Alexis Carew: The Little Ships: Faced with a Hanoverian frigate blowing up the eponymous unarmed evacuation ships, Alexis plants her horribly outmatched barque Belial in its path and provokes it by signaling that the captain is a coward and an arschfickernote "ass-fucker" in German. In the ensuing broadside duel her ship is damaged beyond repair and most of the crew and passengers are killed, but the other ships get away, and purely by chance she manages to kill the enemy captain and first lieutenant, and the frigate ends up surrendering to her instead!
Umslopogaas dies defending a staircase against a small army at the climax of Allan Quatermain.
In Jeramey Kraatz's The Cloak Society, Guardian and Sentry fight Ghost to keep him from preventing the others' escape, and escaping himself, from the Gloom.
In Jim Butcher's Codex Alera novel Cursor's Fury, the hero, Tavi, has to hold a bridge against a massive invading army with an inexperienced, under-equipped, and badly-outnumbered Legion (6 thousand Legionnaires against sixty thousand invaders). He very nearly has to sacrifice himself and a cohort of his legionares to hold off the invaders, and although he survives, the fact that he actually declares, "You will not pass," to the leader of the invading army makes it worth mentioning as an example.
A massive invading army of eight-foot-tall berserker wolf-men, which simply adds a whole 'nother level of badassery to the act.
And the fact that he pulls it off and manages to send them into retreat makes it all the more impressive.
Conan later vows to memorialise Balthus with an inordinate number of Pictish skulls, and another half as many for Balthus's dog who stayed and fought with him.
A bit of Back Story in one of Andre Norton's Alternate History books, The Crossroads of Time, mentions that after World War II went really, really bad for the Allies, and "Japs exploded all over the Pacific," the last word the U.S. got from Australia was that "they were still fighting a desperate rear guard action along the salt deserts there...." That was in late 1940 or early '41; the hero gets this information something like ten or fifteen years later.
In The Dark Artifices it is shown that Julian and Emma do this so that the other members of Julian's family can escape. However, the two are not killed, but transformed.
In Raymond Feist's Darkness at Sethanon, Laurie's friend Roald holds off approaching Dark Elves after he breaks his leg in a fall. He tells his friend to "Make a song about me, Make it a good one", before he gives a decent accounting of himself, allowing his friends to escape.
Done against an object, but otherwise the same in Distant Rainbow by Strugatski brothers. When the Wave suddenly overpowers most of the "Charibdas" Wave-stopping machines, causing them to explode, and starts advancing rapidly at the scientific outpost, Robert takes one of the two remaining Charibdas and steers it against the Wave so the other scientists can evacuate. He escapes the machine seconds before it blows up, along with Patrick, who steered the other one.
The Divine Comedy, specifically Virgil in Purgatorio Canto 18, figures reason as a lone guard fighting off evil desires and thoughts from entering the threshold of the mind with all his might.
In Skin Game, the Denarians Nicodemus and Tessa, ancient humans who are partners with Fallen Angels, and their cult of followers, are attacking Michael Carpenter's home and plan to burn it, his children inside, and leave his wife's body outside so it is clear she watched the tragedy before being killed. Harry is down for a medical reason, another ally is injured. The only one still standing is Waldo Butters, a short, nerdy guy who is not a fighter like the others who cannot fight anymore. He smiles and takes Harry's spell-infused duster for added protection and rushes out to fight the villains. He doesn't plan to win, but hold them back until help can arrive. He believes that good will overcome their evil, that right is always better than wrong, he has faith in his friends who have yet to arrive, and while he does love one particular woman, he feels he must do this in this moment to save as many lives as he can. Because of a wonderful confluence of actions from Harry, Harry's attempt to throw the broken hilt of Fidelacchius the Sword of Faith to Charity Carpenter ends up in Butter's hands before Nicodemus can kill the man. The Sword responds to the deep Faith and resolve Butters showed minutes ago, and is reborn into the symbol of Butter's faith: a beam of angelic white light with a soft thrumm from it. He is able to cut through Nicodemus' blade, send the Denarians running, and the cult who follows him broken.
In Battle Ground (2020), Harry very deliberately invokes this trope against the Formor before the major battle, relishing his own Gandalf moment.
In the original Dune book, Duncan Idaho sacrifices himself to hold off a flood of Imperial Sardaukar elite troopers, while Paul Atreides makes good his escape. In the sequel, it's revealed that while he did, indeed, die, the surviving Sardaukar were so impressed with his Master Swordsman skills that they preserved his body, later having it resurrected as a "Ghola"... and that, as it turns out, has some extremely far-reaching effects on the Dune universe.
Played with in the William Johnstone western Eyes Of Eagles, when Jamie Ian Maccallister goes after a gang of slave catchers who murdered his youngest daughter, after his ambush leaves just their leader and one mortally wounded henchman, the dying henchman yells for his boss to make a break for it, saying he has three guns with him and will cover him. Once this works and his boss actually does get away, the man calls out to a still-concealed Jamie he apologizes to Jamie before dying, and admits that he was bluffing about the guns and was actually hoping that Jamie would shoot his boss once he ran from cover.
In Fall of Damnos, Largo and Brakkius do this to the Necrons, deciding to sacrifice themself to cover the retreat of the rest of their squad. Subverted when Tigurius jumps in and blows the Flayed ones to the Warp and beyond.
Fire & Blood: During an attempted coup almost certainly engineered by Unwin Peake, Aegon III, his brother Viserys and Viserys' wife (who, as a Lyseni, is the casus belli of the coup) hold up in the Red Keep. Early on, Viserys stands on the fort's drawbridge with an axe in hand, telling the guards they will have to get through him in order to get his wife. Of course, since Viserys is only thirteen at the time, this doesn't work, and he immediately books it inside. His wife's bodyguard, Sandoq the Shadow, meanwhile does a much better job on this front.
In First & Only, Sergeant Blane and fifty Ghosts hold off the vastly superior numbers of Jantine Patricians for a long time, even in face of their Zerg Rush, until they are overwhelmed.
The Back Story of John C. Wright's The Golden Age: Helion sacrificed himself on the Solar Array to contain a solar storm. As he thought. It was actually an attack.
Kurt's death in Halo: Ghosts of Onyx counts as this. He holds off Covenant forces long enough for the Slipspace portal on Onyx to close thus saving the other Spartans and Dr. Halsey:
Voro 'Mantakree: One last fight Demon. You shall die, and we will reopen the silver path. Kurt Ambrose:(laughs) Die? Didn't you know? Spartans never die. (detonates FENRIS nuclear warhead)
In Harry Potter, there's a charm that works just like this. If you protect someone with strong will, and die for them, then your sacrifice will fuel a charm — making your protected ones completely immune from direct harm from the one that killed you. That's how Harry survived the Death Spell from Voldemort (by having his mother inadvertently cast this charm), and later, in the last book, how Voldemort's curse became ineffective against Hogwarts' students (by Harry's Heroic Sacrifice).
In the Hell's Gate series you have "Chunika s'hari, Halian. Sho warak", or "I am your son, Halian. I remember." Archaic words said by the Imperial family when invoking their precognition. It takes only 20 years to make an emperor, but 20 centuries to make an empire the world can trust. For many members of the family, their precognition is weak except in the circumstances of their immediate death. For them to make this proclamation means they will die in their actions, but their death will hold the line.
This is how Last Herald-Mage Vanyel Ashkevron, of the Last Herald-Mage Trilogy, meets his end, preventing Leareth, his apprentices, and a whole army behind them from entering Valdemar through a narrow pass through the mountains. Only rags are left of him and his Companion. He'd had dreams of this event off and on for half his life, but saw no way to avert this fate and keep his sense of morality.
The song "Demonsbane" is about Vanyel, a decade or so prior to his death, doing this to protect some Hardornen farmers. The line "You shall not pass" is used twice in the song.
In Brightly Burning, Lavan Firestorm's Superpower Meltdown incinerated an invading Karsite army and scoured another mountain pass down to ash over bare rock. Unlike Vanyel, he wasn't deliberately protecting his country and in fact seems to have incinerated some of his own people - he'd just lost his Morality Chain and The Power of Hate was fully unleashed; Lavan wanted to burn the world, then die himself to be with Kalira. Fortunately for the world, his Required Secondary Power of being fireproof wore off and with his death the flames, coming as high as the peaks of the mountains around them, died back down.
There is a specific spell called Final Strike which any magic-user, even an apprentice can use which sucks in all the ambient magical energy of the area and channels it through the spell-wielder's body; it will fry you, but the resultant explosion will take your opponent with you—and, depending on how big the explosion, anything within a certain radius. The higher-level magic user you are, the bigger the explosion.
In the novels, having Harrington go into battle in a seriously outmatched ship with practically no possibility of victory and massive casualties happened frequently enough in the early books that an "Honor Death-Ride" has become cliche (and to be fair, is noted by various characters in the books themselves such as in Honor Among Enemies when several crewmen, upon finding out who's commanding their new ship, immediately begin figuring out how to desert before the inevitable catastrophic battle).
Of course, the ones doing that are dirtbags that their former commanders couldn't wait to be rid of. Their eventual fate was a rather more literal variety of Laser-Guided Karma. Or, in this particular case, graser guided karma.
Edward Saganami's You Shall Not Pass! moment got Manticore's version of the US Naval Academy in Annapolis named after him. They also show his final battle to the graduating class every year.
Honor's armsmen live (or rather, die) for this trope. Given the number of people that try to kill her, Honor gets through rather a lot of them, much to her regret.
The Home Fleet in the Battle of Manticore, buying time so the Eighth Fleet can close the distance to engage the invading Havenite fleet.
The poem "Horatius" by Thomas Babington Macaulay sets the Roman legend (see the Real Life section) into English verse, in words that readily define the trope. In the poem, Horatius proposes to hold a bridge against an army while the village he's defending cuts it down behind him:
‘Hew down the bridge, Sir Consul, With all the speed ye may; I, with two more to help me, Will hold the foe in play. In yon strait path a thousand May well be stopped by three. Now who will stand on either hand, And keep the bridge with me?’
In the third book of the Inda series, the Venn are invading and the king's armies are not yet in position, due to several key messages about the enemies' whereabouts being intercepted. This leaves a little under two hundred women and girls to defend Castle Andahi, which covers the only passage through the mountains. They hold it against several thousand Venn for almost three full days.
In Julie Kagawa's The Iron King, Ash holds off the gremlins for Meghan to escape, and is caught in the collapse.
This trope is named for Gandalf's big scene against the Balrog of Moria. Technically, in the novel Gandalf's line was "You cannot pass". But in the movie it's that way, and Punctuated! For! Emphasis! ("You! Shall not! PASSSSSSS!").
Gandalf does it thrice. The first time is just prior to the famous bridge scene where he had stayed behind briefly to magically seal a door. The Balrog broke the spell but collapsed the roof, forcing it to go the long way to catch up. The third time, he prevents the Witch-king from riding into Minas Tirith when the main gate is breached, with a completely still "You cannot enter here". This doesn't culminate in a duel since just at this moment, the Rohan reinforcements arrive. Amusingly, in the first draft of Gandalf's confrontation with the Witch-king, he actually says "You cannot pass" (the same thing he said to the Balrog); but Tolkien changed it to "You cannot enter here".
Dernhelm's ( a.k.a. Éowyn's) defense of Théoden against the Lord of the Nazgûl: "Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may." She even laughs at him.
Boromir tells the hobbits to flee before building himself a funeral mound of orcish corpses.
During the War of the Ring, the townfolk of Dale retreat into the Lonely Mountain as Sauron's armies approach. King Brand of Dale is killed during the battle. The Dwarf-King Dain II Ironfoot stood astride his friend's body and held the enemy back until he also falls.
Beregond leaves his post in order to pull one of these to stop Denethor from succeeding in lighting Faramir's pyre.
The Children of Húrin: Húrin pulls this off against the entire army of Morgoth alone so his allies can escape. He fights to the point where his axe melts in his hands and even then does not give up. All the while shouting: "Day shall come again." With his brother Huor, father of Tuor, although Huor gets to actually die, where Húrin gets taken prisoner before Morgoth and is made to watch everything bad that happens to his family by magic as revenge.
Finrod Felagund breaks out of his chains and kills a Werewolf barehanded to save Beren.
Huan, the hound of Valinor, stands up against Carcharoth, the mightiest Wolf who has a Silmaril in its body, in order to protect Beren. Huan manages to slay the crazed monster before succumbing to wounds but Beren dies nonetheless. This only occurs because Beren was trying to protect Lúthien against Carcharoth. Waving a Silmaril in a giant wolf's face will cost you your hand, however.
The Fall of Gondolin: During the sack of Gondolin, Ecthelion, a high-elf lord, defends a wounded Tuor against Morgoth's chief captain Gothmog. Ecthelion manages to take down the Balrog before he dies, after losing both his arms (in case you're wondering, he kills it with [[Use Your Head the spike on his helmet). Glorfindel also killed a Balrog (and was killed) while the survivors were fleeing in the mountains.
The Fall of Númenor: When Sauron invades Eregion, a desperate Celebrimbor is standing on the steps of the great House of the Elven smiths to stop him from seizing the Elven rings of power. Unfortunately, he is overwhelmed and taken captive as the smithy is ransacked.
John Geary's claim to fame in John Hemry's The Lost Fleet. Taking on enemy ships, outnumbered ten to one, so the ships he was escorting could escape immortalized him in The Alliance. He actually had three different holding actions in one, first his squadron held the line while the civilian ships escaped, then his ship held the line while the other surviving warships escaped, finally he held the line alone while his surviving crew evacuated the ship in life pods.
In Part 12, after the androids murder Dean Forrester when she is about to call the police, Mr. Charlton tackles them to give Andi and Mr. Stone a chance to flee.
In Part 13, Mr. Stone pulls a bluff to draw them away from following Andi.
A Mage's Power: Basilard pulls this in the Yacian Caverns in order to enable his students and client to escape a pack of Xethras. He survives, barely, because Aio pulled him to Nolien, The Medic. Then Tasio reveals that neither one of them were in true danger beacuse it was All According to Plan.
In the old pre-revision Magic: The Gathering novels, a Viking-ish female captain (a lesbian with two wives, no less) named Ordando faces down cavalry in an alleyway to buy time for the general of her army and the rest of their small infiltration party to escape.
In Mercedes Lackey's and James Mallory's The Obsidian Trilogy, and specifically the first book, The Outstretched Shadow, Jermayan tells Kellen the story of five scouts from the last war with the Endarkened, who held an entire demon army in a narrow pass for three days, buying time for the allied armies to gather. "History" lost their names (even though there are elves living who are so old they are no more than two generations from the time of the last war, thousands of years ago), and it's not known how they did it, but their sacrifice is remembered.
In Otto of the Silver Hand, Baron Conrad is fleeing Castle Trutz-Drachen with his injured son Otto and a small group of followers, pursued by Baron Henry and his knights. Henry catches up with them near a bridge. Conrad sends his followers ahead with Otto but stays behind to hold the bridge. In the ensuing battle, Conrad kills several knights before Henry attacks him one-on-one. The two struggle, then both fall into the stream and are drowned by their heavy armor. The other knights see no reason to keep pursuing Otto when Henry was the one with a grudge against the Vuelphs, so they go back to Trutz-Drachen, allowing Otto and the surviving adults to travel to St. Michaelsburg in peace.
Percy Jackson and the Olympians shows us Charles Beckendorf. He voluntarily stays behind on a ship full of monsters for Percy to escape.
Much later during The Trials of Apollo, Jason Grace did the same, so Piper and his friends could run away from Caligula's ship.
This is how Rastar Komas Ta'Norton, last Prince of fallen Therdan, meets his end in the final book of the Prince Roger series.
Rockjaw Grang in "The Long Patrol", after being fatally wounded. He manages to kill over twenty Mooks before he finally dies.
Also Bragoon the otter and Sarobando the squirrel from Loamhedge, similar to Gandalf's example, threw a log that was bridging a canyon down said canyon while foes were scrambling across it, to save the three young ones that were with them. Being pretty old, they died of exhaustion shortly afterward.
Also also, Felldoh the squirrel in Martin the Warrior was probably the first example of this in the writing of the books. He takes down at least twenty enemies and scares the rest enough that after he's dead, the rats are talking about later basically saying "thank GOD we didn't get to him in time!"
When Zhang Xiu ambushed Cao Cao, Dian Wei remained behind to hold the main gate against Zhang's forces. Because his usual weapon was stolen, Dian Wei instead used a normal infantryman's sword until it broke, at which point he used a pair of normal infantrymen. Not surprisingly, even after he died the enemy were still terrified of passing the main gate.
A warrior named Zhang Fei managed to pull this off single handedly against an entire army. It was a bit different, though, as there was no actual fighting, just a very tense stand-off where the opposing commander Cao Cao was so taken aback by the audacity of a single person trying to hold off an army, that he figured that it was an attempt to lure him into a trap. Once Zhang Fei yelled, however, all bets were off, and the entire army... ran away. Ironically, Zhang Fei had a bunch of followers raising clouds of dust to make it look like an ambush would be waiting if Cao Cao's army advanced, although it's shown that while the advance elements was stalled by that 'poorly disguised ambush' it was Zhang Fei himself that scared Cao Cao.
Not to forget Zhuge Liang, who single-handedly held off Sima Yi's army with an empty city and his own reputation.
Done twice in the web original The Salvation War. The first, in Armaggeddon??? has a group of retired Chinese soldiers using bolt action rifles and then bayonets, to hold off a demon from slaughtering the women and children of their town. The second is in Pantheocide when a Palestinian suicide bomber takes his jeep full of explosives to attack The Scarlet Beast and the Whore of Babylon as they ravage Jerusalem. Limited in its success, it's still the first thing that actually hurts them... When he arrives in Hell (everyone goes there), several women offer themselves to him.
The German book Schattenjagd has Valerie. She is a warriorness, and when a fight against a group of monsters becomes hopeless, she tells her friend to flee with the gryphon and rescue the three men who have freed her. However, she survives the fight but is too badly hurt to take part in the further battles in the plot.
A Game of Thrones. Syrio Forel holds off five Lannister guardsmen and a knight of the Kingsguard with only a wooden sword to buy time for Arya Stark to flee. He actually kills the lightly armored Lannister guards, and is only defeated by the knight in heavy armor and full helmet.
A Storm of Swords has Squire Dalbridge pull this on the Wildings to help Stonesnake, Ebben, Jon Snow and Qhorin Halfhand escape.
In A Dance with Dragons, Theon is fleeing Winterfell with some wildling women and Jeyne Poole. Once their stealth is broken, one of his companions, Frenya, a spearwife, stays behind to stop the guards while the others flee. We never see what happens to her at the end, but it is strongly implied that she is killed. However the trope is subverted when the others realise that Frenya still has the rope they were going to use to climb down the castle wall.
Moat Cailin and the Crannogmen play this role to the North, being located in the Neck, which separates the North from the Southron Kingdoms. Moat Cailin is on the only safe path through the Neck, and can be easily held by a small force against a much larger army from the south, having never fallen to the Southron forces.
The fight at the Tower of Joy consisted of this. Ned Stark and six companions went to the Tower of Joy to rescue Ned's sister Lyanna, who had been kidnapped (allegedly) by Prince Rhaegar Targaryen, but found the Tower guarded by three of the Kingsguard. In the battle all were killed save Ned and his bannerman Howland Reed. Exactly why the Kingsguard remained guarding Lyanna is unclear, considering Rhaegar and his father King Aerys II were dead. It is widely believed by the fandom Lyanna was pregnant with Rhaegar's child, and the Kingsguard were guarding the future Prince.
The Night's Watch mans the Wall which separates the Seven Kingdoms from the Northernmost part of Westeros, the Lands-beyond-the-Wall. They were apparently formed 8000 years ago when the Wall was built, to defend the realms against the White Walkers, though have spent most of their time fighting the Wildlings (people who live North-of-the-Wall), and are seen as a glorified Penal Colony by much of Westeros.
In Toby Frosts third Space Captain Smith book, Wrath of the Lemming men, Agshad nine-swords single-handedly wins the battle of Tam Valley, defending the bridge from an army of bloodthirsy Yullian soldiers using only his broom before he is finally felled by a sneak attack from Colonel Vok.
The first chapter of Star Trek: Ship of the Line, has the USS Bozeman, a Soyuz-class border cutter, being left alone in a sector bordering the Klingon Empire, while the Enterprise and most of the fleet is sent to face off the Klingon fleet threatening to invade. While on patrol, the Bozeman detects a Klingon heavy cruiser sneaking across the border in order to destroy the Federation outpost there. While no match for the Klingon warship, the small border cutter decides to do everything possible to hold off the Klingons and let the rest of the fleet know what's going on. They launch a probe with a time-delayed message set to transmit after exiting the Klingon ship's jamming field, while the Bozeman maneuvers trying to avoid the heavy disruptor shots. It helps that the commanders of the ships are old rivals, so Captain Bateson is able to goad Kozara into attacking him instead of making a beeline for the outpost. Desperate, the Bozeman attempts to hide in a small nebula, only to emerge 100 years later nearly colliding with the USS Enterprise-D (TNG episode "Cause and Effect"). They later find out that they are remembered as heroes for thwarting Kozara's attempt. Their message reached the fleet, and the original Enterprise was able to drive the Klingon ship away. Kozara, still alive, has been living in shame for his failure since then, and the shame is only increased when it's discovered that the Bozeman survived. Naturally, he plots revenge.
In Rogue Squadron, Rogue Squadron and Defender Wing are ambushed by a type of capital ship designed to slaughter large numbers of starfighters. With a little cleverness, Corran Horn works out a scenario to distract, damage, or destroy it it so that the others can get away — "Worst case, you lose one ship." Not only did it work, Horn and his ship survived.
It happens again later in the series. When Rogue Squadron is lead into a deathtrap at Distna, One and Two flight (eight X-wings) are forced to fight three squadrons of enemy fighters, while Three flight is forced to take on the same number (with half as many ships) so that the others can attempt to escape. "Alright three flight, we're holding the door open." Delaying Actions are standard for the Rogues; they pull one in The Thrawn Trilogy and are only saved when the cavalry returns.
In the Star Wars: New Jedi Order novel Traitor, the Jedi Ganner Rhysode declares, "I am Ganner. This thresholdnote the entrance to the Well of the World Brain is mine. I claim it as my own. Bring on your thousands, one at a time or all in a rush. I don't give a damn. None shall pass." and proceeds to slaughter hundreds of enemy warriors before being overcome, buying time for Jacen Solo. When he's finally overwhelmed, he pulls a Samson by collapsing the (large) building he's in on both himself and his foes (which included a tank). In fact he was so damn impressive that, according to an Unreliable Narrator, in the future he would be made into a deity in the enemies' pantheon called "The Ganner", an invincible giant armed with a sword of light, guarding the gate to the world of the dead, upon which is inscribed — in Basic, not Yuuzhan Vong — NONE SHALL PASS.
In Legacy of the Force, Wedge Antilles has to scramble for impromptu designations for himself and Corran. Since they're flying a delaying action, he chooses Ganner One and Ganner Two. What could be more appropriate?
Death Star has the Force-Sensitive stormtrooper Nova Stihl repeatedly Dreaming of Things to Come, and one dream is of he and one other fighting off his fellow stormtroopers, and dying, while trying to buy time for others. He manages to avoid something from another dream, but for this one, he goes along with it and delays the other stormtroopers long enough that his little cell of Imperials going through a Heel Realization can escape. He is assisted in this by another alien, who was a bar bouncer.
Talenel'Elin, one of the ten Heralds of the Almighty, was known for doing this. He had a habit of choosing narrow passes that couldn't possibly be defended, defending them, and dying in the process. His death sent him back to Damnation, where he was tortured until the next Desolation came and he would be resurrected along with the rest of the Heralds. Except at the Last Desolation, the other nine Heralds gave up and abandoned him to be tortured alone. He returns at the end of the first book four and a half thousand years later, signaling that the next Desolation has come.
Kaladin Stormblessed does this against an army of Parshendi at the end of the first book to save Dalinar Kholin, the last honorable highprince left in the entire Alethi army. It is easily the best battle scene in the entire book. The best part? Kaladin lives and gets his freedom.
This is how Elven Hunter Crispin goes out in The Elfstones Of Shannara. With all his companions dead, Crispin holds the bridge at the Pykon against The Reaper, a Demonic Serial Killer in order to give Wil and Amberle time to destroy the bridge. Easily his Dying Moment of Awesome.
Almost all of Jair's companions in The Wishsong of Shannara die this way, staying behind one or two at a time to delay the Gnomes and other enemies that are chasing them.
The Swedish-language Finnish poem The Tales Of Ensign Stål contains a classic and rather interesting example of this. The poem at one point tells the story of the brave but incredibly stupid soldier Sven Dufva who, in the middle of a battle against the Russians during the Finnish War (1808-1809) misunderstands an order to retreat and instead attacks the enemies in front of him. He singlehandedly manages to hold a bridge until reinforcements can arrive, sacrificing his life in the process.
The quote "Släpp ingen djävul över bron" (in modern English roughly "Don't let a single fucker cross that bridge") has been a go-to phrase in Swedish for holding out against overwhelming odds ever since. Though the bit about simply being too stupid to retreat usually gets left out.
Alexandre Dumas' The Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later. Porthos destroys the tunnel network that he and Aramis are using to plot a rebellion against the King of France, buying Aramis and the rebels enough time to escape and destroying most of their pursuers.
Referenced in one of the Vlad Taltos books where Sethra Lavode compares the tactics of defense to being a real estate agent (i.e. get as high a price as possible for any ground lost) to her apprentice, Sethra the Younger. In a battle a few days later, Sethra the Younger offers to retreat from her strategically-important pass if the enemy commander will send a third of his force, unarmed, through to the prison camps behind her lines. He refuses, and gets his behind handed to him in the ensuing assault.
Warcraft Expanded Universe. The War Of The Ancients novels give us one of the greatest examples in the entire Warcraft universe. Broxigar, an orc transported back in time, leapt through a portal that lead to the Burning Legion homeworld. Once there, he proceeded to slaughter demons until he stood upon a mountain of their corpses, to the point that Sargeras himself had to kill him, but not before Brox did the impossible and wounded him. All of this with an axe made of enchanted wood.
In William King's novel Space Wolf, Sergeant Hengist rallies a group of young Marines about him to hold off attacks from Chaos Space Marines, sending off a handful, led by Ragnar, to Bring News Back. When a Chaos Space Marine tell Ragnar that the group had broken and the Chaos Space Marines were hunting them down, Ragnor refuses to believe him.
In Lee Lightner's Wolf's Honour, two veteran units hold off the rebel attack long enough for the rest of the Imperial Guard to reach the fortified perimeter; they die to the last man.
In James Swallow's novel Red Fury, all the sons of Sanguinius throw themselves into defending the tomb of Sanguinius, knowing that if they fail, the survivors' only choice will be to be destroy the fortress.
In Henry Zhou's novel The Emperor's Mercy, Imperial Guardsmen are surrounded by Chaos forces and are fighting on, despite dying of hunger and disease. Roth tells Celemine that they had no choice but to stay with them. The commander hears and instantly wants to fight a last charge: they can get them to their ship and hold off the enemy — and that way, they can be remembered. (They are. In fact, their eighteen minutes defense of the ship is immortalized in a mural on Terra.)
In John French's Ahriman: Exile, Thidias manages to hold off an endless tide of daemons just long enough for Astraeos and Ahriman to reach their shuttle and escape, and he kills quite a few of them before finally being brought down.
In Graham McNeill’s Gods of Mars, the Imperials and the Eldar are being chased by the Tindalosi, unstoppable self-repairing robotic hellhounds. The dying Wraithlord Eldanaish Ghostwalker holds a bridge against these beasts to give his allies time to escape. After holding them off for as long as he can, Ghostwalker destroys the bridge’s suspension cables, dropping himself and the Tindalosi into an abyss.
In Warrior Cats, Cinderpelt (a Medicine Cat with a lame leg) places herself between Sorreltail with her newborn kits and the badger that has just burst into the den. The badger end up killing her, but she manages to hold it off long enough for Leafpool and Crowfeather to arrive and drive it off, ensuring that Sorreltail and all of her kits survive the attack.
Bigwig: "My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run, and until he says otherwise, I shall stay here."
This doubles as a Badass Boast by proxy; the attacking rabbits, accustomed to a hierarchy of physical force, conclude that Bigwig's Chief Rabbit must be even bigger and badder than he is. They are appropriately shaken, although Bigwig is quite unaware of it.
A Thanatos Gambit as well: Bigwig figures that even after they kill him, they'll have to dig around his corpse.
In The Great Hunt, Ingtar, having been revealed as a Darkfriend, redeems himself by holding off the advancing Seanchan at the cost of his life, allowing Rand and his compatriots to escape.
An awesome example in The Breaking: When Jaric Mondoran, a maddened sorceror with the power to devastate whole districts, approaches Tzora the Da'shain went to meet him, ten thousand of them, and began to sing to remind him what he once was, and give the (at least) hundreds of thousands of people living in Tzora time to escape. He looked at them puzzled while burning them alive one by one. They closed their ranks and kept singing. He listened to the last one for over an hour. After that the second largest city in the world burned, leaving only a sheet of glass.
"Gunny" Pappas, in When the Devil Dances, holding off the Posleen, and the ACS troopers who were too damaged to move did this, while the rest of the force retreated for resupply.
In the Wing Commander novel "Fleet Action", a vastly outnumbered and outgunned Confederation manages to hold off the Kilrathi fleet, at one point having civilian craft play "human shield" for the Marine landing craft to board the Hakaga supercarriers, to detonate antimatter mines from the inside, where the heavy armor not only didn't help the Hakagas, but helped focus the blast to gut the ships from the inside.
In World War Z, a man relates the story of how the zombie war went down in Paris, including how his brother's unit attempted to contain the inmates of an insane asylum that had been zombified:
One squad against three hundred zombies. One squad led by my baby brother. The last thing we heard before the radio went silent was his voice on the radio: "They shall not pass!"
attacks several Martian tripods to buy time for British refugee ships to escape. The Thunder Child is utterly destroyed, but the refugees get away and it manages to off one of the tripods in the process by ramming it. As the Thunder Child sinks, the Martians' "Heat Ray" fire causes the boilers to explode, destroying a second tripod in the blast.