Free River Of Life (Book 3) by Paul Drewitz Page B

those horrible
eyes. The body fell to the floor of the wall, and with a shove of his boot,
Erelon sent it tumbling over the edge into the swarming mob below.
    Quickly Erelon moved in for the kill.  Each stroke destroyed at
least one enemy. He wasted no energy, no move was pointless.  Erelon brought
the blade downward, cleaving the skull of one enemy, and as he brought the
blade back, an unsuspecting goblin found the hot magical tip of Erelon's blade
searing a path through his throat.  Erelon used every inch of the blade.  One
moment using the heavy thick section where it connected into the pommel to
sever the arm off one creature, and the next using only the tip, allowing it to
only slighting sink into the back of another monster.
    The enemies were mostly goblins, yet within them were mixed
motley beasts that Erelon did not know from where the wraiths had spawned
them.  Part wolves, trolls, and spiders mixed with men or other creatures.  A
few even seemed related to wraiths.  Suddenly, Erelon and Yalen met on the wall. 
Instinctively, they turned their backs together and went back to work.
    “The battle is mostly contained along the wall within the
forest,” Yalen shouted above the roar of rushing bodies and metal crashing into
metal.
    Erelon shoved his sword through the throat of one goblin and
twisted it so that it came out free and then brought it downward through the
bowels of another.  The pressure of the mob pushed against his body, but Erelon
anchored his feet into the ground, pushing back so that he was not shoved from
the wall to fall to the ground far below.
    “Those watching the prairie wall should stay at their posts
anyway.  Do not want to be surprised,” Erelon replied as he smashed the butt of
his sword into the face of a goblin, blood squirting from a crack in its skull,
and then yanked on its arm sending him over the edge of the wall.
    Yalen only gave a nod of his head in acknowledgement.
    On the enemy came.  They used few ladders; instead, they
ascended the walls like bugs, using all four of their own limbs.  They
clambered over every inch of the stone wall, a vertical flood of gray bodies. 
Finally some men began dumping oil and tar over the walls, but Erelon refused
to have it lit.  The oil made the wall slick, and the enemy slid back to the
ground.  The goblins grew wise.  Erelon saw as torches were flung, the goblins
setting it on fire themselves even though it consumed many of their own.
    Smoke and fire billowed over the edge of the wall, blinding
those who guarded it.  As the smog cleared and the fires and heat died, men
could still see overpowering numbers of enemy warriors.  Wizards used magical
spells, fire, electricity, and wind, but nothing could turn aside the dark
swarm.  Explosions filled the base of the wall as earth and bodies flew in all
directions.  Bodies were wrapped around trees or impaled on limbs, chunks of
flesh hanging like clothes on a line to dry.  Erelon shoved his sword into the
sky.  Lightning bolts came from the clear blue beyond and slammed into the earth
at the base of the wall.  Dirt showered his own soldiers along with pieces of
the enemy bodies.
    Erelon slammed the pommel of his sword into the face of a goblin
before pitching him over the wall and then plunging the blade into the bowels
of another.  The stomach, so soft.  A blade easily went through without
catching on bone or cartilage, and yet the wound would be so vicious that even
though the victim would die slowly, it would be unable to continue the fight.
    The wizard scooped up a scimitar that had fallen from the dead
hands of a goblin.  With two blades, he rushed the goblins along the wall.  He
brought both down, severing the arms from one.  Then brought them back around
through another.  He twisted, turned and loosed the scimitar so that it flew
awkwardly through the air to plunge through the chest of a wolfman.  The
creature looked at the point that had burst through its ribs