King Sturdy Axe signaled for another round of fire from the catapult. Two seconds later, a large stone rocketed through the air and pounded the goblins that were charging through the breach in the west wall.

The big rock landed on two of them, and bouncing through the opening, killed another three of four. Still, the foul ilk continued to pour into Gilead Castle, which had not been breached in centuries.

Ephraim the Black had struck earlier that morning, spraying first the west wall, and then the east wall with his destructive acid. The two walls had begun to hiss and bubble while the acid ate through stone.

Both ballistae crews had scored hits with their weighted bolts, leaving man length chains hanging from the black dragon’s flanks. The plan seemed to work, because after swooping in to eat a few crossbow dwarves, the dragon had left, tiring quickly.

Quiet followed. For the next several hours the dwarves watched helplessly while the acid burned through the east and west walls. Each now had a good thirty-foot gap opened into the kingdom. The dwarves quickly emptied supplies from the newly exposed rooms inside of the walls.

Boo gah drums had initiated the current attack, beating frightfully close, and now the green enemy was rushing through both gaps. Black Eye archers, at least a hundred through each opening, took up positions just inside the courtyard, and engaged the dwarven crossbow warriors on the nearby walls.

The missile fire battle lasted for several minutes before King Sturdy Axe ordered his fighters to take cover. The dwarves had the upper hand due to their higher positions, but again, they were highly outnumbered by the goblin archers.

The enemy archers outside the walls had started firing, randomly over the walls, adding to the confusion in the courtyard. Over half of the Black Eye goblins who ran into Gilead were now dead, but so were forty more crossbow dwarves.

The remaining goblin archers found whatever cover they could, just inside the gaps, then one of them began beating a boo gah drum. This signaled a large yorg and about eighty goblin underlings to run past the archers holding the west gap and into the nearest building, which was the Stone Market.

A second horde of eighty Black Eye warriors ran through the east gap and attacked the Stable Hall. King Sturdy Axe watched the battle from high above and could not believe how organized the green foe was.

The tough old dwarf king could not see what was happening inside of the buildings, but the battle sounds were fierce. They continued for nearly twenty minutes, before a handful of goblin warriors retreated from the Stone Market Hall. The young Commander Frothy Stump signaled from an upper window that he had only lost a handful of dwarves.

The story in the Stable Hall wasn’t as clear. Another hour passed, with the sounds of battle in that building starting and stopping on several occasions, until finally, the portly Commander Teak Tumbler could be seen in one of the lower windows.

He was bleeding from a head wound that had matted his black beard red. He also had a goblin dagger sticking straight up out of his shoulder, buried to the hilt. The fight inside the stable had been ferocious.

The wounded commander signaled he only had ten warriors left and all the Black Eye attackers were dead. Commander Teak Tumbler gave a weak wave towards the Command Tower and then disappeared from sight.

The Stable Hall would not survive a second wave and the dwarf king had nobody left to reinforce them. Teak Tumbler and his forces were on their own. Everyone left was, for that matter.

The remaining couple of hours of daylight saw little action, except for the occasional minor exchange of arrows and bolts in the area of the breached walls. This usually ended with the death of a goblin or dwarf.

The catapult crew launched a couple of shots towards the goblins camped outside the walls, just before the sun went down. Ominously, night fell over Gilead. The silence of the dead was a grim reminder of the day’s events.

                                                         *     *     *

Just below Trader Town, on the trail that led into the pass that climbed to Commerce Field, Lord Grey and his men were riding for Hogarth Hills. They were seeking refuge and resupply at Trader Town. The last men on the Upper Glen had endured a difficult morning. It had all started when they had come across some strange prints

The footprints were very similar to that of the claw marks of a yule, only larger. Both Lord Turk and Lord Bone had thought them to be those of a dragon, but that didn’t make sense. The bald Turk had pulled at his long moustache, trying to figure this out. Dragons could fly, so why would one walk so far?

The tracks went from the west to the east, staying down in the Upper Glen, following the base of Hogarth Hills. Lord Grey was concerned and curious about this new threat, so he decided that his patrol would track the creature and see what it was. The sixteen men had tracked the unknown threat for the first half of the day, with a young warrior named Fen in the lead. 

They had not seen Titra the Red until she pounced. The sleek, twenty-five-footer, literally jumped from her hiding place in some thick brush where she had been crouching. The red dragon had swallowed Fen in two gulps and then ripped his yule open with her sharp claws.

Lords Turk and Bone, who had been right behind Fen, raced forward only to have their yules swept out from under them by the dragon’s long tail. Titra advanced, and with one swipe of her claw, killed Lord Grey’s yule.

Lord Grey managed to strike the red dragon in the side with his sword, but it had little effect. He noticed she had an odd, slighty blue magical glow. The dragon killed two more yules, before the archers managed to score a couple of good hits that penetrated her scales.

Lord Turk had also wounded the red dragon with his sword after charging it from behind and striking her on the underbelly. The dragon responded by turning her mighty head and snaping at the lord. Her teeth tore through his large brown shield and sank into Turk’s chainmail.

Amazingly, the armor protected him from major injury, although the dragon had left a five-inch tooth stuck in the chainmail. After the battle, Lord Turk had made a necklace out of the tooth and was currently wearing it. The bald man had been very lucky.

The red dragon, apparently not liking the odds, opened her mouth and spewed a line of fire into the grass between her and the men. This created a fire wall between them, which she used to cover her retreat. They last saw the red dragon running south.

Lord Grey had been perplexed as to why she hadn’t taken flight, where she could have easily picked them off one by one. Of course, the men didn’t know it, but she couldn’t.

They were lucky that they had only lost one man, although the beast had killed several yules. They were very fortunate that the red dragon had fled, or they may have all been on foot.

The men had to unload the pack yules so that they had mounts to ride. Leaving most of the supplies behind was an easy decision, because tracking the dragon had taken them close to Trader Town. They decided to go there to pick up some yules from the animal stables and to get fresh supplies.

That is what had brought the patrol to the foot of the trail leading up to Commerce Field. Lord Grey wanted to warn the men of Trader Town about the red dragon. King Wilsom could then warn the rest of the kingdoms about the new threat.

Lord Grey slowed the patrol down and started to proceed more cautiously. He was aware that Frontier Fortress was most likely under attack, and it was quite possible that Trader Town may have their own goblin army to deal with. Still, they needed mounts and supplies.

The riders followed the trail into Barters Pass that led up into Hogarth Hills. The trail became steeper, and when they rounded the first bend, they came face to face with a giant.

The scraggly creature was laying on his side, across the path, with his head resting in his hand that was propped up on an elbow. The giant was making a good deal of noise snoring and snorting while it breathed.

This is surreal, Lord Grey though, doubting his own eyes. Goblins, dragons, and now giants! This truly was the end of men in the Glen. Lord Grey found himself wondering if any men had ever fought all three before in the same day. Then the giant sat up and stretched his arms high into the air.

“Charge!” Lord Grey yelled, rushing forward with his men following close behind.

The giant rose to his feet at a speed that seemed impossible for a creature that came to a full nineteen feet tall. The beast let out a very loud bellow and grabbed a large wooden club, swinging it at the riders. It bashed in the first two yule heads that it came into contact with. Then the monster stomped on the two warriors who had fallen from the dead mounts.

Lord Grey pulled a spear from his saddle bag and shoved it into the giant’s upper thigh. Lords Turk and Bone followed suit, spearing the hairy creature in the opposite thigh, while their yules instinctively danced back and forth, avoiding the swinging wooden club.

A captain rushed in to help, but accidentally got too close. The giant whacked the man with his club, sending him flying thirty feet into the air. Lord Grey didn’t see where the unfortunate captain had landed, because he was too busy ducking a club blow.

The archers joined in, striking the giant several times in the mid-section, penetrating the pelts that it was wearing. The beast bellowed out again, while trying to back up, only to be charged on by the three mounted lords with spears.

Grey and Bone shoved their spears deep into his thighs, while Lord Grey slung his spear with all his might, scoring a direct hit on the giant. The spear buried itself about two feet deep into the giant’s throat, sending blood spurting out.

The giant let out a gurgling sound and fell forward onto his knees, obviously in distress. Still, the creature managed to bring his mighty fist down on top of Lord Bone and his yule, crushing them into a bloody mangled pile of flesh. The giant flailed about for a moment longer, while the men continued to hit him with spears and arrows, and then fell forward on his face, motionless.

Lord Turk rode up to the large body and poked it with his spear a couple of times, shouting, “We felled the mighty beast!” When it failed to move, he turned to Lord Grey, and breaking into a large grin, gave a thumbs up.

Then a large boulder came bouncing down the trail and knocked the bald Lord Turk’s yule out from under him. More boulders followed, knocking several archers from their mounts. Lord Grey could see a coven of angry giants coming down Barters Pass, stopping only to grab and hurl a boulder now and then.

“Run!” Lord Grey shouted and turned his yule around, noting that he was the last man with a mount, before everything went dark.

Lord Grey had no idea how much time had passed when he came to, laying in a ditch at the side of the pass. He sat up and wiped a trickle of blood from his forehead. What in the stars happened? Something dismounted me, but I don’t know what.

A giant with a scarred face ran past him and clubbed a dismounted archer to death. Lord Grey realized he must have been knocked from his saddle by one of the boulders and mistaken for dead by the passing giants.

He caught a glimpse of Lord Turk fighting a sixteen-footer that wore an eye patch. The creature had a gruesome looking spear and was poking at the man, who was trying his best to dodge the attacks.

Lord Turk sliced the giant across the knee, twice, then mis-stepped which resulted in him catching the giant’s spear through his stomach. The monster broke out into a horrid grin and lifted the bald lord, who was still struggling, high off the ground.

The one-eyed giant licked his lips and hoisted Lord Turk to his face, staring at him with his one good blood shot eye, as if he were studying a tasty snack. Lord Turk had dropped his sword when he got speared.

The man reached for anything that he could find, grasping the five-inch dragon tooth that hung around his neck. He yanked it free and plunged it deep into the center of the giant’s one good eye.

The giant screamed in pain, dropping the man and spear onto the ground. The beast began to dance about in pain, smashing Lord Turk to mush with his huge feet.

The wounded giant pulled the dragon tooth out of his eye, which caused another earth-shattering scream, and then ran south down the pass. The blind beast banged into the sheer side of the rocky pass and headed out into the open fields of the Upper Glen.

Lord Grey could no longer see anyone else in his squad, but saw several giants nearby, clubbing the ground. Pained screams told him his men were all dying.

The once meticulously groomed lord began to crawl away, using the mud-filled ditch as cover, to escape the mayhem. With any luck, maybe I just might get away.