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

by Andy Peloquin

  With a howl of triumph, the Eirdkilrs gave chase. Only to find themselves stumbling and tripping over the rocks scattered like caltrops across the Cliffpass. Fur-clad figures went down, ankles shattered, leg bones snapping, and were trampled by comrades too close on their heels to slow their furious charge. The shrieking war cries rang with pain as scores of Eirdkilrs fell to Lieutenant Vorris’ trap.

  The obstacles would only slow them, Koltun knew. Perhaps kill a handful, at best. But anything that delayed the enemy bought the fleeing women and children a few more minutes—and a greater hope of escape. The longer the Legionnaires lived to fight, the higher the chance they could somehow find a way to do the impossible.

  No miracles manifested. No bolts of lightning descended from the heavens to strike down the Eirdkilrs. Inevitably, the fur-clad giants closed the distance to the re-formed wall of Legionnaires and bored down in a full-speed charge. Howling, shrieking cries of “Death to the half-men!” echoed off the high stone walls of the Cliffpass.

  The Legionnaires in the front ranks braced to meet the charge, while those in the third and fourth ranks prepared another barrage of the explosive surprise. Again, sacks of mushrooms sailed over the shield wall to land in front of the Eirdkilrs. Flarequartz prepared by Bradon exploded in a deafening cacophony. Clouds of choking brown smoke rose into the grey haze, forming a wall of death between the Eirdkilrs and their prey. The enemy had already grown wise to the threat of the mushrooms, but the tactic was no longer intended to kill. Everything was now an attempt to stall, to buy a few more minutes to survive and retreat.

  “Back!” Lieutenant Vorris’ voice rang out over the furious war cries and roared curses. “Reverse march!”

  Slowly, one agonizing step at a time, the Legionnaires and miners retreated, never turning their faces and shields from the enemy. The rearmost ranks of exhausted men and women staggered, wobbled, and buckled as they retreated, but the Legionnaires in the front ranks held fast, their formation solid, shields locked together like the shell of a sea tortoise. Lieutenant Vorris had set his most capable and experienced veterans—those few that had survived—at the fore. They would be the Princelanders’ only hope of pulling back from the attack without leaving those in the rear exposed.

  Koltun, sitting in his saddle at the rear of the Princelanders’ lines, tightened his grip on his horse’s reins. The Eirdkilrs didn’t advance through the noxious smoke, but they did the one thing he’d been dreading: they unlimbered their massive longbows.

  Keeper’s teeth!

  “Arrows!” he roared.

  “Second rank, shields up!” Lieutenant Vorris’ shouted order rippled through the line of soldiers, and the second rank lifted their shields high, interlocking them atop the shields of those in front of them.

  Not a moment too soon. Eirdkilr arrows zipped through the dark brown haze and hissed toward the soldiers. A cacophony of clanking and banging filled the Cliffpass, so loud it drowned out Koltun’s throbbing pulse and set his head pounding. Every muscle in his body tensed as he watched the arrows rain down on the Legion shields.

  The shields held. Though a few arrows found cracks in the protective carapace, most slammed into solid wood and stuck. A forest of black shafts protruded from the Legionnaires’ shields, but the barrier remained strong, rendering the first volley impotent.

  But the Eirdkilrs learned too quickly. Koltun’s heart leapt into his throat as he watched the Eirdkilrs raise their longbows skyward, draw, and loose. Hundreds of arrows sped upward and disappeared into the brightening morning haze. The Legionnaires lifted their shields in anticipation of the plunging fire, but the shield-less civilians behind them had no way to protect themselves.

  Arrows dropped like black fingers of death among the unarmored men and women behind the Legionnaires. With the Princelanders so tight-packed in the Cliffpass, the Eirdkilrs had no need to aim. Scores went down, screaming and shrieking or simply falling in silence, as the heavy missiles punched through eyes, cheeks, shoulders, chests, limbs. Thin cloth tunics and leather coats couldn’t hope to stop those Eirdkilr arrows. Men and women were hammered to the ground beneath that rainfall of steel-tipped arrows.

  Eirdkilr bowstrings twanged again, and more arrows flew high into the hazy morning. Scores more fell as if punched by an invisible fist, hundreds of black shafts sprouting from the bodies of wounded and dead alike. The cries of the wounded filled the air, drowning out the sound of the Eirdkilrs drawing back their bows to loose again.

  The Legionnaires’ war horn rang first: three sharp blasts, followed by a fourth longer blare.

  The signal to flee.

  The Princelanders broke. Civilians that had just watched their friends, families, spouses, and fellow laborers die fled in droves, surging down the Cliffpass in an uncontrolled wave of terrified men and women. The Legionnaires fared little better. Lieutenant Vorris and his veteran soldiers managed to remain locked in the shield wall as they pulled back, but the inexperienced and untrained in their ranks stampeded with single-minded purpose. Some even threw down their weapons or shields in their hurry to flee.

  “Fools!” Koltun dug his heels into his horse’s ribs and spurred the mount up the Cliffpass, but another volley of arrows forced him to turn back. He barely managed to ride out of the path of the plunging fire. Hundreds of missiles feathered the bodies strewn along the muddy Cliffpass—turning those wounded in the first volleys or trampled in the retreat into silent corpses. Blood ran in thick, gory rivulets down the trail, and the feet of the fleeing civilians and soldiers churned the ground to a gruesome ochre mud.

  The Princelanders fled, but the Eirdkilrs couldn’t give chase, not with the cloud of dark brown smoke hanging like a poisonous wall in front of them. They loosed arrows by the dozens, emptying their quivers at the fleeing Legionnaires. More civilians fell, and soldiers joined them in death, cut down from behind as they ran. Few of those holding the shield formation in the front suffered injuries, however—they kept the shields presented to the enemy and guarding over their heads, keeping the arrows away from finding flesh.

  The retreat was slow but steady, with Lieutenants Vorris, Rearden, Cenye, and Enthrak keeping the front ranks together by sheer force of will and stubbornness. Koltun’s heart hammered in his chest–Caela, Thog, Burgo, and Connell were all huddled beneath those shields, working with Bradon to prepare another wave of sacks to hurl at the Eirdkilrs.

  Koltun had no choice but to join the rest of the Princelanders in retreating back down the trail, around a bend in the Cliffpass to their next position, specifically chosen to stymie the Eirdkilrs’ archers. There, they’d have to fight a bloody battle of hand-to-hand combat to keep the barbarians at bay. They could only run for so long before the Eirdkilrs closed ranks.

  Yet every moment they kept the enemy tied up here bought their fleeing women and children more time to reach safety. It was the only way at least some of the people of Highcliff Motte would live.

  Koltun heard another round of explosions—the Screaming Howlers had thrown more sacks, which meant the Eirdkilrs couldn’t push the attack. Yet. It would buy them a few minutes, give the Legionnaires and fleeing Princelanders a chance to put as much distance as possible between them and the enemy before the poisonous clouds dissipated.

  The Eirdkilrs wouldn’t stop, Koltun knew. The barbarians had sighted their prey and nothing would keep them from getting past the ragtag army of Legionnaires and miners to invade southeastern Fehl. The poisonous mushrooms had bought them a day and a mile or two, but how long until the mushrooms ran out? Or, worse, the Eirdkilr commander simply ordered his men to charge through the smoke? The casualties would be high, but there were thousands of barbarians facing a few hundred Princelanders.

  Even if the Eirdkilrs never braved the poisonous smoke, their archers could wreak terrible havoc on the Princelanders’ ranks with every engagement. Fewer than three hundred armed men and women remained; they would be whittled down to nothing but corpses in a matter of hours, not days. The exhau
sted women and children fleeing with Captain Hadrick had left less than eighteen hours earlier—they couldn’t have reached the northern end of the Cliffpass twenty miles away. When the Eirdkilrs got through their ranks—a matter of time, not a question of “if”—they would catch up and slaughter every Princelander in their path.

  Koltun’s jaw muscles clenched. To have any hope of stopping the Eirdkilrs and saving even a few lives, they had to change tactics, had to find a better way to fight.

  A single idea presented itself to him—one he hated, but perhaps the only thing that could work here.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  “No offense, Sarge, but that’s the stupidest Keeper-damned idea I’ve ever heard!” Caela shook her head, a scowl twisting her lips. “You’re a fool if you think any of us are going to leave now.”

  Koltun’s scowl matched hers. “Sounds like insubordination to me. The moment I give you that order—”

  “I’ll shove a bolt down your throat before you can.” As if to illustrate her point, Caela produced one of her steel-tipped quarrels. “We’ve been through too much together, Sarge. No way any of us will be willing to high-tail it out of here and leave the rest to the Eirdkilrs.” She looked to the rest of the Screaming Howlers for confirmation. Without hesitation, every one of them—even Gladabar and Sadras, still red-eyed from mourning their brother—nodded.

  “You want to send the apprentice ahead, that much I get.” Thog’s rumbling voice echoed off the canyon walls, and the huge Praamian folded thick arms across his impossibly broad chest. “Maybe even have the kid tag along.” As Lingram bristled, Thog held up a hand. “To keep Bradon safe and be the help he needs to get his surprise for the Eirdkilrs all set up.”

  Lingram relented. He was young, determined to prove himself to his new comrades, but he was no fool.

  “But the rest of us,” Thog indicated the Screaming Howlers with his chin, “we’re staying put. We’re fighting with the Legionnaires until someone pulls some kind of miracle out of his arse.” He gave Koltun a pointed look. “A miracle that doesn’t involve throwing away lives.”

  Koltun threw up his hands. “Listen, I’m only suggesting this because there’s no other way out!” His voice rose to a shout. “This fighting retreat shite isn’t going to work for long. We’ve got fifteen more sacks of Widowmaker’s Caps, which gives us two, maybe three more engagement before we’re out.”

  He turned and placed a hand on Bradon’s shoulder. “But the apprentice says there’s a quarter-barrel of flarequartz left here, and he’s certain it’s enough to bring down the Cliffpass. Isn’t that right?”

  The Secret Keeper’s apprentice nodded. Koltun recognized the uncertainty beneath his mask of determination—the bravado of a terrified young man trying to wear a brave face—but he owed the young man enough trust to give him a chance to prove himself right. All of their lives were counting on him.

  “There you have it!” Koltun rounded on his Screaming Howlers. “Right now, getting the apprentice to that spot in the Cliffpass Enthrak mentioned is the only way anyone gets out of this alive. So that means I’ve got to stay here and delay the Eirdkilrs as long as we can to buy time for the civilians to make a break for it.”

  “There’s no argument on that, Sarge.” Caela stepped forward, looming over Koltun and glaring down at him. “But what I’m saying is that there’s no pissing way that any of us are going to leave you here. We’re staying, and there’s not a bloody thing you can say that’ll get us to leave.” She bared her teeth in a fierce half-grin, half-snarl. “The threat of being court-martialed for insubordination isn’t really something any of us are going to have to worry about, is it?”

  Koltun wanted to argue, to shout, to hurl curses and bark commands. At least some of his Screaming Howlers should get to safety, and the excuse of accompanying and helping Bradon gave him the perfect excuse to order them away. But looking into the eyes of the Screaming Howlers around him, he knew that none of them would obey. None would leave.

  Not that he could blame them. Had the roles been reversed, he would have fought tooth and nail to stay at his commander’s side, to fight to his last breath. They were soldiers, first and foremost, trained to protect the civilians and stop the enemy from threatening the Princelands.

  “Damn you!” he growled. Anger edged his words, but the heat burning in his core came from gratitude and pride in his soldiers. “Keeper take you all for a stubborn lot of block-headed jackasses!”

  “Aww, he says the nicest things.” Burgo grinned at Thog.

  “Aye,” Thog rumbled back. “Warms me right down to the cockles of my heart, so it does.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Vorris took little convincing. “You’re right,” he said as soon as Koltun had finished detailing his plan. “The best we can hope for is to stall the enemy, but if the Swordsman is with us, we will delay them long enough to give the women and children time to escape.”

  Roughly fifteen miles stood between their position and the section of the Cliffpass Lieutenant Enthrak had mentioned. The survivors fleeing with Captain Hadrick should reach it before nightfall.

  “It goes without saying that we’re staying.” Koltun set his jaw in stubborn defiance. “I’ll be sending Lingram and Wallis with the Secret Keeper, though they both took convincing.”

  Even after ordering him to go, Wallis had flat-out refused. Caela’s cajoling and Thog’s threats hadn’t changed Wallis’ mind. Finally, Koltun had used cold logic to appeal to him: as the lightest and most agile of the Screaming Howlers, he’d be best-suited to help Bradon prepare to bring down the cliff wall. The Secret Keeper apprentice had found ten surviving miners that had worked with him and the Arch-Guardian to collapse the pass after the battle of Highcliff Motte—the thirteen of them, counting Bradon, ought to be enough to get the job done in time.

  “They’ll get everything ready and seal off the canyon as soon as all the women and children are safely through.” Koltun hesitated. “The question now is which of your Legionnaires are staying with us.”

  “That is a matter easily settled.” Lieutenant Vorris’ face hardened. “Any man or woman with a family traveling with Captain Hadrick will go. Those of us without will stay and hold them.”

  The words struck Koltun to the core of his being. An odd thing, one he’d never given much thought to until that moment. “Not all of us are lucky enough to find love and have a family, eh?” A grim smile played across his lips. “Not everyone gets a love like my father and mother had.”

  “Some of us just don’t find the right one until...” Lieutenant Vorris’ eyes darted toward Caela. “Until it’s too late to matter, I suppose.”

  “Never say never, Lieutenant.” Koltun clapped the man on the shoulder. “We’re not dead yet, right?”

  Vorris returned Koltun’s wry grin. “True that.” With a nod, he strode off to give the orders. They had little time to wait—the last batch of Widowmaker’s Caps wouldn’t burn much longer, and the Eirdkilrs would be coming after them in a matter of minutes.

  The Lieutenant’s command spread through the ranks of Princelanders and Legionnaires like wildfire, but far fewer accepted the way out than Koltun had expected. Of the two hundred and fifty-seven remaining civilians and soldiers, only eighty-six accepted the offer to depart. Husbands convinced wives to go after their children, mothers kissed sons and sent them on their way. All of the elders that had stayed to fight refused to leave.

  Most stayed to fight with their fellow soldiers, miners, or civilians, to hold the enemy back long enough for their comrades to escape.

  “Move out now,” Lieutenant Vorris ordered the men and women. “The enemy can’t be far behind.”

  Koltun pushed through the ragged line of departing people toward Bradon, Lingram, and Wallis, who were saddling up the Screaming Howlers’ horses for the miners to ride. The thirteen of them would ride ahead of the rest to prepare to bring down the cliffs. All of those leaving knew that some of them would reach safety, but many wou
ld not. They had no time to look back, however.

  All three young men turned toward him, and Koltun’s heart swelled with pride for each. Lingram, who remained strong after so much loss, determined to become a Screaming Howler no matter how young he was. Wallis, who had the courage to accept his superior’s commands even if he hated them. Bradon, who had defied his master to save lives. Tears brimmed in his eyes and he could find no words. All he could do was bring Lingram into a tight embrace—the youth had to stoop to embrace Koltun—and clasp Wallis’ hand with every shred of strength.

  “Be safe, lads,” Koltun said, his voice hoarse.

  “Aim true, Sarge.” Wallis nodded.

  Koltun turned to Bradon. “I’m sorry for what happened with your master, Bradon. The best I can offer is my gratitude and that of everyone still standing here alive because you made the right choice.” He held out a hand to the apprentice. “No matter what happens, stand tall and proud, and know that there is always a place for you at the Swordsman’s side.”

  Bradon swallowed hard. He wrote furiously on his tablet and held it up for Koltun. “Whatever awaits me back in Icespire, no matter what my master and the others of my order deem as fit punishment for my actions, I will go to my Mistress with the knowledge that Her secrets saved the lives of the greatest men and women I have had the good fortune to know.” He clasped Koltun’s hand and bowed deep, as he had for his master.

  Koltun turned away to hide the tears from the young men. “Go!” he said, his voice gruff and thick with emotion. “Get out of here before—”

  The ringing of the Eirdkilr’s war horn drowned out his words. The howling of the barbarians echoed loud and terrible through the Cliffpass, amplified by the stamping of heavy boots and the clashing of weapons against shields.