Back at Gilead Castle, King Sturdy Axe had expected the enemy to hit the Stable Hall first, so he had the catapult positioned on the east gap. He was wrong. The goblins came through the west gap and rushed the Stone Market Hall.

Dwarves positioned on the wall above the gap pushed several rocks and timbers down onto the attackers when they entered the kingdom. The falling debris crushed several goblins, but barely slowed the attack.

Young Commander Frothy Stump was prepared for them. He and his dwarven warriors allowed the goblins to enter the Stone Market Hall and rushed at them from all sides once they entered the largest room on the first floor. Red and green blood mixed on the stone floor as both goblins and dwarves fell.

A tall skinny yorg, heavily scarred from past battles, charged the dwarf commander and chopped off Frothy Stump’s right arm with an axe. The dwarves fell back to the stairway, carrying their wounded leader, and retreated to the next floor.

One of the warriors tied off Commander Frothy Stump’s wound as best he could. The surviving sixteen dwarves waited at the top of the stairway for the goblins. They did not have to wait long.

The tall yorg came first, swinging his bloody axe. A dwarf with a crossbow shot the goblin leader in the shoulder and was rewarded with an axe blow to his head. Six goblin underlings raced past the yorg and engaged the nearest dwarves.

Frothy Stump charged the tall yorg, using his one arm to strike it in the head with his war hammer, which knocked the beast down. The goblin leader recovered quickly, jumping back to its feet.

The creature shook his head as if he were dizzy, then swung his axe at Frothy Stump. The axe buried itself into the dwarf’s knee, causing the commander to grunt in pain. 

Frothy Stump swung his hammer in retaliation and struck the tall yorg in the temple, sending it to the ground again. The dwarf jumped on top of the creature, axe still sticking out of his knee.

With his one arm he bashed the yorg’s head in with several hammer blows, causing green blood to cover the walls. The goblins retreated back down the stairs after their leader fell.

Commander Frothy Stump looked about and realized that he only had three dwarves left, all of whom were wounded. They were too injured to attack back down the stairway and would not be able to repel the goblins again when they came.

Frothy Stump decided to abandon the stairway, so he and his bleeding trio of warriors retreated to a storage closet at the far corner of the second floor. The room was small and gave them the best chance of defense.

Frothy Stump pulled the axe from his knee and the blood began flowing freely. One of his dwarves had been hit in the head with an axe and was missing an ear. Half of his face was covered in blood.

Another had been stabbed in the stomach, while the fourth had internal damage from a war hammer strike. The four dwarves sat against the wall facing the door and waited for the goblins to come.

The leaderless goblins hesitated, spending a lot of time at the top of the stairs, arguing about what rooms to check first. Then they bickered about who would go in first.

Once they finally cleared a room, the whole process would start all over again. They moved from room to room very slowly. More than six hours passed before the gaggle of goblins entered the closet.

Once in, they found four dead dwarves sitting in a large pool of blood against the far wall. All had bled to death. They still held their weapons, as if eternally prepared to defend their post. The Black Eye Tribe had taken the Stone Market Hall.

                                                 *     *     *

In another faltering kingdom, Lord Prince Jayden peered out from various parapet holes along the inner wall of Frontier Fortress. I wonder from which direction the goblins will attack, he thought.  His curly brown hair was matted with sweat and dirt, and he had black smudges on his face from fighting the fires set by Titra. 

Large sections of the outer wall were still smoldering where the red dragon had burnt the great cedar logs to the ground. He could see the mighty Skull Crusher army encircled around Frontier Fortress and knew that they would be coming soon.

A couple of nearby crossbowmen had also been looking out of the gaps, until one let out a groan and fell backwards, dead. An arrow, with a black shaft and red feathers, was sticking out of his eye.

He had been shot through the hole that he had been peeking out of. Prince Jayden wondered what kind of goblin could fire an arrow at such a great distance? Regardless, Jayden stopped peeking.

Lord Godog, a short man known to be quite grumpy, had assumed command of the Catapult Tower after King Quaid had taken up position with the archers on the inner wall surrounding Hogarth Hall.

That morning, the king had sent several catapult rounds into the mouth of Frontier Pass, which was one of the preset notches set on the war machine. Now his crew was firing rock after rock at the formations of goblins that surrounded the fortress, attempting to disrupt the upcoming attack.

The rhythm of the boo gah drums intensified, creating anticipation as they built to a rapid crescendo, and upon reaching a peak they abruptly stopped in unison. Then they came. By the thousands.

Lord Prince Jayden no longer needed to wonder from what direction they would attack. Skull Crushers poured in thru all four breaches, attacking from all directions. It looked like a green wave coming to wash away the men of Frontier Fortress!

While the men were distracted, Ladicrum the Brown pounced. He landed on top of the Catapult Tower, immediately chomping on an unlucky captain. The mighty brown dragon kicked the catapult with one of his muscular hind legs, which sent it toppling off the roof to the cobblestone below, where it smashed into ruin.

“Take him down!” Lord Godog shouted while charging the brown monstrosity, shoving his short sword into the creature’s side three times before the brown dragon grabbed him and tore him in half with his strong claws.

The dragon followed that up by sweeping the tower clean with his deadly spiked ball tail, knocking off the remaining defenders, who fell thirty feet to their deaths on the cobblestone below. Ladicrum the Brown settled onto his newly captured perch to watch the battle unfolding down below.

Several wooden structures were scattered about between the inner and outer walls. Goblin warriors ran from building to building, engaging men wherever they found them, pushing them back towards Hogarth Hall.

“Hold men! Hold!”, one of the newer captains, a man named Sork could be heard shouting, while defending the largest storehouse on the north end, with over a hundred warriors. They fought valiantly, repelling two goblin attacks, before they were finally forced to make a break for Hogarth Hall.

“To the Hall!” Captain Sork shouted as he led his thirty remaining men towards the stronghold, fighting Skull Crushers all the way. The captain was struck by a goblin arrow less than twenty feet from the Hogarth gate, and died. About twenty of his warriors managed to make it through the gate into the temporary safety of the hall.

Elderly Lord Disroy, commander of the City Patrol, also made a break for Hogarth Hall with his men. They cleared a path through the goblins, losing about twenty of his sixty warriors, before they reached the last stronghold. Most of them arrived wounded.

The last man to make it through the gate was the heavy Lord Sibbs. He was alone, having lost all his men in a battle at the armory. He had two goblin arrows sticking out of the back of his left shoulder and bore a bloody bruise across his temple where he had been head-butted.

“Bar the gate! Bar the gate!!” Sibbs groaned out when he came in, leaning against a nearby wall.

The gate slammed shut behind the chunky lord, alerting the men inside that nobody else would be coming. The fierceness of the goblin attack had overrun most of their courtyard positions rather quickly. Yet, there were still men outside.

One was Lord Prince Jayden who had run from Hogarth Hall. He planned to continue to man his tower, because even though they had lost the ballista, he still had a sturdy group of archers at his disposal.

He would rather have died at his father’s side, but knew that they could still do some damage to the enemy from this high position. He slew two goblin underlings as he made it to the tower. Once his men let him in, they bolted the door and made their way to the roof.

The four buildings nearest Jayden’s tower were held by the twenty remaining Horse Warriors, although only a couple of them still had horses. Lord Morris had two lords and four captains with him. There were also twenty warriors from the Main Gate House hiding alongside them.

A hundred or so goblins charged the door at the bottom of Lord Prince Jayden’s tower. As soon as they busted down the door, Lord Morris and the men with him sprung out and attacked the enemy force from behind. 

With Jayden’s men helping, they killed every single one of the enemy attackers. The remaining defenders took refuge inside Jayden’s tower, which was quickly surrounded by a couple hundred Skull Crushers.

The goblins busied themselves fortifying their newly captured buildings and spent the rest of the day exchanging arrows with the men on the inner wall platforms and the tower. They had the men bottled up and were in no hurry to finish them off.

Lord Prince Jayden could see his father standing on one of the inner wall platforms. He gave him a thumbs up to show that he was okay. His father returned the gesture.

Darkness fell on the Frontier Fortress of Kaylor, but the remaining defenders could not sleep. They knew that tomorrow would be their last day breathing the fresh air of the Glen. Tomorrow they would surely die.

                                                           *     *     *

King Haven lay flat on the palace roof trying not to die, covering his head while the building shook from another direct hit by the giants. The huge men had arrived late this morning, but were making up for lost time.

Dust hung thick in the air, and he could hear a woman screaming from somewhere inside the palace. The barrage was so intense, it almost seemed as if it were raining boulders. His thoughts were punctuated by a thunderous crash that sounded in the distance.

If King Haven could have looked, which he couldn’t, he would have seen that the West Market had collapsed, killing all thirty men defending there. The giants had turned another of his buildings to rubble.

Just when the attack seemed like it would never end, the bombardment suddenly stopped. The king could not believe his eyes once he was finally able to survey the damage.

The palace had been hit several more times, causing new gaping holes in both the east and west walls. The Dining Hall, East Market, and Stable all had new damage. The complete destruction of the West Market was not the worst of it.

Both of the eastern barricades, the last ones held by men, had been devastated. King Haven could see the bodies of his men sprawled all over the two mounds, with very little of the actual barricades left.

A handful of men stationed there had survived and were now making their way through the rubble towards the palace. Their faces looked drawn and haggard. Most of them were wounded.

One of the archers on the roof tapped King Haven on the shoulder and pointed towards the goblin territory to the west. It took a moment for the king to see what the man was pointing at.

The Bone Breakers were on the move, running past the palace into the east side of town. Over two hundred of them were rushing by, dodging the arrows that were now being fired at them from the palace roof. A few of them did not make it.

Sixty goblin archers broke off from the main body and took up positions in the rubble of the destroyed West Market. Soon, they were engaging the twenty or so crossbowmen and archers who had survived the bombing on the roof of the East Market. The rest of the goblins continued east, breaking into two groups.

A very fat yorg led a hundred goblins into the stables, and a second, even fatter yorg led the rest into the shell of the bank. He had to have been the fattest goblin that Haven had ever seen. The sounds of battle erupted all over the eastside of Trader Town. It was the beginning of the end.

King Haven watched the archery battle unfold, with the goblins quickly overwhelming the men on top of the East Market. They died fast, but took about twenty Bone Breakers with them. The king then turned his attention towards the stables where he could see some terrible activity.

A black man covered in blood, it appeared to be Captain Borno, staggered out of one of the horse pen doors. He had a short sword run through him, buried to the hilt in his chest, with the blade protruding out of his back. He made it a few steps, before a goblin followed him out of the same door and dropped him with an arrow. Obviously, the stables had fallen.

Next, smoke caught his attention. The numerous goblins surrounding the Dining Hall had set it on fire. The five or six archers left on the rooftop held their ground, firing arrow after arrow at their attackers, even as the flames licked up the sides of the wooden walls and danced around their feet.

The archers killed about forty goblins before the fire consumed them, along with the building. King Haven could see a couple of men still firing their bows, even while they were burning alive, then smoke covered the scene.

The king instinctively touched the half of his face that had been scarred by fire so many years before. Now the bank shell was the only defended position on the east side of town still held by men, although not for long.

Haven had a good view of the bank due to the roof and walls being destroyed. Lord Zoot and his eighteen men put up a great fight, pushing the goblins back twice, and had even killed the big fat yorg. 

Then the muscular yorg with the red X cut into his chest arrived. He launched the black shafted spear with the red head at Lord Zoot. Perhaps he could have dodged it, if he hadn’t had a goblin arrow still stuck in his knee.

As it was, the gruesome spear tore through the red dragon emblem on his blood covered blue shield and entered his body, pinning the man to a timber post near the now missing front door of the bank.

Lord Zoot struggled to get free for several moments, while the rest of his men fell to the goblins. The red X yorg walked over to the pinned lord and pulled the spear loose, dropping the wounded man to the ground on his back.

Lord Zoot reached for his sword, which lay nearby, only to have the muscular yorg step on his wrist. The fierce yorg shook his head back and forth, as if telling the hapless man “no”, then stepped on Lord Zoot’s chest. The yorg sliced the man’s head off with the razor-sharp foot long head of the red and black spear.

Holding Zoot’s decapitated head up towards the palace rooftop, the red X yorg shouted in broken man tongue, “Now it’s our turn to take your heads!”

Lord Zobo responded by firing the catapult at the newly fallen east side of town. He used his last few boulders to flatten the East Market. Then his crew began firing anything that they could find, including large chunks of marble, blocks, and even some statues, before they were finally able to push the goblins away from the bank, which was now rubble. King Haven felt that it was a sad ending to the only such establishment in the Glen. 

Once the battles died down, he could hear men screaming from Barracks Two, where Lord Flint and his men had disappeared the night before. It sounded like they were being tortured by the goblins and it lasted for over an hour before the city grew quiet.

The sun set with the palace being the very last stronghold of men in Trader Town. King Haven sat on his palace roof that night, wearily watching the goblin campfires that surrounded his position.