argument on that one.” Koltun turned his palms upward. “But the point stands. We’ve already got enemies enough coming our way; we’ve got to do everything we can to maintain discipline, order, and unity in the Legion ranks.” His expression grew grim. “It’s the only way any of us gets out of this alive.”

  Scowls darkened the faces of every man and woman around him. None of the Screaming Howlers liked it, but they knew Koltun was right.

  “So what’s the plan, Sarge?” Burgo asked. The big man tugged at his dark beard. “We just sit around and wait for Captain Hadrick to get us all killed? Or we ride down the Cliffpass and fulfill our mission?”

  “Neither.” Koltun fixed the man with a hard glare. Burgo wasn’t suggesting cowardice or desertion, simply presenting the options available to them. “We’ve thrown our lot in with Ninth Company, so we stick it out until we’ve got no other choice. We keep them alive any way we can.” He glanced at each in turn. “Is that understood?”

  All of the Screaming Howlers nodded. The meaning of his words was clear. “Any way we can” meant they could disregard stupid orders or take actions that would save lives. Captain Hadrick wasn’t their commanding officer.

  “Understood, Sarge.” Caela’s anger hadn’t diminished. Fire blazed in her eyes, and her fingers twitched toward the quiver on her belt, as if aching to pluck out a crossbow bolt and put it somewhere painful and potentially fatal in Captain Hadrick’s body.

  “Message received, loud and clear,” Thog rumbled in his gravelly voice.

  Before any of the others could speak, the clatter of hoofbeats echoed through the Cliffpass. Koltun whirled toward the sound, and the breath froze in his lungs.

  Keeper’s teeth, it can’t be!

  Wallis and Connell galloped up the trail, and the look in their eyes told Koltun how bad the situation truly was.

  * * *

  “Half a day until they hit us?!” Captain Hadrick spat. “Impossible!” His gaze darted toward Koltun and Lieutenant Enthrak, his new second-in-command. “I thought you said you brought the Cliffpass down!”

  “We did, Captain,” Koltun replied before Enthrak could, “but there are more than two thousand Eirdkilrs on the other side of that cave-in. We knew it would only be a matter of time before they got through. And that means soon.”

  Dread sat like a stone in his stomach as he glanced back down the rocky trail cutting through the high mountain cliffs. The survivors of Highcliff Motte had marched hard to catch up with their families, but the distance seemed far too short considering what lay behind them. It was only a matter of time before the enemy they’d tried desperately to escape caught up.

  “That’s about to be the least of our troubles.” Thog’s rumbling voice cut into the discussion.

  All eyes snapped toward him. Thog sat in his saddle a few yards away, next to the cart where Arch-Guardian Dayn lay. The Secret Keeper’s apprentice scribbled something furiously on his porcelain writing tablet and held it up for the broad Praamian to read.

  “The storm will be hitting us within the hour,” Thog read. His brow furrowed, his lips tugged into a frown. Turning in his saddle, he glanced at the sky. The storm clouds had grown lighter, yet there was an oppressive tension in the air, a palpable crackling of energy. “You sure about that?” the big man asked the Secret Keeper.

  Arch-Guardian Dayn nodded and signed something to his apprentice to write. Reading the message, Thog grunted and turned back to Captain Hadrick. “He says he feels it in his bones, and they’ve never been wrong before.”

  Koltun could feel it, too. His elbow and knee joints had been aching for the last few hours, and though he’d tried to write it off as nothing more than fatigue and exertion, Dayn’s words confirmed what he’d been trying to find a way to bring up. Lieutenant Vorris had been predicting a storm for days, and it was about to hit them. Mentioning the disgraced officer would do little to improve Captain Hadrick’s receptiveness to the statement, but even the Captain wasn’t fool enough to ignore an Arch-Guardian of the Temple of Whispers.

  “We’ve got to—” he began.

  Shouts and curses rang out from up the Cliffpass, along with the sounds of clashing metal and fists striking flesh.

  Koltun spun toward the noise, in time to see a handful of Legionnaires shoving at each other. Before he could ask what was going on, one threw a punch at his comrade, knocking the soldier flat, and shoved his way free of the mess. The man—Koltun recognized the bruised face of Private Ardem—raced toward one of the column’s few horses, ripped the reins from the hand of the Mender holding it, and leapt into the saddle.

  “I’m not going to die here!” Private Ardem
shrieked. Sawing at the reins, he yanked the horse’s head to force the mount to come around, and galloped off up the Cliffpass.

  Cursing, Koltun reached for his crossbow—too late. Private Ardem charged around a bend in the trail and disappeared from sight before Koltun could draw a bead on him. The rest of the Screaming Howlers had been either too slow or too far to take the cowardly deserter down.

  Ardem’s panic was contagious. News of the Eirdkilrs’ advance had spread like wildfire through the few hundred survivors, and now the civilians shouted, demanded answers, or hurled curses. Even the Legionnaires—the poorly-trained layabouts, at least—appeared on the verge of panicking. With only a handful of veterans and experienced soldiers among them, they looked ready to follow Private Ardem.

  Koltun ground his teeth. They couldn’t let panic set in. With the storm and the Eirdkilrs on their heels, chaos would get them all killed.

  He rounded on Captain Hadrick. “Do something, sir!”

  “I’ll do something, all right!” Captain Hadrick’s eyes blazed. “I’ll have Private Ardem court-martialed the moment we reach safety!” His voice rang out shrilly, but it only served to highlight the man’s impotence. He was useless, powerless, and terrified—of both the looming storm and the enemy that would soon be howling on the Princelanders’ heels.

  Koltun knew it fell to him to take charge.

  With a growl, he dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and charged up the Cliffpass. His horse skirted the tight knots of angry, shouting, and terrified people, but soon the press grew too dense for him to avoid. He drove his horse straight through—careful not to trample anyone, yet letting his horse shoulder aside anyone in his path. He didn’t stop until he’d cut through the panicking people and emerged out of the head of the column. There, he reined in and turned his horse to face the men, women, and children clustered below him.

  “People of Highcliff Motte, soldiers and civilians, hear me!” he roared. His voice, honed over years spent as a Sergeant shouting orders to his men, cut through the din. “Shut the fiery hell up and listen to me!”