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—
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.'
