Chapter 20 The Last Redoubt
Chapter twenty
The Last Redoubt
The war tent smelled of damp wool and blood.
Maps sprawled across the long table, weighed down by daggers and stones to keep the corners from curling in the damp.
Candlelight guttered against the canvas walls, throwing the men inside into sharp relief—gaunt faces, hollow eyes, hands that shook only when they thought no one was watching.
Clyde stood at the head of the table, armour unpolished but functional, shoulders squared against the weight of command. The Western flank looked to him, though their gazes carried little hope.
General Corbin’s fist slammed onto the table, rattling the ink pots. “We can’t hold another month. Supplies are gone. Half my men wear boots stuffed with straw. If we stay, we starve.”
“And if we retreat,” another commander snapped, “we give the rebels free run to the coast. They’ll burn Valemont’s riverside towns before winter’s out.”
Murmurs of agreement. Desperation, raw and bitter.
Clyde leaned over the map. He traced the inked lines of the terrain—the jagged ridges, the deep marshes, the single choke point where the rebel supply lines ran narrowest. His hand hovered there.
“We can cut them,” he said at last, his voice low but firm.
“Here. Strike at the Hollow Ridge pass. Sever their supply trains, cripple their numbers.”
Silence followed.
General Corbin spat into the dirt. “That’s madness. It’s fortified. They’ll have the high ground.”
“They won’t expect us to try,” Clyde replied. His eyes swept the table, steady, unflinching. “We go at night. Through the marsh. It will cost us—” he paused, letting the words weigh heavy, “—but if we survive, we end it here. We break them before spring.”
The commanders exchanged uneasy glances. One man muttered, “If we survive. And if we don’t?”
Clyde straightened, jaw hard as iron. “Then we die. And better we die ending it than rotting in trenches waiting for the tide to crush us.”
The silence stretched again, thick as smoke. No one argued. They all knew there was no good way forward. Only this way.
At last, General Corbin nodded once, grim and sharp. “High risk. High reward. We move at dawn tomorrow.”
The meeting broke, men filing out with the weight of their own mortality pressed heavy on their backs.
Clyde remained, staring down at the map, one gloved hand pressed to the inside of his chestplate where a faded ribbon lay. He thought of Aerion’s last letter, of Isolde’s name scrawled in the margins, of the plea written between every line.
He closed his eyes. Exhaled.
If he lived, the war would end.
If he died, at least it would mean something.
The camp was too quiet.
Not with true silence—there was always the shuffle of boots, the crackle of fires, the low murmur of men trying to laugh away their fear—but quiet in the way of men who knew tomorrow might be their last. No songs tonight.
No dice rattling in cups. Only the soft, uneven chorus of breaths held too long.
Clyde sat alone in his tent, a single lantern flickering on the crate he used for a table. His armour rested beside him, straps loosened, his sword oiled and waiting. He had sharpened it twice already. Busy hands were better than a racing mind.
But now, there was nothing left to do but write.
He pulled out the parchment, his fingers clumsy from exhaustion.
The ribbon tucked beneath his chestplate brushed against his palm when he bent forward, and he lingered on it a moment—frayed, faded, stained by sweat and blood, yet still red where it folded tight.
He pressed it briefly to his lips before he began.
A,
Tomorrow we move. Hollow Ridge. High ground, narrow pass. High risk, high reward. You’d mock me for saying it out loud—I can hear you now: “Risk is for fools, reward is for gamblers.” Perhaps you’re right. But I’d rather fall with a sword in my hand than rot waiting for winter to bury us all.
If this letter reaches you, it will mean one of two things: either we succeeded, or I failed to return.
There’s no glory here. Only ghosts. But you’ve kept me alive longer than I thought possible. Your name shields me. I write it on my tongue before every charge. It steadies me when my hands shake.
If I live through this, I will come home. No more silence. No more waiting.
If I don’t—then know this. Every oath I swore, I swore for you. Not for crowns. Not for kings. For you.
Always,
C
He stared at the words for a long time, jaw tight, breath rough through his nose. It wasn’t enough. It could never be enough. But it was all he had.
He sealed the letter with black wax, pressed it into Renn’s hand when the boy slipped into the tent to check on him. “If I don’t return,” Clyde said, his voice steady, “you ride through the night. Deliver this to Valemont yourself.”
Renn nodded, lips pressed tight, eyes glassy in the lamplight.
When he left, Clyde sat in the dim tent with only the ribbon against his heart and the thought of Aerion’s voice in his head.
Sleep never came.
The charge came at dawn.
The ground was still frozen, hard as iron, brittle as glass. Frost glazed the ruts, glimmering faintly as the first pale light bled across the horizon.
Then came the arrows.
Not a volley—a storm. Screaming, shrieking, black shafts fell like the sky itself had shattered into a rain of knives.
They punched through helms, split throats, tore through horseflesh.
Men raised shields too late. Horses reared and screamed, eyes rolling white, then collapsed in heaps of blood and steam.
The ground turned slick red in seconds, the cold mud sucking it in hungrily.
Clyde’s horse was among the first to go down.
The beast screamed, a gurgling, choking cry, as a shaft buried itself deep in its throat.
It thrashed once before its weight collapsed beneath him.
Clyde’s world spun—hard ground slamming his back, sky flashing overhead, the blur of men and beasts crashing around him.
He rolled just before hooves came down, the thunder of boots trampling past where his skull had been.
He came up on his feet, sword in one hand, shield already raised. A blow struck the wood before he’d even found his footing, the crack of impact vibrating through his bones. Splinters stung his face.
There was no line. No banner. No horn to rally to.
It was mud and steel. Breath and blood. The stinking, choking weight of war at its ugliest.
Clyde killed without counting.
A sword glanced off his pauldron—metal shrieked, his shoulder went numb.
He rammed his shield into the man’s face, felt the cartilage crunch, then cut through the neck, hot blood spraying across his own lips.
Another came, spearpoint flashing. Clyde twisted, caught it against the rim of his shield, shoved forward, and drove his blade into the man’s gut.
The tip burst out his back. The man folded, spilling intestines into the trampled snow.
Clyde ripped free. His boots slipped in mud that wasn’t mud anymore—it was meat and shit and blood, thick as porridge. He didn’t stop. Couldn’t.
The world narrowed to muscle and blade, to surviving the next swing, the next breath.
A hammer caught Renn.
The boy had been just ahead, his helm too large, his shield too small.
Brave. Too brave. The hammer came down in a blur, smashing across his jaw.
The sound was sickening, a wet crack like a melon splitting.
Blood and teeth sprayed Clyde’s cheek. Renn’s head snapped sideways at an impossible angle, his body twitching once before collapsing.
He didn’t even scream.
Clyde roared.
The sound ripped from his chest, guttural and raw, as he threw himself at the man who had wielded the hammer. His blade sheared through shoulder and chest, cleaving bone. The man gurgled, fell. It didn’t matter. Nothing would bring Renn back.
The hill loomed ahead, crowned in enemy spears. The high ground was everything—lose it, and they’d be buried in the pass. Men clawed toward it, stumbling, dying, their cries swallowed by the tide.
Clyde pressed on.
An arrow slashed his ribs, tearing mail and skin. He staggered but pushed forward, teeth bared against the pain. A spear rammed into his thigh, white fire lancing up his leg. He snarled, ripped it free, blood flooding his boot. He limped, but he did not stop.
By the time he reached the crest, there was nothing left of his shield but a leather strap hanging from his wrist. His sword arm trembled from exhaustion, the blade slick and dripping from elbow to tip. His lungs burned. His ears rang with screams. His vision swam red.
He braced himself against a shattered post, sucking ragged breaths. And in that moment, with the hilltop around him nothing but corpses and smoke, he thought of only one thing.
Aerion.
With his free hand, he carved the name into the post. Clumsy, crude letters gouged into the wood with the bloody point of his dagger. Not “lord.” Not “Archduke.”
Just Aerion.
Just his.
Then he screamed.
Not in pain. Not in fear.
In defiance.
It ripped from his chest like fire through dry timber, carrying over the clash of steel, over the thunder of hooves, over the last groans of the dying. For one heartbeat, it was louder than war itself.
And the men around him—what few still lived—took up the cry.
They surged. They bled. They killed.
The world ended at Hollow Ridge.
When the noise finally broke, when the screams thinned and steel stilled, it left only silence, heavy as stone. The hill that had been a prize was nothing now but a cairn of corpses, the ground soaked so deep with blood it looked black. Smoke rolled low through the valley, acrid, clinging, choking.
Clyde lay among the dead.