They reached the valley at dusk.
The spread of rolling hills and broken ruins, its grass burned black, its streams choked with ash. The wind carried the reek of orc camps thousands of them, fires burning like stars across the hills.
Edwen's Riders numbered forty.
The enemy outnumbered them ten to one.
Harthor spat, pipe clenched in his teeth. "Well, captain. Looks like we've found the storm."
Edwen's golden eyes swept the valley. He saw not numbers, not hopeless odds but the field itself. The narrow ridges, the choke points, the high ground. He felt the weight of every life behind him. And he knew they would not leave this place without blood.
"We ride," he said.
The Riders thundered down the slope, rifles cracking, sabers flashing. The first ranks of orcs fell in heaps, their screams drowned beneath the roar of hooves and gunfire. Smoke rolled thick, iron thunder echoing in the valley.
They hit like a hammer, breaking through the first line, carving a path of blood. But the enemy closed fast, a tide of black flesh and iron.
Edwen cut down one, two, three, his saber slick, his arms burning. Torwald fought at his side like a wall of steel, every stroke precise, every motion deadly. Harthor bellowed with laughter, blood and smoke staining his beard, pipe still clamped between his teeth.
The Riders wheeled, fired, charged again. The new rifles barked sharp, dropping orcs in waves. Horses reared, steel clashed, men roared.
But for every orc that fell, three more surged forward.
One rider was dragged from his saddle, torn apart before their eyes. Another's horse was gutted beneath him, the man trampled in the dirt. A third took an axe to the skull, his helmet splitting like tin.
The line thinned.
Still they fought.
Edwen's voice carried above the chaos, sharp as steel: "Hold! Hold the line!"
They formed into a wedge, driving deep, rifles blazing, sabers hacking. The valley floor became a slaughterhouse, the ground slick with blood. The Riders bled, but they did not break.
By midnight, the orc warband lay broken. Fires guttered in the ruins, bodies piled high. The Riders stood among them, ragged, burned, their faces hollow with exhaustion.
They counted.
Thirty.
Only thirty left.
The silence that followed was heavier than the battle itself. Horses stamped wearily, men sat where they stood, too tired to weep.
Edwen stood at the center, saber dripping, golden eyes blazing in the dark. He looked at the faces that remained scarred, bloodied, broken and saw the ghosts of the ones who were gone.
They had not won. Not truly.
But they had survived.
And survival, in this place, was victory enough.