The army has already lost.

Six thousand soldiers are in full retreat across open country after the disaster at Davan Field. Behind them rides the enemy cavalry that shattered them. Ahead lies the capital-and the last defensive line that might still save the kingdom.

If the enemy catches the retreating army before it reaches the walls, the war ends in a single afternoon.

Captain Rhys Calder is given an impossible order: hold the Varen river crossing for six days.

His force numbers barely five hundred exhausted soldiers drawn from the wreckage of multiple regiments. They are short on supplies, outnumbered three to one, and defending a ruined town with a half-collapsed bridge and a shallow ford that cannot be fully sealed.

There will be no relief.

The crossing simply has to hold.

Told through four perspectives-Calder, the captain tasked with the defense; Sergeant Mira Thorne, who makes the position work; Prince Alric, the royal observer sent to witness the fight; and Commander Vaelor, the enemy officer determined to break them-the story unfolds hour by hour as strategy, discipline, and grim mathematics decide how long five hundred soldiers can stand against an army.

They were never meant to win.

They were meant to buy time.

The Broken Banner is a gripping military novel about command, sacrifice, and the brutal arithmetic of war.