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

by Andy Peloquin

  Barbarians fell screaming, shrieking, howling their agony and fury into the faces of their killers. Or simply fell silent, blood flooding punctured lungs or gushing from torn throats. Heavy bodies splattering into the muck and mire of the street.

  In that instant, with the foremost Eirdkilrs falling, the Legionnaires stepped back. Like a lake’s ripple spreading outward from a stone, one rank at a time, yet so smoothly there was no space between movements. Aravon had no need to think—he, like the rest of the soldiers around him, acted on instinct. The moment Commander Lerring’s hand left his shoulder, he stepped back, into the space vacated by the retreating officer. Into his space stepped the man in the rank ahead, and so on, until the first rank had an opening to retreat. A single step, yet a full step. A gap between their shields and the enemy.

  “Back!” Aravon called again, but he had no need. This task fell to the Sergeants, Corporals, and Privates, the platoon-level noncommissioned officers. Captains and Commanders watched the battle at large, but the noncoms ensured each soldier carried out the orders passed down from their superiors.

  “Back!” came the cry from dozens of throats. Booming voices grown harsh and thunderous from years spent screaming. “Back!”

  With every call, the strange rippling motion ran through the ranks of soldiers. One step at a time. Step, hold, wait, step. Backward, retreating, pulling away from the enemy. Before every retreat, a savage shove forward, pushing the Eirdkilrs off blood-soaked, gore-spattered, dented shields. Opening a gap between the two lines, a gap into which short swords thrust, cut, and hacked. Each step cost the enemy heavily as the Legionnaires retreated onto the bridge.

  Yet they, too, paid a toll in blood. Though the Legionnaires in the front ranks remained crouched beneath their heavy rectangular shields, they faced foes far taller, stronger, and fiercer. Barbarians that hurled themselves against that barrier of shields, screaming and growling curses in their guttural tongue. Raging, a manic light of bloodlust shining in their eyes. Hacking, chopping, thrusting, clubbing. Blows that crushed helmets and the skulls beneath, shattered limbs, and dented breastplates and shields. Thrusts that rained down from above and slipped over shield rims to find Legion chests, arms, and faces.

  The screams of the dead, dying, wounded, and battling echoed loud, near-deafening through the thundering of Aravon’s pulse. His calves, legs, back, and shoulders ached from bracing the man in the rank ahead—now the fourth rank, almost within striking distance of the enemy. Fire blazed through every muscle in his body as he struggled to support the next Legionnaire in line, who in turn battled the weight of the next rank, and the next rank, and the force of the Eirdkilrs crashing into the shield wall.

  A loud thumping echoed behind Aravon. Heavy boots ringing on solid wooden logs. Risking a glance backward, he found the rearmost rank hadn’t just begun the ascent toward the Southbridge—they’d already begun the crossing. The ground beneath his feet sloped upward, and with every step, he and his rank drew closer to the bridge.

  “Captain Snarl, pull back!” Commander Lerring’s voice echoed in his ear, and the man’s hand gripped his shoulder, hauled him backward even as the second, third, and fourth ranks flowed forward to reinforce the crumbling first rank. Aravon allowed himself to be pulled along—now that the retreat had begun, his place was near the rear of the Legion lines.

  Lines that had grown dangerously thin. Horror twisted in his gut as he realized that they now had only eight ranks of Legionnaires barring the Eirdkilrs’ progress. The right flank, protected by the solid stone pillars of the bridge gate, hadn’t sustained such heavy damage, but the center and left flank were weakening with every fresh Eirdkilr assault.

  Worse, the Eirdkilrs showed no sign of slowing the attack. One glance south, and Aravon found the steady stream of barbarians howling over the wall remained unabated. The deep, booming growl of the Prince’s Gate rumbled through the night. The last Icewatchers had fallen; the Eirdkilrs had captured the massive capstan that controlled the gate, and now fought to open it. Within minutes, the main body of the Eirdkilrs attacking the city’s southern side would flood into Icespire.

  We’ve got to pull back faster! Every second they spent fighting, more Legionnaires died. Though they slaughtered Eirdkilrs by the dozens, the Princelanders could ill-afford the bloody toll. Their only hope of survival lay in getting across the bridge and collapsing it, cutting the Eirdkilrs off from Azure Island.

  Aravon searched out the one person who might be able to help. “Magicmaker!” he screamed. “Magicmaker!”

  By some miracle, Zaharis managed to hear him from his position three ranks ahead. The Secret Keeper’s masked face spun toward him, a questioning look in his eyes.

  “Can you do something?” Aravon signed one-handed. “Buy us a few seconds!”

  Zaharis hesitated only a heartbeat before nodding. A second later, his right arm whipped up once, twice, three times. Aravon didn’t see what he threw, but he had no need to wonder. Green-brown smoke soon billowed up from among the Eirdkilr ranks, and the barbarians descended into fits of coughing, retching, and choking.

  “Back, double time!” Aravon called. The order rippled along the ranks before, behind, and around him. Within the space of two heartbeats, it traveled through all one hundred and fifty remaining soldiers and the hasty reversal began.

  No Legion company could maintain a solid shield wall while running backward, but Zaharis’ alchemical marvels had bought the soldiers time enough to beat a hasty retreat without losing discipline. They ran in a strange reverse shuffle, eyes locked on the enemy, feet scuffing along the ground behind them, feeling the way with their feet. A maneuver that was rarely attempted, due to its difficulty, the momentary break in rank cohesion, and the need for ground as level and even as possible. Something as innocuous as a gentle incline or an exposed tree root could trip up the retreating soldiers, and the ranks ahead would stumble over the prone Legionnaire, causing mayhem in the ranks.

  But the Southbridge was as smooth and flat a surface as the Legionnaires could have asked for. A hundred and sixty pairs of booted feet thumped, shuffled, and scraped across the bridge in a double-fast retreat. The shield wall rippled, broke, and sagged, but still no Eirdkilrs appeared through Zaharis’ wall of foul green smoke.

  The gap between the Legionnaires and the land-side of the bridge widened. Five feet turned to ten, then fifteen. Ten yards, and still no Eirdkilrs.

  Aravon risked a glance backward. The Icewatch and Legionnaires had, by some miracle, shoved, threatened, and shouted the last of the civilians onto Azure Island. The way off the bridge was clear.

  “Go!” Aravon waved his spear. “Go, go, go!”

  The rearmost rank of Legionnaires broke the line, turned, and clattered down the bridge at a dead run. The next rank followed, and the next, and the next. Soon it was Aravon’s turn to join Commander Lerring, Captain Lingram, and Endyn in the scrambling, stumbling race down the incline onto Azure Island. Aravon darted to the side, out of the way of the charging soldiers in the following rank, and raced toward the lever that would drop the bridge into the water.

  Relief flooded him as he recognized the two masked figures standing in front of the lever. Both Skathi and Noll’s quivers were half-empty—in the crush of battle, Aravon hadn’t caught sight of a single arrow—but they held their bows at the ready. Eyes locked on the green-brown smoke for the first Eirdkilrs to emerge.

  One staggered out of the foul haze, coughing and hacking. Skathi’s arms moved a heartbeat before Noll’s. Her arrow took him in the eye, snapping his head backward. Noll’s punched into his chest.

  Even as the foremost Eirdkilr fell, more came racing through the wall of smoke. Eyes streaming tears, rough, hacking coughs clutching their lungs, yet their fury remained undimmed. Straight toward the retreating Legionnaires they charged, a tide of steel, wood, furs, and chain mail, howling their savage war cries into the night.

  “Now!” Aravon called to the two archers. “Do it now, damn it!”<
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  Yet Skathi and Noll couldn’t hear him above the din of battle, the shrieked war cries, the screams of the wounded Legionnaires on the land-side of the bridge being butchered by the Eirdkilrs.

  Aravon raced toward the lever. “Now, now, now!” he roared. The tumult swallowed his voice, and his cry was drowned out by another terrible crash as the Eirdkilrs slammed into the last two ranks that hadn’t yet turned to retreat to the island.

  The Legion shield wall buckled and collapsed beneath the force of that charge. Legionnaires died, screaming, growling curses, or drowning in their blood. Some toppled over the stone railing and plummeted out of sight, splashing into the salt water of the inlet or shattering on the rocks below. A fall from that height—fifty feet—would prove fatal at best, crippling at worst.

  More Eirdkilrs charged along the bridge. The wall of green smoke dissipated slowly, carried away by the evening breeze, clearing a path toward the Legionnaires.

  “Redwing, Foxclaw, bring the bloody br—”

  Whether Skathi heard him or not, Aravon would never know. But she spun toward the lever and hurled her weight against it. The muscles of her powerful shoulders and back bunched as she threw every shred of strength into the mechanism.

  For a single heartbeat, nothing happened. Time seemed to hold still in that moment. Aravon’s heart froze between beats. Everything he’d planned had hinged on that moment. On being able to bring down the bridge and trap the Eirdkilrs on the land-side. But if that ancient mechanism failed, if the bridge didn’t collapse, his plan would fail. Everyone on Azure Island would die.

  Then the lever moved. So suddenly Skathi stumbled and nearly fell as it gave way. A barrage of loud clanks echoed from the six stone piles holding up the Southbridge. The wooden platform simply plummeted toward the inlet far below like a dropped stone. Hundreds of Eirdkilrs fell, screaming and shrieking, to meet their end in the water or the rocks far below.

  A few, however, had stepped onto solid land before the bridge dropped. These twenty or thirty seemed not to notice the sudden absence of reinforcements at their backs. They hacked, chopped, and stabbed at the Legionnaires still within their reach.

  Yet the Princelanders had no more reason to retreat. Driven by the shouts and bellows of Legion Sergeants, the shield wall re-formed in seconds, a solid barrier of steel and wood that encircled the Eirdkilrs. Pushed them back, slowly. One step at a time. Closer and closer to the edge.

  The barbarians seemed to recognize the danger and risked a glance back. Too late. Though they hurled themselves at the shield wall with renewed fury, the Legionnaires now had the upper hand. And they knew it. With shouted curses and defiant growls, the Princelanders advanced. Inexorable, relentless, like the tide creeping up the shoreline. Those Eirdkilrs who escaped the Legion short swords fell screaming to their deaths, shoved off the cliff’s edge without mercy or hesitation.

  Something pinged off a Legion shield two feet away from where Aravon stood. A Legionnaire fell with a grunt, blood bubbling from his mouth. Another’s head simply snapped back and he collapsed. The shaft of a black-fletched arrow protruded from his eye.

  “Arrows!” The cry came from Colborn, Noll, and Skathi before Aravon could even register the sight. Instinct kicked in and he ducked behind a Legion shield as the Eirdkilr arrows rained down around him. The dissonant clanking, banging, and hammering of the heavy missiles, loosed from longbows nearly as tall as Aravon, echoed with deafening force. A trio of Legionnaires too slow to take cover were cut down, arrows piercing their necks, chests, legs, and arms. Most, however, had the presence of mind to duck behind their heavy shields as the hailstorm of arrows thickened.

  “Back!” Aravon shouted. Captain Lingram, Commander Lerring, and the Grim Reavers echoed the order. The Legionnaires made no attempt to re-form ranks—it would be foolish beneath that attack—but simply retreated, sheltered beneath the full-length shields.

  A few arrows rained down among the Icewatchers and Mains-folk still within bowshot of the Eirdkilrs—those clustered at the rear of the crowd pressing northward between the temples of Icespire toward Sanctuary Court. Unarmored men and women collapsed, shrieking in agony. Even the Icewatchers too slow to raise their wooden shields found themselves cut down, arrows punching through rusted breastplates or finding gaps in their meager armor.

  “Cover them!” Commander Lerring called out the order.

  Now, the Legionnaires re-formed their ranks, interposing the steel-rimmed shields between the enemy and their civilian targets. Arrows thumped into the shields, driving deep into the wood, yet failed to find flesh. The terrified men and women pushed, shoved, and clawed at each other to push farther up the Eastmarch or simply clambered over walls into the mansions of the nobility to find shelter.

  The rain of arrows soon fell silent, the Eirdkilrs realizing the futility of their attack. Their howls of fury and impotent rage echoed across the inlet, and hundreds of blue-faced barbarians stared with blazing eyes at the Princelanders out of their reach. Yet even those lost interest, instead turning their attention toward the buildings within reach of their torches and axes, and any civilians trapped on the wrong side of the bridge. The last of them melted away into the haze of smoke, until only empty cobblestone streets remained.

  The battle was over. For now.

  Aravon drew in a breath—ragged, shaky—and air flooded lungs that felt starved. Fire coursed through every muscle in his body and a quiver ran down legs that seemed to throb and ache with every movement. The sudden silence and calm nearly staggered him. It was always this way after a battle—he could lose himself in the rush of combat, and only after did the pain and exhaustion set in.

  The cries of wounded Legionnaires echoed loud around him. Dozens of soldiers slumped, cradling broken limbs, frantically pawing at gaping wounds in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding, or crumpling from blows to their head. Some staggered about, hollow-eyed, crimson trickling from a myriad of gashes, cuts, and slashes. One, a bull-necked man wearing the armor of a Legion Sergeant, slumped against the wall, his head crushed by an Eirdkilr club but his body too driven by adrenaline to realize he was already dead.

  A part of Aravon wanted to remain here, to ensure these Legionnaires received the proper attention for their wounds. But he couldn’t. That job fell to Commander Lerring and the other former Legionnaires. He and his Grim Reavers had their own mission to attend to. They’d saved as many of the Mains-folk as they could. Now, they had to deal with the next problem facing them: the Deepshackle and the traitorous Lord Eidan hiding in the Palace.

  Colborn materialized in front of him. “Captain.” The Lieutenant’s armor and shield were awash with blood—not his own, Aravon saw after a quick inspection—and a grim light shone in his eyes. “We need to find out what’s going on.”

  Aravon turned a puzzled gaze on Colborn. For a long moment, he couldn’t figure out the Lieutenant’s meaning. Then he remembered Captain Lingram’s words: “Someone island-side is slowing things down.”

  That set the fire smoldering in Aravon’s belly once more. Anger blazed within him—it couldn’t push back the fatigue fully, but it helped. He stoked the fire, fed it with the sight of the bloodied, battered, and wounded Legionnaires around him. Someone on the island had stopped the civilians from finding safety, and because of them, more than one-third of the Legionnaires here had died.

  “Let’s go.” His words came out in a snarl and he whirled toward the road heading north, his fingers tightening around his spear. Whoever had cost so many lives would give answer for their actions.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  The Grim Reavers fell into place around him and Colborn as they stalked up the street, pushing through the crowds thronging up the Eastmarch toward Sanctuary Court. Though a few of the men and women they shoved aside turned to bark orders, when they recognized the bloodstained armor and masked faces of Aravon’s soldiers, they stepped out of the way. A quiet murmur rippled through the press of people, and a path opened among the people.
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  Aravon marched through the cleared space, his eyes locked on the row of armed and armored men that blocked the road fifty yards ahead. The anger blazed brighter with every step. Some nobleman had dared to set his household guard to block the way onto Azure Island?

  Then his gaze fell on a handful of figures held in the grip of the guards. Their blond hair and beards marked them clearly as Fehlans. Outwarders that had been in the city when the Eirdkilrs attacked, and who had joined the hordes thronging onto Azure Island for safety. Now, they were being assaulted, beaten, and restrained by the armed guards that blocked the street.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Aravon’s voice thundered up the street. He reached the first imprisoned Fehlan and seized the guard holding the man captive. The guard, so intent on clubbing the Outwarder into compliance, failed to notice Aravon until iron-strong fingers clamped around his neck. Aravon hurled the man to the ground and pressed the tip of his spear to the guard’s throat. “What in the Keeper’s name are you doing?”

  The man was too stunned and dazed to reply, but a call came from behind the barrier of guards. “They’re traitors!”

  Aravon’s head snapped up. A line of noblemen in costly, colorful silks and linens stood beyond their guardsmen.

  “What?” Aravon demanded. His gaze locked on the well-groomed, richly-dressed men and he stalked toward the guards. “What did you say?”

  “They’re traitors!” The man who spoke appeared to be no older than Aravon, but had a weak chin, a narrow jaw line, and a nose that drooped over his prim lips. “They’re Fehlan spies working with the Eirdkilrs!”

  “They’re as much Princelanders as anyone else in Icespire!” Aravon snapped back.