Paul Kemp - Realms of War

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.

"To the hold!" shouted King Valon, and the men rode into battle, their unlikely allies right behind.

Mass panic broke out among the goblin raiders. King Ertyk Uhl let out what sounded like a strangled wail, then he fled the battlefield, lumbering off the same way he had come. A dozen ogres padded after him, their footfalls shaking the ground as they chased the goblin king.

Spotting Purdun and Tammsel on the ground, Korox kicked his horse and pounded into the fray. He swung his sword like a mallet, in long, looping circles, taking the heads from three goblins as he made his way to the crusaders.

Reaching his friends, he leaped from his horse, sending the goblins and worgs scattering.

"No luck in Tethyr, I gather?" asked Tammsel, eyeing the fifty riders making their way to the drawbridge. "At least you got away with your life."

Korox shook his head. "We didn't go to Tethyr," replied the newest prince of Erlkazar. "My father managed to negotiate help a little closer to home."

The battle wasn't over, but it was clear the tide had changed. Without their king, the goblins were in disarray, and they scattered before the ogre forces.

Korox and Tammsel helped lift Purdun back to his feet, hefting his weight between the two of them.

"How did you manage to get the ogres to agree to an alliance?" asked Purdun, wincing from the pain in his shoulder.

"Turns out they hate the goblins even more than we do," replied Korox. "Come on. This fight's not over yet, and we need to get you fixed up before it is."

And the men left the battlefield to begin preparations for retaking Zerith Hold.

The Year of the Serpent (1359 DR)

"Wake."

The side of Gethred's face stung, and there was a high-pitched ringing in his ears.

"Wake."

He felt it on the other cheek this time. Someone slapped him. Hard.

"Open your eyes or I cut the lids off. Now."

The voice was deep and had the precise pronun shy;ciation of one not used to speaking Common.

Gethred opened his eyes and winced. A meager gray light suffused the gloom, but even that was enough to stab through to the center of his head. He groaned and tried to reach for his forehead. His hands didn't move, so he tried harder, and he felt the bite of rope cutting into his arms.

Massive hands grabbed him by the shoulders, hauled him into a sitting position, then let go. Gethred fell back, and his head bounced off a stone wall. He cried out and squeezed his eyes shut.

"I said open your eyes."

Gritting his teeth, Gethred forced his eyes to open.

The gray light wrapped around the edges of a massive figure standing before him. In the gloom, the man seemed as tall as an ogre. Standing between Gethred and the source of light, the man's features were hidden, but he could make out a great mass of hair, though where it ended and the man's clothes began, Gethred could not tell. The man dressed all in skins and furs. Most wise. So near the edge of the open steppe at the base of the mountains, the winter cold could kill quicker than the Horde.

Around the massive man Gethred could see what only the most magnanimous man ever born would have graced to call a hovel. It was a cave, dry but far from clean, with only the barest signs of human habitation-a few hide blankets, a pack, and a smattering of bones. Bits of flesh still clung to one wolf skull.

The man nudged Gethred with his boot and said, "Who are you?"

"Just a starving, half-frozen traveler," said Gethred.

The man crouched, and the sound he made sounded half sigh and half growl. "You're a liar. You're no Rashemi, and Westerners don't wander these foothills with no supplies. But you're no Thayan by your coloring. You're a mystery. A mystery I don't care to solve. You robbed my trap. Why?"

"The wolf was suffering."

"So were you."

"I only wanted to show another creature a little kindness before I lay down to die."

"Hmph. You had your first wish. I'll grant your second." A moment's silence, then, "You don't know them, then?"

"Them?"

The man just crouched there, watching. Gethred squinted and tried to make out the man's features. He could not. But the stench he emitted said enough.

"If you lie," said the man, "I'll hurt you before you die. Hurt you a long time."

"Lie?" said Gethred. "About what? I… don't understand."

The man took a deep breath through his nose. "You hold your tongue, but I can sense you're hiding something. I smell it. But you don't hold the stink of the shen gusen. And you're a man. Magic, then?"