The Lives of Velnin chapter 24
A Fight to the Finish
Our scouts knew the score: after two days of battle, the forces of the Dark Empire had learned of a route around our wall across Dragonclaw Pass. An enemy detachment stole through the mountains during the night, and at some point the next morning, we would be crushed between two enormous armies, our wall meaningless, our thousands insufficient against the Dark Empire's millions.
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If we could build a second wall a bowshot away, perhaps we could defend from both sides at once. But it was too late. Without a wall for our archers to shoot from behind, and our injured forced to retreat behind, their endless hails of arrows, streaming in from both ends, would end our defense with barely a casualty from the enemy.
Our plans went to retreat. We knew the Dark Empire had one hundred thousand horsemen, and if we marched away on foot, abandoning our wall, we would be ridden down before we escaped the pass. For any of our forces to survive, we must hold the wall, as long as we could.
I called for volunteers to fight to the finish—men without wives and children back home. All told, we ended up with about six hundred: half archers, half spearmen. All our healers and artificers left; we would not survive long enough to need them. I stayed, though I sent my sword, Swelfalster, back to Tarmel with a fast rider, lest it be lost to the Dark Empire and they gain the benefit of two powerful magic swords instead of one. Canmar also stayed.
"Canmar, old friend... you don't have to stay. You don't have to die for me."
Canmar looked at me long, a strange expression in his eyes. I wondered what lay behind it. Finally, he looked away, and said "I'm staying... for Aloree."
Without meaning to, I looked wistfully toward the pavilion of Soraina—Dark Empress, commander of our enemies, and beautiful maiden—and knew what was on his mind. Rumors of my meeting with her, and the sparks that had flown between us, had flown round the men these past days. No doubt he was staying to put an arrow in my back if I went over to the other side, and joined her.
As thousands of our soldiers retreated, their lives preserved for better defending opportunities, those of us remaining went to our tents and rested for tomorrow's battle. I lay down, thinking of Soraina, sorely tempted to take her offer, become her consort, and save the lives of the men who remained. Perhaps the only thing that stopped me was that I knew I would be shot down with an arrow in my back if I so much as tried.
At dawn came not an attack from the Dark Empire, but a messenger. "The Dark Empress bids you to preserve your lives and surrender your weapons," he declaimed.
Canmar gave him a wilting gaze, and nocked an arrow in his bow. I gave the messenger my best deadpan stare. "Come get them," I said, gripping my spear tightly.
The messenger paled, turned, and ran back as fast as the wind.
The enemy did not attack for some hours. Out of bowshot they waited, turbaned men with small shields and spears and archers with recurve bows towards the front. Our scouts watched the walls of the pass, and knew the enemy was coming around the back. No doubt Soraina carefully waited until we could be surrounded on both sides, shot down from a distance with little trouble for her forces. We, too, waited, knowing that every hour delay was more time for our compatriots to make their escape, more time for the Dark Empire to run low on food, water, more time for disease to rear its head among them, and more time for our kingdoms to prepare. But soon enough the hour drew near when both sides would bear down on us, and we decided to beat them to the punch.
Leaving some dozens of archers and spearmen to hold the wall against the other side, we formed up facing the end containing Soraina's pavilion, archers behind spearmen, and broke into a run.
Now the enemy was in confusion. We had been the defenders, they had been the attackers. It was as if they had thought us a marble statue of a lion, standing still at the wall, and now had a ravening beast breathing down their throats. They did not know what to do. The front line of recurve archers started shooting arrows into us at a low angle, bouncing off our shields. The rear line fired upwards at an angle, dropping their arrows far behind us. As we approached the bowshot mark, the overseers panicked, and began whipping the turbaned men forward lest we get within range of Soraina's tent.
We stabbed them with our spears as they rushed us. Our archers fired arrows deep into their masses, and fired high arcs towards Soraina's pavilion. Let their commanders know fear and panic. Their casualties were massive as they trampled each other, whipped from behind. Still we pushed forward. We came out of the narrows we had fought in before into the wide area of the pass, and fought in a wide arc over the dead bodies of our enemies. We pulled back around a chokepoint, and let their men rush through the narrow gap whipped and pushed from behind into our spears. Some of our spears broke with the endless stabbing and pulling out, and some of us drew sword, or picked up the shorter spears of the enemy and fought on.
Their rush faltered and we charged forward once more, a circle of spears with arrows firing from our center. We came forward towards their command pavilion and showered it with arrows. Their forces panicked. Suddenly it wasn't just the turbaned men attacking. The whips came out and their forces went wild. The sky was dark with arrows as all their archers arced their arrows before us, some of these clinking off our shields and some of them hitting their own forces. Wild men came forward painted red and white, swinging clubs and stabbing with spears. Alongside them were spearwielding men in caps, and men in cloth armor with wicked curved daggers and strange clubs. There were men swinging battle axes, and men firing short bows. Their forces trampled each other, shot each other, fought against us and fought the rush of their own crowd.
More and more of our weapons broke or were pulled from our hands in the chaos of battle. Some of us were fighting using enemy spears, daggers, and axes. They were pushing us back with the sheer weight of their numbers, and we slowly moved back towards our wall as we stabbed and slashed the masses before us.
A flag went up from our wall. Battle had been joined on the other side, and soon one part or the other of our forces would be surrounded as one fell. We quickened our steps backwards towards the wall over the tens of thousands of corpses of enemy soldiers, fighting the enemy in front of us with every step we took backwards. The sky was dark with enemy arrows and as we moved backwards, more and more of our enemy fell under their own arrows as we held our shields above our heads to block them.
The pressure of enemies did not falter as we again approached the wall. The enemy was frenzied, crazed, and pushed on mercilessly with whips. We reached the wall and replenished our weapons from what was there. We stabbed. We slashed. Our archers fired from behind us. Enemies pressed our men on either side of the wall. Those archers who had not come down to stand behind our shields fell to the barrages of arrows. Those behind our shields fell as the spearmen of our line did.
We fought on with everything we had, fought on for every minute, every second, every enemy life we could purchase with our own. We fought with spears until all broke or were pulled from our hands. We fought with our swords until they fell from our hands, slick with blood and caught in enemy guts. We fought with daggers. We fought with our teeth, our nails, our hands, our feet.
As the last of us died, fighting onward with teeth and nails, one of the enemy slave troops finally plunged a dagger through my heart, and my life flashed before my eyes as my brain went into overdrive to write these, my dying words. Now, I feel the final darkness approach.
My brother Veltrin: kiss Aloree for me.
Aloree: I love you.
God Almighty: help us somehow, against all odds, save our kingdoms from this darkness as their millions approach us. Let it be, perhaps, that our fleet did better in the coastal straits than I did at Dragonclaw Pass, and somehow, let it be enough.
Brother: win. Somehow.
The prior redacted transcript of the dying words of Veldin, Velnin's second brother, was provided by permission of the Royal Family. An attached note states that as that baka Veldin got himself killed before he could do anything really fun, very little has been redacted.
Will Veltrin, brother number three, get anywhere with Aloree... or Soraina? What happened with the fleet while Veldin's land forces were defeated? Will the kingdoms be saved, or darkness prevail? Tune in next chapter and next life and find out!
The Lives of Velnin chapter 25
The following text is a redacted transcript of the dying words of Veltrin, the third incarnation of Velnin, released by order of the Royal Family.
Book 1 now out on Amazon! The Lives of Velnin: THE BLACK CITADEL collects Chapters 1-14 of the story so far.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZPF7QN2 (paperback)
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