When Gurdor broke free of the last bit of shrubs and saplings outlining the forest they had spent so much time in, he took in a deep breath and felt the sunlight of the plains falling invitingly upon his face.

He allowed a moment to smile to himself at the prospect that this would all be Nical land soon; his land. From both sides of him the slave-warriors suddenly burst out as well, marching in a grim, determined procession towards the Fortress. Gurdor’s smile fell as he furrowed his brow. There was blood to spill before his dreams were to be realized… more Nicals would have to die for the cause, and this day would be especially bad, as they attacked the very landmark that had signified the end of the Clans over 100 years ago. He was unaware of the specifics, but Nical slaves from the camps surrounding Fort Dravenpool had been filtering in lately, and with them they brought dire news. Straight-faced and somber, they told of a deadly layered defense that would have to be smashed piece by piece, and at high cost. As this was the first fortress the Dondels erected in the west so long ago, they had packed it with arms in the event of an uprising… Gurdor rested his hopes on the fact that over a century of servitude had passed without one ever taking place.

Standing at the edge of the tree line, the sturdy man looked to either side of himself, at the strong but raggedly-dressed fighters now pouring from the woodlands in two thick lines. He wondered briefly what the Dondels perched upon Dravenpool’s battlements would think when they surveyed the army. Would they begin laughing aloud at the look of the approaching men – confident that their armor and fighting skills would annihilate any fool lucky enough to surpass Dravenpool’s defenses? Or would they fear the army… perhaps they had heard of the courage and sacrifice at Fort Kilgore?

20 yards away, Gurdor saw a group of crouched figures at a map table, moving pieces one way or another and pointing to the skyline ahead. Gurdor looked towards to the horizon and saw an enormous grassy hill, adorned on each side with a small wood and open in the center. Near the top of the hill a large group of rocks jutted from the otherwise gradual slope, and it’s massive boulders hid Dravenpool from their sight. It was upon the hidden grassy peak of the hill that Dravenpool stood, unaware as of now that it’s first organized foe stood below, positioning for the attack. Gurdor swallowed his anxiety and began walking to the table… here they would finalize their assault for the fall of Dravenpool.

~~~

Aidden woke with a jolt as a pair of soldiers unshackled him from the chains shackling him to the post of the stable he had spent the night. The men wasted no time in then grabbing their prisoner by the ankels and dragging him outside to the familiar carriage. Shocked from sleep, Aidden now found himself being pulled across the filthy wooden floor of the building on his back. His injuries flared to life and his body moaned in agony. Aidden grit his teeth and pushed himself up, kicking his feet out in indignation. He had been packed like poultry in a small, suffocating wagon for days, tied to pole with the horses for another 24 hours, and now dragged across the filth of the stables like a sack of grain! Fury finally overtook the young slave and kicked free from the surprised Dondel clutches in the next moment, jumping to his feet and racing towards the shocked men, shoulder lowered.

The impact was incredibly painful for the injured and frail Nical, but it sent both soldiers sprawling to the floor. Aidden staggered a bit from the impact but quickly regained his balance and sprinted towards the stable doors. The morning air greeted him as he emerged victorious from the building and towards a Dondel mare tied up nearby. He grabbed the animal’s harness with one hand and prepared to leap into the saddle when the beast reared up in surprise and distaste at the dirty stranger attempting to mount. Aidden sprawled backwards from the kicking hooves and crashed to the earth, feeling a jolt of pain travel up his back to his neck.

He screamed in agony but was on his feet in the next instant, again grabbing at the animal’s harness. In one moment he was preparing to mount again, and in the next, everything went black. Standing above his now unconscious body, the two Dondel soldiers sheathed their weapons and, cursing, spat upon the slave before dragging him once again to continue his journey north.

~~~

The group of rebels from Kilgore stood stone-faced around the map of their target. Positioned high upon a grassy hill, Fort Dravenpool was proving to be a daunting structure. Near Gurdor, Dolven, Gardon and Kildor stood several former slaves from the nearby Nical camps, now proudly but clumsily holding a weapon as they told their allies of the surrounding terrain. Gurdor looked at them reflectively… he hadn’t realized how far they had come until he saw these men, healthy and strong, but green to the ways of combat. Foldon, one of the bolder men, was speaking now of Dravenpool’s weak points… and it was changing their plan of attack.

“The hill here is a long and gradual incline to the fortress” he started, pointing to the sloping landmass ahead of them. “If you take your troops up this way in a blind attack, you’ll run into their cannon tower, and it’s cannon’s will tear your men to pieces”.

“Cannons?” Kildor leaned forward; eyebrows raised… “What is a cannon?” Foldon looked up at Kildor in surprise, but the spearman could not hide his confusion.

“A cannon… surely you’ve faced them at Kilgore…we heard the tales! ‘They ran across the bridge in the face of cannon fire and never faltered…’ so goes the tale! Is it naught but a rumor?!” Dolven grunted in rebuttal, but Gardon simply smiled at the man.

“Yes, our people overcame the cannon as you have heard” he stated flatly, setting down his hands upon the map and leaning forward to take a closer look. “But we did not know the name for the red tubes you call cannons… they are deadly items. Where are they situated on this map?”

Folden pointed his newly acquired sword tip to Dravenpool’s cannon tower and continued his presentation. “Here… and here… are the most likely places, covering the entire slope of the hill coming up to Dravenpool. You can’t see them from where we are now, but travel several hundred yards north, and I guarantee you’ll know they’re there” he stated in satisfaction, looking to each of the new chieftains proudly.

“But – the Dondels in all their ignorance and superstition have left a back door for us” he continued, moving his weapon’s point to the small woodland clustered on the eastern side of the hill, standing alone from the larger woods west that stretched to the coastline.

“The Dondels aren’t a terribly smart race, bless ‘em all to Tyco” he continued. When our older and weaker ancestors were dying off in groves after being forced down here to build, they just threw the bodies in these here woods. They didn’t care two-winks for us then, but now, there’s all kinds of rumors saying the woods are haunted with ghosts and angry Nical spirits – the Dondels won’t go near there for anything! And they would never expect an attack from that direction… Dravenpool’s not even fortified there!” Kildor leaned even closer to the map, examining the small woodlands marked on the eastern region, and then looked up at the boulders jutting from the hillside that stretched eastward to the black trees.

“But IS it really haunted?” he asked slowly, and perhaps a bit too cautiously. Foldon let out a sharp laugh but quickly restrained himself.

“Come on man! You’re a chieftain over us all! Your not gonna let some Dondel superstitions get in the way of our freedom are you?!” But before Kildor could respond, Gurdor leaned forward towards the map, biting his lip in anticipation.

“I’ve got a plan… let me hear what you think about this…”

~~~

As the afternoon sun began to descend from it’s apex in the sky, Gaylgip Wendl-Wundre dipped his pole into the streaming water of the Bobo River. He was heading towards Fort Dravenpool’s cannon tower and then the main gate, at which he would bring his raft to shore and enter to submit his report on the Nical Camps.

He sighed in bored desperation. He had come to Lord Gildyn with his proposal to have a soldier survey the camps each day with the hope that it would bring him some adventure. He thought for sure some action might come from watching the Nicals at their home – they couldn’t possibly follow every rule all the time, and that could at least lead to an arrest, perhaps actual fighting or even a nice Nical girl for his nighttime prize. But no, they saw him coming in his raft each night and, long before he set foot in the camp, doors were closed and lights out, as if the whole population was sound asleep for the next day’s labor. He had tried coming at different hours, and even looped back for a repeat visit, but to no avail – “they must have someone posted to watch for me” he thought in disgust, thrusting his pole in loathing at the cold, crystal water of the Bobo.

He couldn’t withdrawal his proposal from Lord Gildyn now, for risk of looking like a failure, and so each night he set out to visit the dead camps, and each night it was empty and dark. This evening had been no different – in fact, the camp was darker than normal, if it was possible. Not a single Nical walked the campgrounds tonight, and every hut seemed deserted. He grunted to himself, again pushing his pole into the water. The whole fiasco had made him out to be a fool with the other soldiers, and they were always giving him a hard time over his plight. “The mayor of the Nicals” they called him. He grumbled to himself as he passed the cannon tower, neared the draw bridge, and began calling for the gatekeepers to lower the bridge.

~~~

The sky remained bright when Kildor led his detachment of men clumsily through the twisted and knotted trees of the “haunted wood”, as it had been come to have been known.

Gurdor, with a chuckle and smile on his face, had assigned the spearman to go through the trees with his group of soldiers and some local men, all armed and briefly trained with spears in the days leading up to today’s assault on Dravenpool.

Foldon marched at his side, a never-ending smile stretching ear to ear as he resisted laughing ever-loudly at the spear-master’s now unhidden fear for whatever imagined evil lay ahead of them. Kildor caught him chuckling once too often and felt his annoyance rise.

“What’s so funny over there? You think you’ve got one up on me? Well I’ll tell you, I hope your right about this little woodland being nothing but a Dondel fairytale – because I’ve heard the stories! Don’t tell me you haven’t heard the stories up here in the plains! I don’t belie-“

“Enough! Enough friend!” Foldon conceded, holding his hands up with the ever-present smile still residing on his face. “I’ve – “he was interrupted by a gasping scream from one of the men behind.

“Be quiet you clod!” Kildor scolded the breathless man in hushed tones, smacking him on the top of the head with his spear-shaft. The soldier didn’t seem to notice however, and clutched his chest, his face turning a shade of white.

“I saw one! I saw one! A shade of our ancestors!” he yelled. “I saw it-“ Foldon stepped forward, covering his mouth.

“Oh be quiet Tilbon! Your gonna reveal our position and scare the whole group all at once if you go on like this!” He looked back at the procession of about 50 men, and saw them standing around in bored confusion. Apparently they had not heard or been affected by the commotion – the same could not be said of Kildor. He was backing away from the two men, his eyes in the trees. Foldon rolled his eyes. “Come on southerner!” He scoffed, grabbing him by the arm as he marched the group forward. Kildor turned with him but then they both stopped short. Sure enough, a ghostly apparition stood in the small path in front of them, staring hollowly with it’s dead eyes… Kidlor felt his body turn cold as Foldon’s grip tightened with the rest of his body.

~~~

The Nical slaves from Dravenpool were proving invaluable before even lifting a sword - as a source of information. The man Foldon had revealed to them a small stone structure built atop the boulders of the hill, solely for the purpose of sending a smoke signal should Fort Dravenpool be attacked. It was old and likely empty, Foldon had explained, as they most likely would have spotted the Nical army approaching and already sent up a plume of smoke if the case were otherwise.

Still, Gurdor had seen some value in the building, and was now setting about the task of climbing the rocks with the intensely silent Gardon.

Wary of his good friend and companion, Gurdor paid extra attention to his gear at this point, desperate to avoid an awkward flurry of uncomfortable conversation with the man.

He was organizing some rope and a pick-ax when he saw Tyla for the first time since coming to Dravenpool. She ran up to him clad in the traditional blue and gray of the females in his clan – her red hair falling around slender shoulders and glowing in the receding sunlight. The man stopped short; he had never seen her so refreshed and healthy-looking. She beamed a smile that made the strong man look down to his rope, which he continued looping for the climb ahead.

“Gurdor Riga – are you embarrassed to lay eyes on your own people?!” Tyla scolded, and Gurdor laughed, looking to the proud woman in front of him as he tucked his now coiled rope away.

The roaring lion was still there, although missing it’s mane and crown. Two red hearts flanked either side of it, set against an entirely blue vest. Bright blue eyes twinkled against ivory-white skin, and her full smile widened as she approached. She was a beautiful sight to behold, and the man smiled in spite of himself.

“Not at all my lady.” He grinned, looking quickly to his rope on the ground. You have always made me proud to be a Nical, and today, I am proud to be a member of our clan”. The woman's smile widened, and she put her arms around the strong man’s neck, kissing him lightly on his forehead. “Then I wish my rescuer good luck in the battle ahead-“she whispered in his ear, and then, after a deep hug, released her hold and began stepping away, a nervous but happy smile on her face.

Gurdor watched her leave, amazed at the transformed woman in front of him. She was bold, full of life, and more refreshing than ever to behold. When she was out of sight, he turned again to the rope and ax. He had never seen Tyla as anything more than a little girl, but it would seem that freedom suited her quite well.

~~~

Kilgore and Foldon stood rigid, watching the floating apparition not 10 yards from them with competing levels of fear. The spirit stared through them for what seemed like forever, and then, lowering it’s head, faded from their sight. The two men stood motionless, completely unaware of the restless men behind them until they once again heard a gasping scream, and turned to see another specter approaching the large procession from behind. Before panic could overtake the men, another appeared at the rear, and then a third. The men started forward in fear but found themselves faced with several more of the specters from ahead as well, as a set of the spirits lowered slowly from the tree canopy above. All stood frozen or collapsed to the earth, sure of their certain death from the apparitions at either side of them. Kildor stepped backwards then, and beheld in amazement the familiar apparition from earlier appear once again, motioning them to continue on their path. He grabbed Foldon by the neck of his tunic and led the awestruck slave back down the trail, the specters both behind and in front of them as they continued their march. It took some time before he heard the movements of his men following, and the spear-master turned only briefly to see the procession continuing, eyes and pale faces pointed to the earth as they stepped over the twisted and gnarled terrain of the woods.

Kildor felt his heart racing in fear as they followed their new guide, and it took them through several turns into the brush that they would have not otherwise traveled. He felt Foldon’s grip upon his arm tell him of what he too was fearing… perhaps they were being led to a trap; like lambs to the slaughter for the demonic delights of their lost ancestors.

The young man’s heart raced in a horror that was peaked when he began finding the bones of human skeletons littered among the brittle limbs from the trees above. The muffled moans of agony from behind told him that the men had made similar discoveries, and Kildor felt himself fall into a state of despair.

He pondered the idea of breaking free of the escort and into the ever-darkening woodland, but a glance to either side revealed the slinking forms of more shades passing in and out of the trees with ethereal ease. He looked to the tree branches above in despair, going through every god he could remember from his childhood lessons in a vain attempt of finding one to save the group.

Suddenly, the shades in front of the two men stopped and rose above them, and Kildor looked up for the first time in what seemed like an hour of dreary marching. His heart froze at the display he beheld, and as the rest of the procession was herded around to surround it, he could hear nothing in the thick woodland environment, save his own heart beating frantically in his chest.

Unceremoniously piled before the warriors lay the skeletons of hundreds of Nical men and women, some impaled on rusty Dondel spears for an entire century. Kildor looked to the apparitions floating above them, and saw in their face, for the first time an emotion he could quantify. It was not cruelty or demonic glee, but utter despair. They had brought the Nical men here to plead for an audience to their fate. Kildor bite his lip as tears began streaming down his face. Among the scattered remains he saw the Rampaging Lion, the mark of his once-proud and mighty clan. In the next moment, he pulled forward his spear and, clutching it with both hands before him; fell to his knees with his head bowed. He could hear the others doing the same, and knew at once what they all must do.

The silent homage lasted forever, and was over in a moment. Looking up, he saw the sad smiles of several shades listing above the piled bones, and then saw them again beckon to him to continue their lead. He reverently followed, with none of the ignorant fear that he had felt before but a stoic resoluteness on the task at hand. When the last spirit faded from their sight, the men had been positioned not at all where they had intended to be, but near a small clearing next to the fortress, with the drawbridge lowering as they settled into position.

Kildor inhaled resolutely through now clenched teeth, clasping his weapon tightly as he prepared to hurl it at the first target presenting itself. “There would be Dondel blood shed today…” he promised himself. “It would run clean until it churned with the waters of the small river lacing Fort Dravenpool, paying in full the atrocities done to his proud people, now piled like kindling in the woods around them”.

~~~

The afternoon sun continued it’s steady journey across the horizon, slowly baking two Nical men struggling to ascend a massive pile of boulders that overlooked Fort Dravenpool. Gardon took another awkward step up, clasping the safety rope they had been hammering into the rock with his blacksmith hammers. Another step up, and as his foot moved ever higher, with it came a spraying of grit and dirt that once again showered on a heavily sweating Gurdor below.

The muscular man clenched his eyes and lowered his head just in time to avoid being inundated with the spray as it smashed onto his helmet and caked upon the back of his neck. He cursed under his breath – they had been climbing for close to 30 minutes, and he was now covered in mud from the sweat and dirt mixing on his body. Now, near the end of their climb, it couldn’t be too soon before he pulled himself up over the edge of the rocks and threw his armor to the ground in revulsion.

“Sorry Gurdor” Gardon offered from above, and with his angry face still looking downward, the man below waved his hand at Gardon to continue the climb. The scuffling of boots from above told Gurdor that he had indeed done so, and so the pair continued.

Looking up, Gurdor exhaled sharply, sending a bead of filthy sweat hurtling through the air and sticking to the all-to-familiar rock wall several inches from his face.

He couldn’t really blame the boy; none of them had any prior experience in climbing rocks or boulders. If they had ever climbed the smallest precipice in their past, he knew now that the first thing they would have done would have been to strip themselves clean of the armor and thick cloth now slowly boiling them alive as they dangled from an old rope in the sky. Still, it was a bit more than annoying to endure the periodic precipitation of gritty rock without stating at least mild indignation. Had Dolven been the one above him, Gurdor would have verbally thrashed him long ago for each pebble that “tinked” against his helmet. As it was Gardon, however, he felt forced to bite his tongue. It wasn’t that the two weren’t close – nothing could shake his faith in the usually silent man above him.

It was that Gardon had never been a jovial man by any means, certainly not since the fall of Fort Kilgore. From the time the slaves had rushed the bridge over Kilgore’s moat, Gardon had changed into a brutal, relentless warrior that the Nicals could only be happy to have on their side.

Gurdor felt the rope sway slightly, and looked up to see his childhood ally pulling the bottom half of his body over a ledge above, sending the largest shower of debris yet scattering downwards.

Habitually, Gurdor once again ducked his head and let it fall upon him, further plastering his once red apparel with more of the brown soot. However, it was a smile of relief that he held on his face now as two hands grabbed him by the biceps and helped to lift him to the precipice.

Gurdor groaned in relief as he collapsed to the ground, pulling his helmet off and placing it next to him. Pebbles and soot from the hat showered his lap as he did so, but before either men could say a word further, his groan was answered by a distant sound; a snore.

Both men jumped to their feet in fear and surprise. Gardon reached for his hammer as he led the two now crouching men towards the entrance of what was a desolate looking stone shack. Gurdor had assumed that after almost 100 years of compliance from the Nical slaves, the shack was empty and lifeless, but it appeared he had guessed wrong.

As the two mean entered the shack, they saw the body of a Dondel guard, fully clad in the familiar red and brown armor of the Southern Kingdom, and completely passed out. At his side sat two flagons of empty wine, and Gurdor couldn’t help but to stand up and snort blissfully. Imagine the poor man’s face when he aroused with a headache to find two of the enemy standing over him.

Gardon, however, was not sharing Gurdor’s amusement. Casting his hammer disgustingly to the floor, the sinewy blacksmith lifted the Dondel up by the neck of his chain mail suit and dragged him, still unconscious, to the edge of the boulders. He stopped just short of the ledge and, holding the man over it, spat on him before letting him fall to the earth far below.

Gurdor grimaced upon hearing the dull, clanking thud of flesh and armor hit the rocks wall they had just climbed several times before crashing into the earth over a hundred feet down. Gardon turned on his heel to face the shack, and Gurdor saw a stony expression that could be matched only by the rock beneath their feet.

“Climb put you in a bad mood, did it?” Gurdor asked, grinning. Gardon glanced at him, then the ground as he walked past to see Fort Dravenpool for the first time. Gurdor lowered his eyes as well, shaking his head slightly as he followed him to the other open window of the shack that faced Fort Dravenpool. As fine a man as he was, there certainly was not much that was easy to understand about Gardon of the Griffin Clan.

~~~

It was, ironically enough, as the drunken Dondel had been falling to the earth below that the Dravenpool drawbridge was falling as well, to allow the passage of the Dondel warrior Gaylgip Wendl-Wundre. Of course, in doing so, it was also offering an easy entrance to the ever-advancing Nicals - the problem was that none of the Dondel warriors knew this. In fact, in effort to stave off the boredoms of their daily routine, the men were preparing to enjoy themselves immensely. As Gaylgip poled his small raft to the shores of the Babo River, he heard the chains holding the drawbridge suddenly screech to a halt, and then begin pulling the gate up a bit. He rolled his eyes with a mix of fury and exasperation.

“Rapott Dilderwen!! Open the gates this instant! I won’t put up with all this nonsense of passwords and secret codes again!” The drawbridge remained half open, and a soldier appeared at a ledge of the castle below the chamber in which the drawbridge was controlled.

“Ahhh!” Our brave Nical Mayor has returned! Come back to give us a report on the filthy habits of the Nicals, no?!”

Gaylgip bristled, sinking first his pole and then his boot into the muddy shoreline as his raft hit the outer edge of the river surrounding Dravenpool.

“I haven’t got time for this Nield!” He threw the rest of the pole to the earth in disgust, still staring up at the man in at the ledge. “Get Rappott to open the gates, now! I can’t be late to issue the report –“An explosion of laughter tumbled down from the Drawbridge chamber, and two men peered out of it’s window to get a look at the man now standing below on the shoreline.

“Come to deliver today’s vital report eh Gaylgip?” taunted one of the two men high above, and all three men burst out in laughter.

“Rappott!!” Raged Gaylgip, his fist clenched as he prepared to step his other foot from the raft. “You –“ but he never finished his sentence. The next instant, the man was spinning backwards, hands flailing up as he fell hard onto the raft, which bucked under the uneven weight of his armor and cast him into the Babo River. In an instant later, Gaylgip’s head and hands shot out from the surface as the current caught him and whisked him off downstream towards the haunted woodlands to the east of the fortress. “Help! Rappott! Nielddddd….!!” But that was all he got out before the stream took him with renewed force towards the shadowy forest to the east.

The three men exploded in laughter, doubling up uncontrollably. In their amusement, the men in the top chamber didn’t see the soldier below them grasp the railing of the ledge to he stood upon and then fall, wide-eyed and impaled to the Bobo river below.

At that moment, the Haunted Woods to the east erupted, with Kildor leading a charging group of Spearmen across the small distance to the drawbridge of Dravenpool. The man Rapott saw Kildor just in time to watch him leap to the bridge and grasp it with one free hand, using his legs to then climb over and stand defiantly at its edge.

“By the Mountain Godde-“ was he could gasp before a Nical shaft impaled the man’s throat and he fell gagging to the floor next to his comrade. The other Dondel warrior, seeing his friend suddenly sprawled and choking blood onto the floor, screeched in rage and panic. He began to pull feverishly on the handle to raise the bridge, but it was too heavy for him to turn quickly. Horror-stricken, he wrenched at the lever and desperately looked below at the bridge, watching as the first Nical man, clad in a strange red armor, was joined with another in traditional slave clothing. Terror grabbed him by the throat as he threw his entire weight into the drawbridge handle, willing it to move faster. Another spear blasted itself into the lower edge of the stone window to the chamber, spraying flakes of stone power into his face. Now blinded and coughing, the Dondel reeled backwards and tripped to the ground over Rapott’s leg, which had finally stopped moving on the flooring below. In the next instant, the man was on his feet but had barely started to turn from the ledge when another spear met its mark and implanted itself directly into the center of the fleeing man’s back.

Far below, a cheer erupted from the now-swarming attackers, who had all thrown hooked chains to the tip of the drawbridge and began pulling it down. In only a few moments later, the bridge was down, and the spearmen charged across it in rank and file, to be met by a handful of swarming but confused Dondel sentries at the entrance.

Leading the attack, Kildor and Foldon grasped extra weapons from the nearest Nical and dove into the Dondel ranks, scattering the group and chasing them away from the entranceway into the main court of the fortress. It was then that an alarm was finally raised, and a bronze bell at the opposite side of the small fortification began clanging frantically. Kildor raced across the inner courtyard to two confused Dondel warriors, smacking one flailing spear shaft away with the butt-end of his weapon and twirling it around in time to slice both dumbfounded warriors across the throat. In the next instant however, a door burst open from across the courtyard, and Dondel soldiers from the barracks erupted out of in a bristling angry red wave.

For once, Kildor faltered, backing steadily towards the gateway from what seemed to easily be a hundred fully-armored fighters now roaring towards the rebel group, clustering at the drawbridge entrance. There only hope was to narrow the fighting area surrounding them, and that meant using the narrow gateway they had just charged through. As the distance between the two forces rapidly melted, Kildor postured his body sideways, placing his feet evenly apart and looking forward as he positioned his spear at his waist.

“To me, Spearmen! To me! Battle stance!” Kildor looked ahead as the warriors took position on either side of him, quickly and automatically taking identical poses. “Whatever they may look like, they were trained well” he thought to himself as the men silently and stoically prepared for the roaring tide of crimson rushing towards them. Their was a certain feeling of impending doom somewhere deep in the pit of Kildor’s stomach. “There were too many Dondels already armed for battle!! Many more than expected! The advantage was lost! His fighters weren’t trained well enough! They were in rags, fighting men in metal!” In the next instant, however, the Chieftain wiped clean his mind of doubt as the angry Dondel force crashed into the Nical formation.

The Spear master outreached his first attacker, doubling him over from a wound in the stomach. The next man was on him before the first hit the ground, but found himself in no better luck, slashed across the face and eyes from a whirling spear-tip. Kildor was moving automatically now, weaving in and out of the plunging attackers, although dimly aware of the Nicals on either side of him slowly beginning to melt away. Several had already been killed while others began to be forced back from relentless thrusts of Dondel soldiers. He stepped back a pace to join the slowly retreating men in an effort to keep them in formation. He knew that if they broke ranks and ran, they could all count on being overrun by merciless Dondel blades.

Another enemy warrior lunged at him from the right side with his ax, but Kildor easily sidestepped the clumsy attack, impaling the attacker in the back as the Dondel over-reached and fell to the floor.

As he pulled his weapon from the dying Ax-bearing Dondel however, another Nical reeled back in a failed attempt to dodge his assailant and now fell fatally wounded upon Kildor. The two men sprawled backwards to the ground, and the Nical line wavered as those around the Spear Master looked in horror at their feet. Catching the sudden importance of Kildor, a nearby Dondel warrior leapt atop a dead Nical soldier and raised his weapon high to split him into two. The Nical line reeled backwards in shock and fear and Dondel soldiers swarmed forward in pursuit.

A yellow blur flashed out of the retreating lines, however, and Foldon plunged his spear tip into the chest of Kildor’s would-be killer, fatally wounding him and pushing him backwards into the still-advancing Dondels behind. Kildor reached out his hands and Folden grabbed him quickly, pulling him out from under the dying Nical once sprawled over him.

The two men, now unarmed, raced further backwards onto the open drawbridge, each grabbing spears from dying men lying at their feet as they sprinted to rejoin the flimsy Nical line reforming at the sight of Kildor. The two had just enough time to join the line and turn again before the relentless red wave of angry metal raked the Nical line once more, sending men around them crashing to the ground or into the river below. Kildor grit his teeth. They were still killing Dondels, but his unprotected, inexperienced fighters couldn’t hold out much longer. Another wave of Dondel attackers surged forward, and both forces crumpled with casualties before the Dondels were pushed back a few paces.

There was no pause however. The bottlenecked defenders from within the castle urged their comrades forward, and again the two sides met. Kildor’s face was sweating heavily now, and it mixed with a spray of blood as he hooked his spear upward into the chin of an attacking Dondel Swordsman. Again the two sides parted on the bridge, and again they crashed together. The Nical lines were thinning, too many men were dying. Suddenly, a deep rally cry sounded from the Dondel soldiers within the fortress. The defenders up front were caught up in it, and chaos erupted. All around him now, Kildor became aware of Nical and Dondel warriors beating on each other in a chaotic mix of attacks and counter-attacks. There were no more lines or formations to speak of. The enemy was on all sides.

A sword appeared from the chaos, swishing at Kildor’s mid-section and splintering the shaft of his spear in two as he blocked it in the nick of time. A particularly evil-looking Dondel warrior sneered at him and swung his blade again, but Kildor sidestepped and lunged forward, sinking his now dagger-like weapon deep into the man’s chest.

The Dondel fell quickly to the tangle of bodies on the drawbridge, and Kildor leapt back from more slashing blades, still clutching the small pointed end of the spear in his right hand. A quick glance back revealed Foldon struggling in hand-to-hand combat with a warrior, but another Dondel was stalking him from behind. With a wild leap, Kildor wrapped his arms around the sneaking Dondel warrior, sinking his spear-tip deeply into an exposed section at the waist. He threw the dying man to the drawbridge but as he tried to regain his footing found himself stumbling as well, over another Dondel lying dead behind him.

Foldon gave the man he was struggling with a knee to the groin that sent him into the Bobo below, now foaming red around the bodies of men half in the water and half on the shore or drawbridge. The two warriors backed together, unaware of what may or may not be happening with the rest of their men and the now raging Dondels around them. Kildor stooped and grabbed a spear while Foldon snatched a Dondel sword. They stood resolute as a handful of Dondels swarmed around them on either side of the drawbridge.

Kildor watched the thin circle forming around them and cursed. “He had given Gurdor more than the advantage of a surprise attack – the drawbridge itself was down! Where WERE they?” He bit the bottom of his blood-spattered lips as the more reckless of the men around him started jabbing at the two still holding the gateway open. One thing he was sure of… they wouldn’t last 5 minutes more under this onslaught.