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

by Andy Peloquin

  The time had come to fight. Until the last breath, until he could no longer lift his arms.

  Koltun didn’t look back at the young men, but marched up the hill with a resolute step, gaze locked on the nearby bend in the Cliffpass. He ran a hand over the bolts in his quiver—twenty-eight of them, all that remained to him. The Screaming Howlers had distributed what little ammunition remained to them. They would loose until they ran out, then draw weapons and join the melee. Thog with his huge axe, Burgo with his longsword, Caela with her heavy seax, Glad and Sad with their hand axes, Connell with his spiked mace.

  Koltun’s own war hammer sat at his hip. He’d earned the nickname “Blackhammer” long ago, after beating back an Eirdkilr charge that broke through the shield wall. The steel would soon run red with blood and gore once more.

  He hurried his pace as the Eirdkilrs appeared around the bend in the Cliffpass. Hundreds of them, clad in their filthy ice bear pelts, faces stained blue and eyes bright with the rush of battle. Their war cries of “Death to the half-men!” reverberated off the high cliff walls. With a wordless roar, the tide of barbarians hurled themselves down the hill, toward the enemy that stood arrayed in a solid wall of shield, steel, and flesh in defiance of their fury.

  Koltun hadn’t taken five steps before something caught his attention. A cry from behind him—words laced with terror.

  “Eirdkilrs, on the cliffs!”

  Koltun spun, his eyes searching. Horror writhed like acid serpents in his gut as he caught sight of Eirdkilrs clambering down the high cliff walls—twenty yards behind his position.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Dread rooted Koltun in place for a single heartbeat. Scores of Eirdkilrs stood atop the cliffs to the east and west, staring with vicious glee down at the Princelanders preparing to flee. They carried no longbows or shields, only axes, spears, and clubs. Together with the handful already clambering down the stony rock faces, Koltun counted close to seventy giant barbarians.

  The enemy had found a way to launch a rear attack again.

  The barbarians seemed to pause, surprised to find their prey facing in their direction. They’d doubtless expected to come up behind a neatly formed battle line, all eyes riveted on the horde stampeding down the hill toward the shield wall. Yet that hesitation lasted only a second. The war howls and shouted curses echoed loud as the fur-clad Eirdkilrs began to swarm down the cliff walls.

  Koltun’s hands were moving before his feet unfroze. His right hand snatched the goat’s foot lever from his belt, locked it in place on his crossbow, and spanned the string, all in the space of a heartbeat. He managed to move then, racing downhill even as he replaced the lever and drew out a quarrel. Cradling the bolt, he slowed just long enough to take aim and loose.

  The crossbow twanged, sending a bolt screaming into the air. An Eirdkilr fell screaming, bolt driven into the top of his spine, just beneath the rim of his iron helmet. His body struck the ground with a wet, meaty thump and lay still.

  “Take them down!” Koltun roared. “Kill them before they reach the ground, and seize their weapons. Fight with all you’ve got, damn you!”

  Behind him, farther up the hill, the Eirdkilrs howled their fury—Caela and her squad had thrown the last three sacks of the Widowmaker’s Cap—but the crash of heavy bodies and weapons slamming into shields told Koltun the Eirdkilrs had simply charged through the smoke to close with the Princelanders.

  But he couldn’t think about that now. Lieutenant Vorris, Caela, Thog, Burgo, and the others would handle it. It fell to him and those around him to deal with the Eirdkilrs trying to attack from the rear.

  His arms and hands moved, going through the motions of reloading the crossbow with practiced grace. Drawing back the string until the lever clicked in place, returning the goat’s foot to his belt, nocking a bow, and aiming. He gripped the trigger and another bolt howled up into the hazy morning sky. The shrieking missile thumped into an Eirdkilr’s back, piercing fur, leather, and flesh. The barbarian plummeted to the ground with a scream of agony. The Princelanders nearest the fallen Eirdkilr kicked and stomped the man to death, one lifting the barbarian’s massive spear in two hands.

  But by the time Koltun took down his third Eirdkilr, a handful had already reached the ground. Nearly a dozen of the faster-climbing barbarians drew their clubs and axes and, with war cries of “Death to the half-men!” waded into the Princelanders before them.

  Koltun managed to put a bolt through the eye of an Eirdkilr about to cut down one of the miners preparing to flee. Yet as the barbarian’s massive war club fell from limp fingers and his massive form slumped, the giant beside him buried the enormous head of his axe into a Princelander’s skull. Blood exploded outward from the man’s helmetless head and sprayed the four miners clustered around him. Two more went down before the third and fourth planted their pick axes into the Eirdkilr’s throat. The remaining pair of miners died as the sweeping blow of an Eirdkilr’s axe sheared their heads from their bodies.

  Koltun’s next crossbow bolt took down the Eirdkilr, but still more came on. The giants hurled themselves from the cliff wall to land atop the panicking, terrified Princelanders, bearing them to the ground. Crushed beneath the barbarians’ bulky form, those trapped in the mud could do nothing but scream, claw, and strike futilely at the Eirdkilrs atop them. Many—far too many—died before comrades could come to their aid. Koltun, alone with his crossbow, could do little to stem the tide of death.

  He tried, nonetheless. His hands never stopped moving, going through the motions of reloading and loosing bolts as fast as he could. His eyes roamed the field of battle, searching for his next target—which Eirdkilrs could he kill to save Princelander lives and give them the greatest hope of repelling the rear assault?

  No matter how many he took down, it wasn’t enough.

  Eighty-six Princelanders—miners and civilians, with not a Legionnaire among them—couldn’t hope to stand against seventy Eirdkilrs. Koltun loosed until his fingers bled and his arms ached, but he was too slow. Those five seconds it took him to reload his crossbow were five too many for the unarmored Princelanders.

  Chaos reigned all around him. Horses shrilled in panic, men and women cried in terror and pain, and the Eirdkilrs howled their bloodlust. The shrieking of Koltun’s crossbow bolt barely cut through the din, yet everywhere one sped, an Eirdkilr fell. Again and again, he reached for his quiver, drawing a quarrel to nock, aim, and loose. Every squeeze of his trigger and twang of his bowstring gave a Princelander a chance to live, to fight.

  It was not enough.

  “Koltun!”

  The shout from behind Koltun brought him spinning around, in time to see an Eirdkilr looming over him, axe raised high to strike. Koltun had just time enough to hurl his crossbow into the giant’s face before that axe came down for his skull. The heavy wooden bow struck the Eirdkilr’s chest and threw off his aim, and the massive steel axe head whistled past Koltun’s right shoulder, missing by a hair’s breadth.

  Snatching the war hammer from his belt, Koltun lashed out with a vicious blow aimed at the Eirdkilr’s knees. The strike, backed by the full power of Koltun’s fury and fear, crunched through bone and shredded flesh. With a scream, the Eirdkilr crumpled, falling to his uninjured knee. Even kneeling, the barbarian towered a full head and a half above Koltun. But his steel skullcap couldn’t protect his face. Bone and cartilage crumpled inward and blood exploded outward as Koltun’s hammer turned the barbarian’s eyes, nose, mouth, and bearded cheeks to a grisly pulp.

  Koltun ripped the war hammer’s head free and spun, ready to face the next Eirdkilr. None seemed to notice him—he stood far shorter than the civilians and miners filling the Cliffpass, just above half an Eirdkilr’s height. To the barbarians, he would be almost beneath their notice. That served him just fine, as it always had. He would hit them where they could not see him.

  He hurled himself at the back of an Eirdkilr about to bring down a Princelander, and drove his hammer into the base of t
he barbarian’s spine. Bone cracked audibly and the fur-clad giant went down screaming. Koltun stomped a boot hard into the Eirdkilr’s face. Cartilage crunched inward and blood gushed from the giant’s ruined nose, pulped lips, and shattered teeth. Koltun moved on without pause, leaving the paralyzed Eirdkilr gurgling and drowning in his own blood.

  Koltun dodged wild swings, ducked flying axes, turned aside stabbing spears, and swung his hammer into knees, legs, and groins with every shred of his strength. The heavy head, nearly the weight of a blacksmith’s mallet, shattered bones and crushed muscles with terrible ease. The Eirdkilrs seemed unable to believe that someone so small—too small for them to spot among the towering, broad-shouldered miners and civilians—could do so much damage. They died too late to correct their error.

  Bringing down another Eirdkilr with a blow to the groin, Koltun finished the giant off with a hammer blow that shattered the barbarian’s face. He spared a second to glance around the Cliffpass, to search for the three young men to whom he’d just bidden farewell.

  Fear twisted in his gut as he spotted Wallis, Bradon, and Lingram trapped against the cliff face. Wallis had drawn his longsword and was doing his best to fend off the Eirdkilrs that came after them. Lingram gripped his crossbow in white-knuckled hands, yet he seemed to be frozen in place by panic and fear.

  Bradon, however, was a blur of movement. The Secret Keeper apprentice seemed never to stop, flowing from one Eirdkilr to another, striking out with blows of the mace he’d gotten from Keeper-knew-where. His attacks crushed arms, wrists, and elbows, then deftly turned into defensive blocks and evasive maneuvers that somehow set him back on the attack once more. He moved with lethal grace that Koltun had never imagined from someone so young.

  He’d heard rumors of the Secret Keepers’ strange combat arts, yet in all the months he’d traveled with Arch-Guardian Dayn, he’d been too respectful of their privacy to spy on the training sessions between master and apprentice. Now, seeing it here, sent a shiver down his spine.

  Bradon rushed forward on delicate, almost mincing steps, his mace lashing out to crush an Eirdkilr’s knee. He kicked out and leapt backward in the same motion, his foot crushing the giant’s throat while he jumped out of range of the next Eirdkilr’s swinging axe. He evaded a club strike, slipped out of the path of a stabbing spear, and brought the mace whistling around to shatter the face of another Eirdkilr.

  A howling Eirdkilr loomed in front of Koltun, snapping him from his momentary awe. The giant was rushing past, racing downhill toward a cluster of a half-dozen Princelanders trying to bring down an Eirdkilr, like hounds snarling at a bear. Only this bear had reinforcements—and when the giant reached his comrade, all six Princelanders would die.

  Koltun swung with all the force of his arms, strengthened by years of pulling the crossbow. His war hammer shattered the Eirdkilr’s right shin. The giant couldn’t slow his lumbering forward momentum, and planted his full weight on his broken leg. Bone snapped audibly and the barbarian fell face-first into the mud. Before he could rise, Koltun brought his war hammer onto the back of the giant’s head. One loud, bloody crunch of buckling steel and pulverized bone, and the Eirdkilr lay still.

  Leaping over the downed giant, Koltun raced toward the three young men. His heart hammered a frantic beat as he dodged and darted around the giant Eirdkilrs and the Princelanders fighting valiantly to survive. There were too many barbarians between him and the three young men—his young men. He’d tried to send them away to save them, and now they faced certain death. He had to reach them, had to fight at their sides to protect them.

  He’d failed Nouth. Madden, too. All of the Legionnaires who had died under his command and fighting at his side. But here, now, he couldn’t fail. He would fight until he could no longer draw breath, until the strength in his limbs failed.

  But they were so far off—twenty yards felt like twenty leagues, with so many Eirdkilrs and Princelanders battling in the Cliffpass—and he moved too slow. His short legs couldn’t cover the distance fast enough. Couldn’t get to them fast enough to save them.

  Wallis never saw the death blow coming. The young Screaming Howler was too busy fighting off two axe-wielding Eirdkilrs to see the third approaching from his blind side. The barbarian drove his massive spear into Wallis’ side. The steel head exploded through the young man’s chest in a shower of bloody droplets, and Wallis jerked forward, stumbling, then backward as the Eirdkilr ripped the spear free. Crimson gushed from his mouth as he tried to spin, to strike out at the Eirdkilr. Again he stumbled, staggered, and fell to one knee. Blood trickled from a gaping wound in his side, a matching hole in his chest. He was too weak to do anything more than stare up at the Eirdkilr looming over him.

  The giant raised his spear to drive it down into Wallis’ throat. Savage glee shone in the barbarian’s eyes as he prepared to thrust.

  Bradon’s mace crushed his face a heartbeat later. The young Secret Keeper apprentice took down the two Eirdkilrs that had flanked Wallis with quick, vicious strokes of his weapon. Knees and elbows shattered, arms and legs splintered, and howling war cries turned to anguished screams.

  Koltun reached them a moment later, and his hammer swung across in a horizontal blow that crushed the back of one’s skull, tore free, and swung through to shatter the next Eirdkilr’s neck. The two fell atop Wallis, crimson leaking from their massive frames to stain the mud, mingling with Wallis’ blood.

  Every fiber of Koltun’s being wanted to howl, to scream, to hurl curses into the sky. At the gods who had allowed such a thing to happen to one so young. At the Eirdkilrs, for their bloodlust and cruelty. At Captain Hadrick, Commander Brintus, General Traighan, and every other officer who had played a role in Highcliff Motte’s forces being so reduced. He wanted to kneel at Wallis’ side and hold the young man’s hand, to tell him that everything would be over soon. That he would be at the Swordsman’s side along with his brothers-at-arms.

  But he couldn’t. Doing that would get him killed—and everyone else around him. Bradon was slowing, huffing with the exertion of battle, a nasty gash on his forehead. Koltun barely managed to bring down an Eirdkilr who stood with his massive war club upraised to bash in the apprentice’s skull. Bradon barely had strength enough to give him a nod of thanks as he fought on, desperate to hold his ground against the next attacking giant.

  Lingram still stood frozen, rooted in place by terror, his hands white around the grip of Nouth’s crossbow.

  Koltun crossed the distance to the young men in two steps and seized Lingram’s collar in a strong hand. “There are those who need your help. So snap out of it!”

  Lingram blinked, as if emerging from a dream—a nightmare, the likes of which he could never have imagined—but his eyes remained locked on Wallis’ corpse.

  Koltun shoved Lingram to the side, hurling him out of the path of an Eirdkilr’s axe, and crushed the Eirdkilr’s knee, chest, and face with three vicious blows of his war hammer. Spinning, he searched out Lingram, who had fallen to the mud, Nouth’s crossbow dropped at his side.

  “Drink a cup of suck it the fuck up, lad,” Koltun roared, “or I’ll shove my foot so far up your arse you’ll be spitting leather the rest of your life!” Snatching up Wallis’ sword, he shoved it into Lingram’s hands. “Fight to live, boy, or die here and now!”

  Lingram’s eyes went wide, and for a moment, Koltun thought he would collapse, would shriek gibberish, or simply remain unmoving. Yet the youth moved, leaping to his feet and throwing himself past Koltun. Koltun spun and found himself staring up at a club hovering over his head. The Eirdkilr wielding the weapon stood frozen, Lingram’s sword buried to the hilt in his gut, just beneath his leather armor. The giant gave a weak cough and stumbled backward, tearing the sword from Lingram’s grip. His club fell at his side and he collapsed to the mud.

  Koltun turned to thank the young man, but the words died in his throat. Another Eirdkilr stood behind Lingram, feet planted, axe swinging at the youth’s skull. Koltun had no time t
o shout, to cry a warning. All he could do was drive his shoulder into Lingram’s belly to knock him aside and bring his own war hammer up for a block.

  Steel sheared through wood, then Koltun felt something cold as ice slice the skin of his right arm. He tried to shake off the sensation, the sudden numbness, but his hand refused to move, his swing failing. The war hammer’s head spun away and splashed into the muck. It landed alongside a hand and an arm that ended suddenly just below the shoulder.

  Something strange flashed through Koltun’s mind, but he couldn’t register it. The sensation was odd. He felt…cold. No pain, just a strange icy chill that settled through the right half of his body. Just beneath his shoulder, in fact.

  A furious howl echoed from directly in front of him, but it sounded too far away to be real. Was it just his imagination? A memory of his distant past?

  No, it couldn’t be. He stared up at the Eirdkilr standing over him, axe upraised, the familiar fletching of a crossbow bolt buried in his left eye. The barbarian’s lone eye looked into his, the look of surprise written there a match for the confusion flooding Koltun.

  Then the barbarian was gone, toppling into the mud, and Koltun stared up into the hazy grey morning sky. Dark clouds hung low over the Cliffpass.

  Maybe that’s where the chill comes from, he thought numbly. But no, that can’t be. I’d be cold all over, not just my arm.

  He reached his left hand toward his right arm, to adjust his forearm bracer, but his fingers found empty air. Brow furrowing, Koltun stared down at the space. At the arm lying in the mud. At the blood gushing from his shoulder, splattering the mud, turning it to a gory reddish-brown.

  Oh. Realization slammed into his mind as his legs gave out. He fell, hard, landing on his left side. There he lay, eyes locked on that severed limb discarded in the muck. Feeling no pain, only the strange tingling, and the grim realization.