Realms of War

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 army 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.

Boughstrong himself stepped up to the goblin king, his blades poised, ready to strike. From a distance, the green-skinned leader of the Starrock tribe looked quite large. But standing next to the muscular elf, Ertyk Uhl looked abso shy;lutely huge.

Boughstrong cut into the hulking goblin with four quick attacks. His blades struck the king dead center in the chest, sending chunks of foul fur flying in all directions. Ertyk Uhl looked down on the elf with his goopy, half-closed eyes, as if he'd just noticed a fly buzzing around his nose. Then, with a sigh and a heave, the goblin king came down on Boughstrong with his war club. The basket of the ruined trebuchet picked up speed as it came over the goblin's enor shy;mous shoulder, and catapulted over the top of the lever arm, hitting its target.

Boughstrong's head disappeared between his shoulders, pounded down through his neck and into his chest. The elf's arms went limp, and his whole body fell sideways-he was killed instantly from the impact. The goblin king kicked the corpse down the hill, watching it roll into a pile of dead worgs.

Purdun felt his stomach seize up, then drop. He could sense the energy and vigor draining from the men, watching their friend-and their best hope for success-fail and fall.

Behind him, the call went up: 'Zerith Hold has fallen!'

Purdun turned to see the portcullis all the way up and the drawbridge covered with scurrying red and yellow bodies. He could see into the courtyard to the doors beyond. The goblins had reached the entry and filled the hallways. His home was lost. All he had fought for was gone.

A sharp pain brought him back to the battle-a worg clamping down on his arm. With the hilt of his sword, Purdun smashed the beast in the back of the head, pounding the heavy metal against the creature's skull. Then another bit down on his leg. Growling and snapping, it tore at his shin and calf.

Tammsel appeared out of the fray, grabbing hold of both worgs with his powerful claws and trying to pry them loose. But the more they struggled, the more the creatures' fangs dug past Purdun's armor and into his flesh. He thrashed from side to side, trying to break free of the worgs. Then his ears were filled with a jarring snap. His body shuddered in pain and his vision went white.

A calm settled over the Lord of Zerith Hold, and he felt his fatigued body slip backward. His leg was broken, his shoulder dislocated, and he bled from several dozen teeth wounds. He could hear the screams of the people inside Zerith Hold as the entire goblin army rushed through the gates.

He looked up at Tammsel. His friend had a look of utter determination on his face. Nothing was going to stop him. If anyone was going to make it out of this alive, it would be Jivam Tammsel. Purdun considered himself lucky to have counted the half-steel dragon among his friends.

As he fell onto his back, the worgs let go. Tammsel managed to pull them away, tossing one back into the thinning press of goblins-and tearing the other to shreds with his bare hands. Everything seemed to slow, and the battle swirling around Zerith Hold came almost to a standstill.

In the near distance, trumpets sounded. Purdun wasn't sure if they were really there or if he'd imagined them as he drifted off into unconsciousness. Turning his head he looked up the hill to see horses riding into view.

Atop the lead horse, Purdun recognized a familiar face, and hope returned him from the brink.

'Korox!' he breathed, sitting up and holding his torn shoulder against his body with his good arm.

King Valon Morkann and his crusader son Korox had returned, riding triumphantly at the head of fifty men. But it was not the men who were going to save Zerith Hold. It was the five-hundred Shieldbreaker Ogres who marched behind them.

Each ogre was easily the same size as the goblin king. Filthy, ugly creatures, they wore tattered cow hides and bits of scavenged metal with improvised spikes jutting out at odd angles. Many carried broken tree trunks or large rocks in their massive hands. Others wielded the bones of dead animals or the occasional rusty steel sword.