Chapter 688: Brother (1)
It had been two wrenching, soul-crushing days for the Herculeians, two days that felt less like a retreat and more like a slow death stretched across a punishing landscape.
Their defeat on the field hadn’t just broken their lines. It had broken something deeper. Every shred of hope they once clung to, the illusion that they could hold, resist, turn the tide, had been dashed in less than an hour of brutal, one-sided slaughter.
What was left was not an army. It was a trail of hollow-eyed men limping behind tattered banners that no longer commanded fear or pride.
The ranks had thinned catastrophically. Of the 2,100 who had taken the field, less than 1,400 now followed the battered column as it staggered inland, away from the carnage. Hundreds had perished in the rout, trampled beneath panicked hooves or run down by the Yarzat blades. But the greater share vanished in silence, deserters peeling off one by one under cover of night, never to return.
The sound of footsteps in the darkness, bare feet and battered boots slipping through wet grass, breath held, weapons discarded, that was the only rhythm that accompanied the night.
There was no time for justice. No search parties were sent after the deserters. No tribunal. No rope. No ceremony. The truth was simple: no one had the strength, or the stomach, for that kind of job anymore, they just trudged forward as corpses.
Even the wounded were left behind. They were a weight the retreat could not afford. You saw them slumped by the roadside or curled in shallow ditches, men with bandaged limbs, torn torsos, cracked skulls. They called for help at first. Then they begged. Then they stopped calling at all. Their comrades gave what they could, rags, canteens, last words, until there was nothing left to give.
Eventually, they moved on.
And even among the able-bodied, there was rot. The rear of the column dragged worst. There, every few hours, some soldier would simply collapse. Legs buckled. Eyes rolled. He wouldn’t scream, wouldn’t cry. Just... fell.
His body too empty to even resist gravity. Those closest to him would pause, kneel, try to lift him. Then, seeing the futility, they’d stand again. Some cursed. Some said prayers. Most just walked on, choosing not to see.
For those still moving, each day blurred into the next. They marched until the light died behind the hills, then collapsed into shallow camps, too exhausted to properly fortify, too haunted to sleep. They ate what they could scavenge as what they could bring with them during the rout had already rotted or been eaten, bitter roots, stale bread, half-rotted meat, and they slept like men expecting to die before morning.
If the Yarzat forces had attacked during the night, there would’ve been no defense. No formation. No rally. Just more bodies in the mud.