The pack surrounded him. Red eyes glittered with insane ferocity. Froth bubbled over yellow fangs and lolling pink tongues.
He slashed the throat of the nearest dire wolf. Blood spurted, spraying Kormak and the ground at his feet. The red fluid tasted metallic on his tongue.
Two wolves attacked, one from each side. He avoided the first but the second snagged the sleeve of his jerkin and pulled him off balance.
He snapped the pommel of his blade down on the wolf’s sensitive nose, and it released its grip on him, whimpering in pain. The second wolf sprang at him. He did not have time to get his blade into position. It overbore him, its massive weight pressing his body to the ground, huge jaws snapping down towards his throat.
An eerie whistling sound filled the air and a moment later an explosion of infernal brightness burst overhead, distracting the wolf.
Kormak rolled, knocking it off balance. Clumsily he swung his sword round and down, connecting with the wolf’s skull, splitting it. The wolf reared, blood pouring down into its eyes, brains spilling from the gash in its head. Kormak rolled against its back legs, his weight knocking it over. As he rose to his feet he saw that it was dead. It had just taken a few moments to realise it.
A quick glance showed him that all was confusion. The goblin horde had raced into the plaza behind the wolves. The great goblins were in the lead but scores and scores of the smaller creatures scurried in their wake. Comet trails of fire descended from the balconies on either side of the plaza and where they touched the ground, huge explosions ripped the darkness. A wave of heat washed over them and then vanished. The rune on Karnea’s arm blazed brightly as it fed on the energy.
It only took Kormak a moment to realise that the defenders were using larger versions of Sasha’s weapon. The goblins yipped and screamed but kept coming, too filled with the thrill of pursuit to consider flight. Their prey was in sight and they were not going to let it escape.
The great goblins closed with Kormak. In the light of the explosions, he made out their lean horrible faces leering at him. Mouths full of razor sharp teeth grinned evilly. They emitted strange chirping sounds and their huge bat-like ears twisted as if in response heartbeats later. In the flickering light of the exploding runestones, their eyes changed colour in response to the intensity of the flames, going from very dark to almost glitteringly light as the explosions burst and faded.
Kormak picked the closest group and sprang towards it, lashing out with his blade, cutting armour and flesh as if it were cloth, shattering bone as easily if it were porcelain. Within a dozen heartbeats, half a dozen of the great goblins were dead and he was carving a way through their line.
His instincts told him not to go too far. Doing so would take him into the line of fire for the exploding runestones and no blade could protect him from those. He needed to be close to Karnea and Sasha if he was going to protect them too.
A horn sounded close to him and turning he saw that Verlek and Boreas had returned to fight beside him. The dwarf’s axe flickered around him almost too fast for the eye to follow. Boreas had picked up a goblin scimitar. A glance behind him showed that Karnea stood near one of the great doors, Sasha beside her with a dagger in each hand.
All around them the goblin army surged, a sea of scaled flesh assaulting an island of whirling steel. Kormak cut and parried and slashed, losing track of everything in his desperate fury. Standing alone, any of the three would have been cut down at once but forming a triangle, and watching each other’s backs they managed to withstand the onslaught.
Kormak knew it was only a matter of time before the end came. Soon they would become too weary to parry their foes, or a lucky blow would get through and take one of them down, and then it would all be over.
He redoubled his efforts to slay, knowing that there was no hope of survival, determined that he was going to drag as many of his enemies down into death with him as he could. The unleashed fury of his blade was too much for the goblins. He drove them back towards the bridge, moving further from the gate. Howling desperate war-cries, Verlek and Boreas accompanied him.
The hail of runestones stopped. That was it then. His last hope, that the goblins would break in the face of the unrelenting hail of explosive missiles, died. They were on their own now and it was only a matter of time before they were pulled down.
Chapter Eighteen
A STRANGE MOMENT of calm swept over the battlefield. For a moment, the goblin assault ceased and all the screams and clamour faded away.
He stood amid a pile of fallen bodies, bleeding from scores of small cuts, and surveyed the sea of goblin faces. They had killed dozens but it made no difference, hundreds more waited to cut them down. They were encircled by the goblins, hundreds of saucer eyes stared at them. The creatures seemed to smile, revealing rows and rows of small sharp teeth and then, as if at a prearranged signal, began to chant the name of Graghur.