The army kept coming.
From the height of the fortress wall, the hobgoblins seemed to cover the plains in a filthy, heaving mass of muscle, hide, and crude iron. Their numbers swallowed the ground beneath them. Dust rose around their feet in thick brown clouds, while their roaring blended with the pounding of clubs against shields and armor.
They were brutish.
Dirty.
And impossibly loud.
The noise reached the fortress long before the first creature came within range. Thousands of throats howled together, each one trying to be heard above the rest. Tree-trunk clubs struck the earth. Metal scraps rattled against bone armor. Somewhere within the army, deep war horns released ugly blasts that rolled across the open land and shook dust from the battlements.
The soldiers stationed around Kael tried to hide their worry.
They did a poor job.
