From high atop the rocky precipice, Gurdor’s jaw dropped as he looked down in shock upon the chaos taking place below. Not only had Kildor burst from the woods in a successful attack, he had done so from a totally different spot than they had earlier planned. At their mapping table below, they had thought to use the small but skilled force of spearmen to create a surprise diversion while the hordes of less-skilled Nicals stormed up the hill, catching the cannons by surprise, and perhaps slipping the majority of their men past. But Kildor was breaking into the fortress itself! The gates were down... the spearmen had pushed forward into the courtyard... the Dondels taken completely off guard. But they were regrouping now... things were going bad for Kildor...

Snapped from his daydreaming, Gurdor spun on his heel from the window of the lookout shack he had been staring from and ran to a crude stone bowl hanging from the ceiling and holding oil for the signal flame. Once, the flame had been for alerting Dondel troops of approaching danger from the woodlands. Now, taken completely off-guard, it would be used against them to bring in the mass of Nical warriors below.

“Gardon the fir-“ before Gurdor’s question was finished, the lock-jawed Gardon tossed a burning cloth into the large stone bowl and immediately a roaring yellow flame exploded outwards and upwards, nearly engulfing them both before collapsing and jetting straight into the air, followed by an oily black smoke that everyone would be able to see. Gurdor smiled to his companion, smacking his shoulder as he ran to another window in the lookout upon their rock. A smile widened across his face as he saw the small red dot of Dolven far below, pacing nervously in front of the mob of soldiers. They had done their job... there was nothing left now but to enjoy what must be the best seats to this show.

In the sun-baked grasslands below, Dolven watched his boots wear a path in front of the anxious laborers behind him. Something was happening at the fortress above, he could hear it... and it sounded like a very violent distraction by Kildor was indeed taking place... why was the main army still below waiting? He bit his bottom lip as the possibilities crept into his mind, none of them good. Perhaps Gurdor and Gardon had fallen prey to an ambush above... perhaps Kildor and his men were being beaten like lambs at the slaughter, and no amount of men could save them.

Dolven sighed and stopped his path, turning from the men and looking into the blue, sunlit skies above. Such a peaceful day... it gave no indication to the violence and misery taking place above. He looked around, from the woodlands on either side to the sloping hills in front of him... this was their land for the taking... healthy, rich land.

But these were slaves fighting professional warriors. What good does heart do against steel? And what kind of leaders were they? No more than formers slaves themselves, elected only because of their willingness to save a now-certainly deceased comrade.

What if he didn’t have it in him to lead these men, some no more than children, others far older than himself? Perhaps the signal would come, and he would not be able to rally the men. Maybe they would see his uncertainty or...

Dolven’s thoughts were cut off by a spiraling black trail of smoke that tightened his chest as it snaked up into the blue skies, bringing into the peaceful tapestry of the heavens a hint of the misery taking place on the earth below. The time was now... there was no time for second-guessing. The blacksmith’s hand reached down for his sword hilt as his mind spun to childhood stories from old men around a fire. This was the land of his grandfather; the clan of the Wolf had called these woods and that mountain home, long before the fortress Dravenpool was perched atop it. Now was time to re-take what was unrightfully taken from them. It was fitting that a Wolf clan member led the charge - he should be the leader of this attack, and no one else. It was his right. With a new resolve, Dolven turned to the masses before him.

“Nicals! We have reached a time in our lives that can honor our elders and serve our children, or disgrace them both forever. There is no time for fear of selfishness in our moment of definition – only action! Be not afraid of what will be done to you but focused on what has already been inflicted upon us all, and our ancestors before us! A proud and healthy race now stripped and shackled in chains! This hill was my grandfather’s land... it should be mine and yours! There are oceans of land ahead of us! Don’t let these weak little bastards live off of the fat of our labor any longer... I would rather die here now then live another day with their smiles and whips in my face... rather to die with dignity and pride, standing upright in denial, as a Nical should, before I ever accept slavery again! We are strong people... let’s take back our right to be an independent people as well!”

The blacksmith raised his sword and shouted and some shouted with him, but Dovlen was not concerned with the response from them any longer. He had spoken his heart, whether they followed him now or not didn’t matter. In one moment he turned from the army, and the next he was sprinting up the sloping hill towards destiny.

~~~

The screams and cries of dying men were beginning to puncture Kildor’s concentration at this point, and he knew it was likely that the majority of it came from his own men... Rage boiled within his bruised body as the thought of all his boys, nothing more than mere slaves in rags, were being led like lambs to a butcher...

"GURDOR!"

The Spearmaster grit his teeth as the circle around the two men closed in slowly and cautiously, apparently very much aware of the danger they were dealing with in fighting the Spearman. Kildor could hear Foldon’s breath, ragged and wild, at his back – the crude copper Dondel sword he still held, and it scrapped against the rough drawbridge of Dravenpool as he stepped back from the now approaching Dondels.

“Take care Foldon” hissed Kildor. Your rage can serve you well, but it will expose your reach... there was no answer, however, only Foldon’s ragged breath at his ear.

For a moment, silence seemed to fall among the strange group on the bridge. The eyes of the predators locked with their prey; and the moment of truth came to a head. Kildor saw their courage build, and lunged before his attackers did – first stabbing and then twirling his spear tip into the three men ahead of him. Gore sprayed from their gargling throats as the Spearmaster once again escaped entrapment, punching through the circle to return to his ragged soldiers still struggling on the drawbridge. There was only chaos around the gates now, no formations. Kildor sidestepped a Dondel spear thrust from a newcoming attacker and leapt away from it's point, stepping back and planting his weapon’s tip into the neck of the remaining Dondel now facing off with Foldon. A new wave of Dondels rushed from the gates and swarmed onto the men at the bridge as the chants from within grew to a maniacle pitch.

The two stood back, their legs sore and failing them, once again pressed against the side of the drawbridge and encircled, once again separated from their struggling and dying men. The Dondel chants from the horde bottlenecked inside of Dravenpool battered against the Nical heroes, sapping their will with the reality of the situation. Kildor raised his battered arms, but could almost not lift his spear shaft... he couldn’t stand it anymore; lifting his head to the sky he demanded a miracle.

“GURD-“

His demand was cut-off with a shout thrice as loud from the woodlands behind them, where they had originally come out from. Kildor and Foldon rolled their heads to meet their certain death, but found instead their hope.

A crimson wave of armed Nical warriors streamed from the tree line, clattering with armor and bristling with weapons as they closed the short distance between the ragged spearmen and Dondel Warriors. The Dondels barely had time to reorganize, pushing the weakened Nicals they had been fighting to the earth only in time to face a fresh, determined wave of hatred.

As the Dondels around them melted away into a flimsy front line against the new attackers, Kildor strained to find who had saved them, but the clan emblem was one he had never seen before – a pair of crossed axes. It mattered little to him. The determined wave hit the Dondel ranks without slowing, washing them off to either side of the drawbridge, or under their feet as they smashed towards the gateway. It was amazing how the men cut through their foes, almost as if they were small children, and Dondels began fumbling back to the castle with gaping wounds and shocked expressions. Kildor clutched his spear close to him as the strangely-clad Nicals pulled even with him and assumed formations around the remaining Nical spearmen. As they did so, Kildor looked into the eyes of the nearest man. He was nervous but determined, shaking with anticipation but staring stone-eyed into the mouth of the fortress from which the next wave was sure to come. Kildor wiped his vision clean of the blood once-again easing its way down his face into his eyes, pulling Foldon to his side and locking his jaw in a new-found determination. The bridge would stay down.

~~~

The slope of the hill was slight, but its length ensured that Dolven’s legs burned with the effort he was spending to get to its top. As he rounded the outer edge of the great, jutting rock Gurdor now signaled to him from, the first sight of Dravenpool’s cannon tower came into view, with a lookout sentry dutifully keeping guard despite the supposed distraction from Kildor.

Dolven scowled as he raced onward towards certain danger – the Spearman was skilled, Dolven knew, but he wondered if he could also be counted on in situations as serious as this. If Kildor could not bring about a serious distraction, or lead his men affectively, Dolven and his men were lost. Dolven's thoughts stopped to wonder, at this reflection, if any men were indeed behind him.

A distant cry from the tower in the clouds was the only warning he had to what happened next –

“BOOM”

The very earth itself shook with the vibrations as debris and shrapnel engulfed the chieftain of the wolf. Shocked, he saw that as it cleared he was still running to the tower – he had somehow escaped being hit! Dolven bowed his head and doubled his pace, pushing his aching legs further at the discovery that he still lived through what should have been something close to death. Again a shout, and again the earth shook –

“BOOM”

The shrapnel whistled past his ears on both sides, and the ground seemed to be trying to escape from out under the attacking wolf, but he kept his balance and stumbled onward. Cursing from the tower sentry guiding the cannon below told Dolven that he was still un-hit, so he raced onward. His legs were numb now, his chest holding a ball of pain in its center as he gasped for air. But he was close now. He could see the sentry above clearly – hear him shouting coordinates to the cannon-men below.

The cannon itself protruded from its hole in the tower like a resentful thorn – smoking with fury at the intruder coming ever closer. Again the shout from above, and again the air split with a blast.

The cannon seemed to on top of him now, and the smoke and debris engulfed him as the earth shook so violently the wolf-chief lurched face-first into the wet grass by the Bobo River.

No sound touched his ears then as Dolven lay on the ground. He looked up to see the splashing of the river water on the shore near his face, and the haze of the cannon smoke everywhere around him. No Nical boots raced past him as he lay there on the ground – and he feared the worst. His speech was not strong enough – he had failed as a leader and as a rusult, run up alone to his own suicide. Enraged at his own inadequacy and the cowardice of his country men, the chief looked back down the hill to see what his men were doing.

Shock hit him as he saw the dismembered bodies of the slave-warriors littering the hillside around the cannon tower. They had followed him. To each side of the carnage now the massive army stood, paralyzed and cowering from the cannon once they saw their leader fall so hard to the earth – Dolven realized they thought he had been hit and were losing their spirit. He would have to get up – now – if they were to take the fortress.

Shaking the dizziness from his head, he staggered back to his feet – the world a hiss of ringing in his ears and smoke in his eyes. As such, he did not hear his men cheer and take up their weapons once more, and he didn’t look back to notice them forming ranks behind him once again – his focus was the enemy now, and everything that stood in the way of liberation. He looked to the tower and then realized – he was almost past. Adrenaline took hold of him and he raced onward to the gate where Kildor was, unknown to him, fighting for his life to keep the drawbridge down.