by Paul S. Kemp
The worg's rear end dropped to the ground, little more than a bloody stump, and the creature curled up on itself. It yowled, a helpless moaning wail, and pulled itself in circles with its front legs. Confused and desperate, it flailed on the ground, trying to salve its wounds. In the process, the worg pinned its goblin rider to the ground, smashing it to a pulp with its heavy, hairy frame as it squirmed in agony.
Another yelp echoed through the mustering grounds, overtopping all the other sounds of fighting. Tammsel got to his feet, the worg he had been wrestling gripped in one hand-his dragonlike claws buried in its throat. The creature pawed weakly at his arms, struggling to breathe. Gashes in its sides wept blood and pus, and its tail stuck out straight from its body.
The yelping stopped as the worg expired. Its body fell limp, hanging from Tammsel's claws like a freshly slaughtered cow on a meat hook.
The other soldiers had dispatched one of the final two worgs when the last one turned and made a break for the open door to Zerith Hold.
"You men," shouted Purdun, pointing to half a dozen soldiers close to the door, "after him!"
But his order was drowned out by the growls of five more worgs as they came leaping over the wall. Two men were caught off guard, torn to shreds by a frenzy of claws and teeth.
Purdun looked out at the mustering grounds. They weren't making any progress. The goblins would continue to get over the wall, and eventually more of them would get into the open back door. They really didn't need to hold that part of the keep. It just wasn't smart to stay there.
"Fall back!" he ordered. "Everyone inside the hold. We're ceding the mustering grounds."
The men did as they were told, disengaging from the goblin riders and bolting for the heavy doors at the back of Zerith Hold. Purdun, Boughstrong, and Tammsel took up the rear, covering the retreat. They stood side by side, fighting slowly back, as the worgs and their goblin riders stalked forward, trying to get past and into the hold.
"Inside, now!" Purdun bolted for the opening.
The elf and the half-dragon followed suit, dashing into the waiting door, the goblin riders right on their heels.
The cry went up among the men: "Shut it!"
It moved slowly as they shoved. The heavy wood and iron door had been designed to be difficult to open and as a result was also difficult to close. The old iron hinges creaked and complained as they went, and the worgs clawed at the opening, their fang-filled snouts reaching inside for whatever they could grab hold of.
Soldiers stabbed at the snapping beasts and their riders. When one would retreat, another would take its place, blocking the door from fully closing.
"Put your back into it!" shouted Purdun. He squatted down and pushed with all his might, his shoulders pressed against the heavy wood and iron bands.
The door moved farther, banging into the worgs. They growled, tearing at the wood with their claws and fangs.
Their riders jabbed their swords into the opening, creating a further barrier to getting it closed.
"All together!" shouted Tammsel. "One, two, three-now!"
Everyone who wasn't pushing the door lunged at the opening with their weapons. Blades scissored over one another into the gap. Eyes were gouged out, teeth cut loose, and paws torn to shreds. The soldiers' collective attack forced the worgs back, and the last few inches of the gap were cleared out.
"Push!"
The men groaned, straining with all they had, and the door slammed closed.
The sound of the heavy wooden crossbeam sliding into place brought a wave of relief washing through Purdun, and he took a huge gulp of air. It felt good to rest, his back leaning against the solid old wood of the door. But there was still a battle to be fought, and a worg loose inside his home.
Pushing himself away from the door, he took off into the hold.
"Half of you stay here. The rest follow me." He waved the men after him as he bounded away, Boughstrong, Tammsel, and a host of soldiers right behind.
Moving down the stone hallway, the men peeled off one at a time, searching the rooms as they went. As they cleared them, they rejoined the group. It didn't take them long to search the entire army wing of the hold, and they continued on.
Reaching the entry, they found what they were looking for.
The worg stood its ground, growling at half a dozen pikemen who had it cornered in one of the formal dining rooms. The large table in the center had been turned over, and the dishes were in shards on the floor. The worg's goblin rider had been unseated and stood beside it, waving a short sword frantically back and forth.
The pikemen closed in on the pair slowly, backing them up against the wall. When the worg realized it was cornered, it panicked and leaped at the closest soldier, only to be gutted from throat to belly by the head of a pike.
Seeing its mount fall to the ground, its chest open wide, the goblin tried to skitter under the overturned table. It clawed at the cloth and detritus on the floor, but there was no room, and it too received a belly full of steel.
"I guess that takes care of that," said Purdun. "Well done, men."
Slipping his sword into its sheath, he took one last look at the ruined dining room, then headed out to take stock of the situation in the courtyard.
Outside, things had reached a relative calm. Archers on the wall occasionally lobbed arrows down on the goblins. Soldiers hurried back and forth on the lower level, tending to the wounded and collecting supplies. Bundles of bread and buckets of water were being passed around, as everyone took advantage of the break in the fighting to prepare for more of the same.
Purdun took a loaf of bread, tore it in thirds, and handed a piece to Tammsel and Boughstrong. "I wonder how long this will last."
Tammsel bit into the warm bread. "The food or the calm?"
The relative silence was broken by the sound of a thousand goblins talking all at once. Their voices rose to an excited frenzy. Then all went quiet.
Rysodyl Boughstrong bounded up the stairs to the archer's platform. He glanced down over the edge, then turned around, cupping his hands to his mouth.
"The goblin king has arrived!"
Lord Purdun hurried to the stairs, his half-steel dragon companion right behind him. Reaching the top of the crenellated wall, he looked down into the sea of goblins surrounding his keep. From the west, the goblin king approached, working his way down the road.
Easily three times the size of the second largest goblin on the battlefield, he shuffled to the top of the hill, seemingly in no hurry. In one massive fist he dragged behind him what looked like the throwing arm from a ruined trebuchet. It still had the basket attached to one end-a souvenir from a previous battle.
Even for a goblin, he was an ugly creature. His greenish skin stretched tight over rippling forearms and shoulders. He wore a collection of ragged furs, draped haphazardly over his chest and back. In some cases it looked as if the brute had done little more than bash a skunk over the head and tie its tail in with the rest of the refuse hanging from his body.
Warts covered his arms and forehead. His nose grew out from his face crooked and cocked, as if it had been broken and broken again, each time pushing out in a new direction. And a mop of stringy, greasy hair hung from the top of his head, flopping down his back, cascading over his shoulders, and getting caught under his feet as he trundled forward.
Over the hair, the goblin king sported a tarnished, twisted, and broken copper crown. It looked as if it may have at one time been the wheel of an elaborate coach. Whatever it had been in a previous life, it had seen a lot of fighting and had suffered for it.
A host of red-skinned guards rode beside him atop their worgs. They shoved aside the other goblins, clearing the way for their king. Those goblins that didn't move quickly enough were trampled underfoot or snapped to pieces in the mighty jaws of the worgs.
"So that's the famed King Ertyk Uhl," said Purdun, sizing up his opponent.
He'd heard much about the goblin king. Ertyk Uhl was the first to unite
the goblins of both the Kuldin and High Peaks. The resulting union had created the Starrock tribe, the group Purdun and the crusaders had been fighting in Duhlnarim for months. The war had gone on for nearly an entire year, but never before had the goblin king appeared in person.
When Ertyk Uhl reached the top of the hill, he stopped and turned to face his collected army. The goblin king raised his battle club high, then swung it toward Zerith Hold, the loose trebuchet basket flopping over and thudding to the ground in front of him.
The silence suddenly ended as the goblins all started chattering again at the same time. Large groups formed, each working intently on some collective goal. What that was remained to be seen.
Whatever they were doing, it wasn't attacking Zerith Hold, and it gave the crusaders another rare moment to stop and think. Heading back down into the courtyard, Purdun, Tammsel, and Boughstrong sat on the edge of a low stone wall to talk.
"This is never going to stop," started Purdun. "Now that their king is here, they are going to pound us day and night. They have the numbers to rest in shifts and keep us on the defensive until we break."
"I am glad to see that you have finally come to your senses," replied Tammsel. "It is time we abandon Zerith Hold. We have put up a good fight, but there is no sense in giving up lives here. We can live to fight another day, when we have more resources and on our own terms."
"I am not suggesting that we flee," replied Purdun. "There are too many of them, and they have us completely surrounded. Even if we were to make it out alive, where would we go? Back to Tethyr? We fought long and hard to separate ourselves from their rule, and now you want to simply go back and ask if we can return to their bosom?"
"Of course not," replied Tammsel. "We are a free nation, and I intend to keep it that way."
"Good." Purdun slapped the ranger on the shoulder, smiling.
"If you're not suggesting escape, then what are you suggesting?" asked Boughstrong.
"I am suggesting that we go on the offensive."
"On the offensive? Are you crazy?" denounced the elf. "The only advantage we have is this keep. These walls are all that has held back that nearly inexhaustible army of vermin. Why would we give that up?"
"We have to kill their king," defended Purdun. "Without him, they will break. They fear him. They push on to their deaths because we are less frightening than he. But if we kill him, if they see him fall in battle, they will fear us. They will lose their nerve and their discipline, and they will break and run." Purdun looked to his fellow crusaders. "We cannot kill them all. And if we try to wait them out, then I suspect we will not make it through the night. We have no choice. King Ertyk Uhl must die."
The elf and the half-steel dragon looked at each other, then at Lord Purdun.
"We are with you," they said in unison.
"Here it comes!"
The men in the courtyard scattered, running for cover.
Over the wall, the objects flew, screeching as they came. They smelled of rotten flesh and fungus.
The projectiles came crashing to the ground in the center of Zerith Hold-piles of High Peaks goblins. They had been hurled over the wall, swords in hand.
Purdun ran back to the archer's platform. There on the edge of the large hill, the goblins had managed to construct a pair of rickety catapults. They were loading batches of goblins onto the lever arm and hurling them over the wall.
Purdun turned away and ran back down the stairs. "To the portcullis!" he shouted.
The goblins had been tied together for their voyage over the defenses of Zerith Hold. When they landed, those on top had survived the crushing impact. Those who had been unlucky enough to end up on the bottom were little more than squished piles of flesh and broken bones.
The survivors cut themselves free and ran to the portcullis and the cranking mechanism that operated the doors and drawbridge. They swarmed over the handful of soldiers standing beside the door, knocking them down and beating them into the grounds- their screeches echoing off the stone walls.
Purdun and Tammsel arrived first, diving into the pile of squirming goblins-Purdun with his long sword, Tammsel with his silvery claws. The blood of their enemies flowed from the ends of their weapons, but for every goblin they cut down, two more came hurling over the wall.
"We've got to go now," said Purdun, turning and cutting the head from another goblin. "They can waste half their number throwing them over the wall, and we will still lose this fight." He came back again, cutting down two more goblins with a long, wide swing. "Eventually more are going to get inside, and all will be lost." He spun, slashing a yellow goblin across the chest, then turning and kicking another right in the groin, sending it to the ground, face first. "We have no choice. We need to surprise them. We need to kill their king, and we need to go now!"
Tammsel clawed his way through four goblins, one after the other, as he listened to his friend. Then he nodded. "I'm with you."
Purdun looked over the courtyard and spotted Boughstrong near the center, scissoring goblins to pieces before they could untangle themselves from their squished counterparts.
"We're going." Purdun motioned to the door. "Ready your men."
The elf simply nodded, finishing his gruesome work, then turning to speak with the soldiers standing nearby.
Purdun disengaged, taking two huge steps back. The goblins hissed at him, crouching and glaring. When he didn't make a move to attack, they skulked toward the portcullis and went about getting it open. Purdun let them do their work.
"Crusaders! Guardsmen! With me!" he shouted.
The goblins turned the huge wooden crank that rolled up the chain holding the portcullis. The massive iron gate began to grind open, lifting from the ground and exposing the heavy spikes on its bottom edge.
Purdun waited until it was high enough for him to duck underneath, then he made his move, leaving the relatively safe confines of Zerith Hold to take the fight to his enemy.
The drawbridge wasn't even all the way down before he and his men swarmed over. The unholy sea of goblins seethed below, waiting for the opportunity to flood into Zerith Hold. Their eyes grew large as they saw the lord of the keep come swooping down on them, riding the drawbridge like a mount into battle.
There was no time for Purdun to consider what he had gotten himself into. There was no room here for fear. As he came to the ground, he shouted a battle cry.
"For Erlkazar!"
And the killing began in earnest.
Purdun waded in, his sword blazing a trail through goblins and worgs alike. His men followed him into battle, screaming at the top of their lungs as they fell upon their victims. The ground before the drawbridge grew damp with blood, and the offensive surged forward.
So eager were the goblins to get inside the hold, that they pressed against one another, pushing and shoving to be the first in line-the first to be cut down. They filled the battlefield for as far as the eye could see. They stomped down the bushes and the small trees, covered up the stones and dirt on the ground, turning what seemed the whole world into a blur of yellow and red.
Archers on the platform high above rained down arrows, softening up the milling mob of goblins. Soldiers on the ground cut their way through the pressed flesh. All the while Purdun, Tammsel, and Boughstrong led the way.
They pushed out off the drawbridge, slowly working to the center of the goblin army. Worg riders swept in behind them, closing the circle and surrounding the advancing force as they had Zerith Hold.
They were cut off from any form of retreat, but that didn't matter. Retreat had never been an option.
King Ertyk Uhl bellowed something in his garbled, inarticulate language that incited his troops into a frenzy. The goblins surged forward, those in the back stampeding over those in the front. Their frenetic push hit the front line of human and elf soldiers, and they buckled, dividing them into two unequal groups. Purdun, Tammsel, and the bulk of the force remained intact, but Boughstrong was cut off, separated from the larger ar
my with a much smaller band of soldiers.
Goblins filled the gap like a wedge, further separating the two groups. There was no time to try to regroup, no room to maneuver. There was only fighting.
Purdun and Tammsel stood side by side at the front of the pack. Goblins came at them two and four at a time, and the cru shy;saders took them apart. They fought for their lives, fought for their home. But the goblin army was a nearly insurmountable force. They simply had the numbers, and though they died by the dozens, more and more piled into the empty spaces.
The men behind them grew tired. Their swords moved slower as their arms ran out of strength. As well trained as they were, there was a limit to how much any one man could take, and they were quickly getting to the threshold.
The ring of goblins around the soldiers constricted, and Purdun was forced back a step. A blade slipped in under his defenses, catching him just below his arm, right between the plates of his armor. He hissed and grabbed at his side. Blood covered his fingers, but there was little more to do than shake it off and continue fighting.
Beside him, Tammsel too was bleeding. He'd taken several wounds along the arms and had a good gash on the left side of his face. There may have been other wounds, but Purdun couldn't see them through the goblin flesh dripping from the half-steel dragon's claws.
Surrounded, outnumbered, outside the walls of Zerith Hold, and not making any progress toward their goal, things were looking grim. Then out of the corner of his eye, Purdun caught sight of Boughstrong. He and his men had managed to slip out from the middle of the mob, and they approached the top of the large hill-and King Ertyk Uhl.
"Up there," shouted Purdun, hoping that the sight of the elf nearing the goal would rally his troops. "It's Boughstrong." He pointed over the heads of the goblins at the crusader and his men.
A cheer went up behind Purdun and Tammsel as a renewed surge of vigor swept through them.
Boughstrong's men had lost half their own number, but they had reached the goblin king. With military precision, they cut through Ertyk Uhl's worg rider retinue, clearing a path to their target.