Commander Dirty Dog pulled the goblin arrow from his left arm. It hurt terribly, and blood began to flow freely towards his hand, where it eventually began to drip onto the rooftop floor of Bronze Helm Hall.

The dwarf busied himself wiping blood from his short sword, only this blood was green. The dwarven commander could feel a sharp sting in his back and realized he had another arrow sticking out of his chainmail there.

He reached around, and yanked the foul goblin barb loose, causing even more pain. After fighting the urge to pass out, he contemplated their situation, not believing how quickly they were being destroyed.

The goblins had rushed into the hall, nearly four hundred strong, about an hour after first light. The fighting had been fierce, lasting for over an hour, and cost the commander about half of his defenders. Still, they had left two hundred of the enemy dead, in the wake of their retreat from the first floor.

Dirty Dog had reorganized his remaining warriors and made another stand on the second floor, where the supplies were located. Once again, the dwarves had left many dead goblins behind, until they were forced up to the third floor.

Here they fired several crossbows into the advancing goblins coming up the stairs. In response, the enemy threw spears and fired arrows back. Once the dwarves had exhausted their pile of weapons, they didn’t waste time reloading them. They retreated to the roof.

When they reached the sunlight, only two warriors still stood with their commander, although the three of them had various wounds. The dwarves on the rooftop patched them up as best they could.

Now the enemy could be heard, chittering from the third floor, while others shot arrows onto the rooftop from the courtyard below. Dirty Dog felt trapped like a rat on a sinking vessel.

The exchange of arrows and bolts must have been going on since the attack on Bronze Helm Hall had started, because only twenty of Dirty Dog’s forty crossbow dwarves still lived, and most of those were also wounded.

“We thought you dead for sure,” a dwarf with two arrows sticking out of his right shoulder exclaimed, happy to see his commander.

“Would be if the gobs had their way!” Dirty Dog laughed, then with a serious tone said, “I don’t think it will be long now.”

“Aye,” the wounded dwarf responded. “But I could pick no better dwarves to die fighting beside.”

A fat yorg and forty goblins interrupted the conversation by rushing onto the roof, where they were quickly met by dwarf steel. Commander Dirty Dog made quick work of the overweight goblin leader, only to have his left hand chopped off with a hatchet wielded by a goblin underling. A crossbow bolt dropped the offending goblin.

Dirty Dog shoved his bleeding stump into the coals of a nearby fire barrel and after gritting through the pain, returned to the fight, swinging a hand axe he grabbed off a dead comrade. I can’t have myself bleeding to death before I finish off a few more of these gobs!

The battle raged on for another twenty minutes, before all of the attacking goblins had been killed. The commander was surprised to see that he still had five crossbow dwarves standing, although all were bleeding from deep wounds.

The dwarf that he had been talking to before the attack, bandaged the bloody burnt stump, where his leader’s hand had once been. Dirty Dog couldn’t help but notice that the dwarf now had four goblin arrows stuck in his right shoulder.

The bloody, oily, disheveled Dirty Dog took a seat on the top step of the stairway that led down into the darkness of the lower floors. He ordered the men to load as many crossbows as they could carry.

He had a crazy idea. Mad in fact! The dwarf commander planned to surprise the enemy by attacking down into the hall. It will be suicide, of course, but we’re already dead anyways.

Dirty Dog gave the order and the six remaining defenders of Bronze Helm Hall rushed headlong down the stairway, shooting crossbows, and discarding them as they went.

They caught the enemy by surprise, dropping many of the green foe before they could react on the third floor. Several of the Black Eyes scattered into the darkness when the dwarves reached the second floor.

Once they arrived at the stairway to the first floor, they were jumped by a yorg and ten underlings. The goblin leader managed to axe down the crossbow dwarf with the four arrows in his shoulder, before he was gutted by Dirty Dog.

The remaining dwarves slashed through the rest of the goblins, surprisingly only losing one more of their own. The last four defenders reloaded some crossbows and charged down the stairway to the first floor.

Commander Dirty Dog and the three remaining crossbow dwarves entered the main hall, where they could see sunlight in the distance pouring through the opening of the entry way, where the iron doors lay torn asunder.

Between them and the doorway lay several wooden tables and beds turned on their sides. The four dwarves cautiously took a step forward, and for one brief moment, Dirty Dog thought that they might have held the hall.

Goblin archers, twenty in total, popped up from behind the beds and tables and fired an intense volley of deadly arrows at the dwarves. His three crossbow dwarves fired randomly as they fell dead. Two of the bolts harmlessly struck tables while the third wounded a Black Eye archer in the arm.

Dirty Dog raised his axe with his one good arm and managed to take a step forward before he felt something knock him backwards. He looked down at his chest and saw three goblin arrows protruding from the chainmail.

Then a black and red boomerang struck him in the head and knocked him onto his back, before returning to its owner. The last twenty attackers had defeated them.

“The three great halls of Gilead have fallen,” the dwarf commander whispered, and then with a sigh, died.

                                                                          *     *     *

The kingdoms of men and dwarves were not fighting the enemy alone. As the goblin threat flowed south, soon the three elven tree kingdoms would be in danger.

The three beautiful kingdoms of the elves had not yet been attacked, but soon, all would be in great danger of destruction and the very existence of the fair-haired woodland race would be threatened to the point of extinction in the Glen.

Clonal Glitter and his falcon riders were heading back to Mount Esha, but it would take some time. Not that the giant birds were slow, they were actually the fastest of the elven bird mounts. The fact that they had lost a bird and two elves were now riding double had slowed them down.

The nine riders of the Falcon Patrol had travelled above Esha Road, all the way to the foot of Hogarth Hills, seeking the enemy. They had spotted nine archers from the Bloody Thrasher Tribe chasing a hers of sheep dropping down from the hills onto the flats. Their flaming red mohawks had made them easy to spot.

The goblins had fallen quickly, being no match for the elven archers mounted atop their speedy falcon war birds, although one did get off a lucky shot before he died. The creature had fired an arrow into the neck of one of the giant falcons, causing it to suffocate in its own blood.

Now they were cruising at a low altitude, enjoying the late fall day, when a large red blur swooped in from above, striking one of the falcons in mid-flight. Clonal Glitter could not believe his eyes. A red dragon!

Titrus the Red was a twenty-eight foot youngling, and was actually quite muscular and large for his age. The dragon had surprised the elves by attacking them from a direction that they’d never have expected, from above.

Titrus bit the head off the falcon that he was clinging to, and sent the body and rider flailing towards the ground below. This did nothing to satiate the ferocious beast’s mighty hunger.

The Falcon Patrol immediately separated, taking off in different directions, and then turned around to face the red dragon. Titrus pursued another falcon, but the falcon was much faster, even with its rider.

The other falcon riders kept their distance, firing arrows into the red monster. Most of them bounced harmlessly off its scales, but a few caused slight damage.

When Titrus realized that the elves were faster, he changed his tactics, zooming in on the falcon with two riders. The red dragon gave chase, closing the distance to the overloaded bird, with Clonal Glitter and his elven archers close behind, firing arrows with their longbows at the flying monster.

The sleek red dragon caught up to the slower falcon and with one sweep of its claw, knocked the two elves from the bird’s back. A second claw raked down the falcon’s side, sending it down the same path that its previous two riders had taken.

The red dragon swiftly changed course, flying straight up, and then back towards the elves that were chasing it. The speedy maneuver seemed quite impossible for a creature of that size.

Titrus was flying upside down, bulleting towards the approaching elven archers. The red dragon opened his sharp fanged mouth and released a stream of liquid fire at the advancing elves.

The front two riders, along with their falcons, burst into flames. The burning fireballs fell to the earth. A third elf was unable to avoid flying through the fire, and after being badly burnt, fell from his saddle to his death.

The riderless falcon was hit by the oncoming dragon which tore into its flesh with his flame dripping teeth. Clonal Glitter and his remaining riders rapidly scattered.

“Ride! On to Esha! We shall lose this flying devil on the wings of the wind!” Clonal Glitter ordered.

The three surviving members of the Falcon Patrol flew south as fast as they could. The speedy falcons soon outdistanced the red dragon, until he became no more than a mere red speck at their backs, and finally disappeared altogether.

                                                                          *     *     *

Others were also dancing with death that morning. Within seconds, a peaceful dawn ride down Frontier Road had erupted into turmoil. The warrior in front of Lord Mintor tumbled from his saddle with a spear through his chest.

Goblins from the Flesh Eater Tribe were pouring out of the woods on both sides to attack the patrol. Several were heading straight for Lord Mintor, some carrying long black metal daggers while others had spears.

Lord Mintor was one of King Darian’s more quiet, reserved squad leaders. His ability to analyze problems had earned him his position as a patrol leader. He was a fairly tall, lanky figure, with a bald head and pale skin that never quite seemed to tan in the sun.

Lord Mintor hesitated for a moment, when an odd feeling came over him. It was a tingling sensation that started in his toes and spread throughout his entire body. It felt like energy, pure energy. He had felt it once before, a long time ago.

The first time the feeling came, he had been standing beside Timber Lake, watching a goblin trying to catch a fish. The goblin had spotted him and charged. Then the tingling energy came.

The next thing that he could remember was standing next to the goblin’s body with its head in his hands. He could not remember killing it. One moment it was threatening him, and the next it was dead.

Now, the nearest goblin rushed at him swinging a black dagger. A shrill, maniacal scream interrupted his hazy thoughts. It had been his own. The goblins around him stopped and stared, the ferocious sound stopping them in their tracks.

Lord Mintor charged his yule forward, his mount stomping one of his green foes into the ground. Mintor swung his sword left and then right, chopping down two more Flesh Eaters.

Next, he swung his yule about, blocking a goblin spear with his brown shield. A second spear stabbed him in the side, but he never felt it. He quickly caved in the head of the goblin that had wounded him with his shield.

Three more goblins raced towards him, thrusting their spears forward. Lord Mintor spun his mount about again and charged at them, howling like a wild animal, his eyes ablaze with bloodlust.

He rose in his saddle and launched himself at the three attacking goblins, placing his shield directly in front of himself, which smashed the enemy spears into several pieces.

Lord Mintor landed on one of the green creatures and bashed its head in with his shield, adding to the green blood and brains covering it from its earlier kill. The two remaining goblins, now weaponless, attempted to flee.

The tall, bald Mintor let out a lunatic yell and slung his sword at one of them, hitting him squarely in the back and dropping him. The last of the three goblins saw that the man was now unarmed, so it pulled out a sharp black dagger from its boot and turned back to face him.

Lord Mintor rushed forward and punched the green creature squarely in the jaw, which sent it sprawling. Lord Mintor delivered several kicks to its head with his large boot, until it lay motionless. He gave the immobile creature one last large furious kick.

Just then, a muscle-bound yorg ran from the woods onto Frontier Road. It let out a loud bellow and chopped a warrior in half, then flexed its big muscles at Lord Mintor. The beast was carrying a large red wood handled axe, with a dark black metal head.

Lord Mintor swiftly pulled his sword from the dead goblin’s back, and with a wild yell, charged at the big goblin leader. The creature raised the magical axe over its head, planning to cleave Mintor in two.

It never got the chance. Two slices from the enraged lord’s blade spilled the yorg’s guts onto Frontier Road, killing it. The magical axe fell onto the ground, shimmered for a moment, and then turned into a fine black and red dust.

Lord Mintor turned to face the remaining handful of goblins. He hacked and slashed his way through them, until there were none left to kill. When he had finished, he was standing in a pool of green blood, surrounded by goblin body parts.

The man stood in the middle of Frontier Road, his chest heaving from the exertion. He had a faraway look in his eyes, and spittle was running down the side of his mouth, dripping onto his green blood-soaked chainmail.

His remaining men stood quiet and stared at him in disbelief, unsure of what to make of their usually quiet and reserved patrol leader. None of them ventured to speak, until one of the junior men finally got up the nerve.

“Sir?” one of his archers said.

Lord Mintor slowly regained control of his breathing, and the tingling subsided from his body. His pale bald head glistened with sweat.

“Sir, are you okay?” the same archer questioned.

“What happened?” Lord Mintor asked, looking at the carnage, and realizing that several of the yules were now missing riders, with just five men standing beside him.

“Six men are dead, including the captain,” a different man hesitantly answered him.

“Sir, there are over forty dead Flesh Eaters here and you killed at least half of them, including their leader!” the archer who had initially spoke exclaimed.

“I did?” Lord Mintor asked, confused because he could not remember the battle.

He looked down at the red blood running down the side of his chainmail and realized with surprise that he had been wounded. What happened? His men just stared at him, blank looks on their faces. He knew he needed to take charge.

“Saddle the dead on the extra yules. Stack the goblins and light them up. It’s time to return to base camp,” Lord Mintor ordered.

The men did as they were told, happy to have their leader back, although they now felt something new towards their berserker leader. Fear.