Realms of War

'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 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 cru­saders 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.