One of the giant-kin near Thurgol grunted in deep, sudden pain. Stumbling to his knees and cursing, the firbolg pulled an arrow from his shoulder.
"Up there!" cackled Garisa, pointing a bony finger at the archer, who tried to duck out of sight on the roof of the fish warehouse. A barrage of rocks followed him into his hiding place, with what effect the firbolgs couldn't tell. No more arrows came down from the roof, however.
"Smash down the door!" shouted Thurgol as battle-crazed giants teemed around him, probing and smashing through the ruined shantytown, shaking fists and clubs, throwing stones, and bellowing savagely at the tightly secured warehouse.
A pair of firbolgs lunged at the door, carrying a heavy timber between them. The foot of the beam crunched into the solid portal, creaking the barrier on its hinges but failing to bash it open. Immediately a long spear snaked from a crack beside the entrance, its barbed head driving deep into the flank of one of the lumbering attackers. The firbolg cried out loudly in pain, stumbling away from the door in panic. His companion, left holding the heavy timber by himself, dropped the beam and hastened after the wounded giant-kin.
"All of you, attack!" shouted Thurgol, his own fury compelling him to focus on this stubbornly defended building. Firbolgs surged against the square structure from all sides, smashing against the walls, crashing makeshift battering rams into the two doors. They smashed the shutters over the place's windows, but these apertures proved too small for firbolg bodies. Instead, they opened the attackers up to murderously accurate short-range bow fire from within the darkened warehouse. The giants, on the other hand, couldn't even see their attackers in the shadows.
Still the doors held firm. Thurgol gathered two dozen firbolgs together, commanding them to hoist a long, stout pole that had once supported the roof of an inn. The giant-kin broke into a lumbering gallop, bearing down on the much-battered front door of the warehouse. Though the leaders flinched out of the way as the inevitable polearms projected from gaps beside the entrance, the bulk of the giants drove the ram home with irresistible power.
The door to the warehouse snapped free from its hinges, tumbling into a pile of barrels that had been used to brace it. The latter scattered like ninepins, rolling through the warehouse amid a tangled mass of firbolgs, battering ram, and the unfortunate defenders, who tried to dodge out of the way.
Thurgol stepped through the door in time to see a human spearman drive his weapon into the unprotected back of a firbolg who had fallen to the floor. The giant bellowed in agony as the man pulled his weapon free, raising it for another, this time fatal, thrust.
But the chieftain of Blackleaf got there first. Thurgol broke the human's body like a twig with a single blow of his club, killing him instantly and sending the corpse flying into the wall like a broken rag doll. The wounded firbolg squirmed on the floor, unable to rise, and Thurgol stepped over him to follow the charge into the warehouse.
Humans with swords tried to make a stand around the breach, while others threw open the back doors of the box-like structure. Here they met the other half of Thurgol's band, however. The chieftain hadn't been foolish enough to commit all his giants against one side of the building. Led by Garisa's shouts of encouragement, these firbolgs charged into the desperately fleeing humans, slaughtering them by the dozen as they poured like lemmings from the door.
Thurgol grunted from the pain of a sword cut beside his knee, bashing out the brains of the insolent human swordsman who had injured him. By this time, the firbolgs roamed throughout the warehouse, more and more of them piling through the two entrances until the entire band had collected around their leader. They raised a lusty cheer, and the chieftain felt a cruel flush of triumph.
Then he reflected: There hadn't been more than a few dozen men in this whole place, and it had taken something like two hundred firbolgs the better part of an hour to root them out. When he put the fight into these terms, it didn't cause his heart to swell with martial pride.
Such concerns were beyond the interest of his troops, however, especially after one of them discovered that the warehouse had stored more than fish. Indeed, this seemed to be the biggest liquor repository a town the size of Codscove could possibly need! Casks were broken open before Thurgol even noticed the discovery, and in moments, the smell of flowing rum began to rival even the stench of gutted fish.
Some four hundred stalwart men-at-arms answered the High Queen's mustering within twenty hours. Mostly they came from Corwell Town, but cantrevs Dynnatt and Koart contributed small companies of footmen as well. Nearly twoscore of the Corwell men were mounted and carried light lances; the others included many with longbows and the rest bearing swords and shields. Each man also carried two flasks of highly flammable oil.
The two sergeants-major organized the recruits in the courtyard of Caer Corwell. Sands barked at the swordsmen and archers, organizing them into four companies of march, while Parsallas shouted and harangued the riders and spearmen, forming a long central formation and assigning the horsemen to assume various scouting duties once the formation took to the march.
Robyn stood upon a balcony in the keep, addressing the men gathered in the courtyard below. Alicia and Keane waited at the head of the great file, with the Exalted Inquisitor of Helm off to the side.
"For the first time in a generation," she exhorted them, "the giant-kin have broken the peace, carving a path of destruction across the face of Myrloch Vale and the Winterglen! Will you men join your king and march against them?"
The resulting cry echoed from the walls of the castle, clearly audible even down in Corwell Town.
"Your king already rides," she continued, turning to look clearly at the cleric of Helm. "In the name of the goddess, go forth and restore the Balance! I name the Princess Alicia as your commander, the noble Sir Keane as her lieutenant."
"For the kings of Corwell!" shouted the men, their deep voices rumbling in unison as they chanted the ancient battle cry of the kingdom: "The kings of Corwell!"
Robyn lowered her gaze to rest upon her daughter's uplifted face. "Go now, Princess. Find the enemies of the goddess and bring them to the right!"
"Aye, my queen!" pledged Alicia, with a bow. In another moment, she sprang into her saddle, waiting as Keane and the cleric mounted somewhat more slowly.
"Forward!" she cried. A thumping song begun by a few veterans, rhythmic in tempo and nonsensical in verse, brought the men into a steady march. Alicia and the other riders circled the courtyard and passed through the gatehouse, followed by each rank of footmen in turn, after they clumped proudly past the queen's balcony.
"For the kings of Corwell!" Once again the battle cry echoed from the walls, ringing firmly as the column of men made its way through the gatehouse and onto the castle road.
Just as Alicia, mounted on her fleet mare Brittany, led the column from the gatehouse down the long, descending curve of the road, another rank of men hove into view, coming across the moor from the south. The princess was delighted to hold up the march until the newcomers, forty keen-eyed crossbowmen from Llyrath Forest, fell in at the end of the line. Despite an all-night march, the hearty woodsmen had no difficulty following the rest of the column.
Robyn stood alone in her window for several minutes after that, watching them start across the moors toward the northern highlands. She had given Alicia a map showing a good pass, hitherto known only to a few druids. It should allow them to reach the western shore of Myrloch by the second day out of Corwell.
"Well, they're gone. Now what do we do for excitement?" The voice, from the door of her chamber, whirled the queen around in shock, even as she realized that Deirdre had simply entered without knocking.