Mikhael Grunner was panting with mixed fear and exertion as he reached the weapon rack. The horns' calls began coming faster and more frantically to his ears.

Why, now!? Why? Why? WHY?! his thoughts kept going in frantic circles as he tore a longsword from its place with what was nearly a strangled sob.

All around him the other young men and women did the same while the two lieutenants stood patiently behind them. Mikhael quickly strapped an iron round shield to his arm, hoping that the lessons his uncle Jerren had given him would be of some help, and turned back to Ramn and Crayla. Both of them stood with their backs to the recruits and seemed to be scanning the skys. Mikhael followed their gaze and swallowed down a suddenly parched throat. Tiny black shapes were flying in a loose formation from the west. Mikhael had seen such shapes before but only from a long, long way away. These blackwings looked as thought they were coming right for the keep.

" Inside!! Quickly!! " lieutenantRamn bellowed, waving his scimitar in the direction of the closest entrance to the interior of the fortress.

This time Mikhael was in the back of the stampede along the wall of the yard and it saved his life.

There was a sound, as thought he were in the clouds when thunder rolled across them, and a fiery red light that seared through his eyelids. Then Mikhael was rolling bonelessly across the marshalling yard, his sword still clutched tightly in his hand, and stopped against something very wet. A ringing in his ears made hearing anything difficult and his blurry eyes only complicated matters. The young recruit was on his hands and kness over whatever had stopped him when his vision began to clear and he saw what had stopped him.

The blank eyes of one of the young female recruits stared up at him. He looked down at where he had felt the wetness... and found his guts heaving at the sight before him. There was nothing of the girl from the waist down except blood and gray guts.

Mikhael scampered backwards on his ass, the ringing in his ears muting his own hoarse screams, and was stopped by a heavy boot to his back. The frightened boy turned with a shrill shout and was hauled to his feet by the tall, grim-looking lieutenant. Ramn pulled Mikhael close and glared into his eyes for a moment.

" Death comes for us all, boy. Get in formation," he said, quietly, and shoved Mikhael to the side.

A small hand stopped him and guided him over to where the other survivors stood in quivering shock almost in the center of the yard. Mikhael turned and saw what had almost killed him. A huge hole had been opened in the ground right in front of the entrance to the yard.

" We should go back the other way," someone whispered in a shaky voice.

" Look, you fool! " someone hissed, their voice quaking with fear or anger, Mikhael couldn't tell.

Mikhael turned and his face blanched in shock as his hopes for life were crushed by the sight. It looked as though holes had been blown open in the ground at every wall of the yard. There was no place to go.

They were all going to die.

" Stay together!! Fight together!! All of you with bows, kneel in the front rank, and fire until they are within four meters. Then withdraw and shoot very carefully. Get ready!! " lieutenant Crayla roared while her tall partner waved his arms around in what Mikhael assumed were limbering exercises.

Shoot at who?! he wondered and seconds later a bestial roar seemed to echo all around them.

Squat, heavy shapes pulled themselves out of the holes in front of Mikhael. A thick-shouldered boy knelt down in front of Mikhael, his arms quivering in fear, and he shakily aimed at the figures. From the stories his Pa had told him these ugly bastards had to be grull. They were armed with nasty looking maces and spiked clubs. From what Mikhael could see they were dressed in filthy rags that he could smell from a dozen meters away. Crayla punched Ramn lightly on the shoulder and was touched in kind before she trotted to the opposite side of the small cluster of recruits. Mikhael looked around frantically and tried to count the number of grull that were arrayed against them. There looked like there were at least two dozen all around them. Cold sweat seeemed to burst from every pore on Mikhael's body as the grull let loose a mass bellow and charged them.

" Loose!! " both lieutenants bellowed and Mikhael jumped despite himself.

The booming cries of the horns were drowned out beneath the grunts and shrill bellows of the grull. The snap of bowstrings could barely be heard as the grull raced towards them. Mikhael winced as the archer in front fired wildly and his arrow flew over the heads of the grull. The boy fumbled an iron-tipped arrow from his quiver... and dropped it. Mikhael let out a curse he had heard from a wagoneer once and snatched the bow and quiver from the fool's hands. Without thinking he snatched the arrow from the ground, drew the fletchings to his cheek, and loosed in what was nearly a smooth motion. The iron arrowhead took a grull high in the shoulder and the ugly brute fell to the ground writhing in agony. Mikhael was able to loose only two more arrows, one completely missing, and the other only grazing the jowls of a grull, before they were within a few meters. Mikhael's accuracy was not that good and he tossed the bow and quiver back to the shaking boy. Mikhael drew his longsword, wiped his trembling lower lip on his sleeve, and waited for the enemy.

Suddenly lieutenant Ramn gestured too quickly for the eye to follow and flicked his hand outward. A searing ball of orange-red fire sailed through the air and hit a grull in the lead directly in the face. There was an earth-shaking explosion and the ball of fire expanded to at least three meters. Grull body parts were thrown in all directions while those on the outer edges of the ball of fire scattered as their bodies caught fire. When the ball of fire faded there were only five or so grull left. Mikhael felt confident at their chances now.

The lead grull charged headlong at lieutenant Ramn and the lieutenant merely cocked his head to the side as the grull wildly swung his mace. In a whirlwind of movement, the lieutenant parried the mace, spun to the left, and sliced open the grull's skull with a stomach-turning slicing-crunching sound. Lieutenant Ramn kept moving, leaving behind the twitching body of the grull, and his sword whistled through the air like some farmer's scythe. Mikhael had never seen anything like it and even hearing the stories was nothing like seeing it in the flesh. The HomeGuard lieutenant seemed more than human as he obliterated the small group of grull within seconds.

Lieutenant Ramn turned and immediately sprinted through the loosely gathered group of recruits. Mikhael turned and watched as Ramn slashed open the belly of one of the last remaining grull on lieutenant Crayla's side. Lieutenenat Crayla planted a boot on the gut of a twitching grull and pulled her longsword's blade from the beasts throat in a spray of blood.

" HUMANS!! " a deep-throated roar came from behind Mikhael.

The young man turned, his stomach rumbling queasily, and almost threw up at the sight before him. Half a dozen of what could only be wartoks, wearing patched chainmail armor, and wielding huge battle-axes, were charging at them with maddened roars. Lieutenant Ramn once again took up position to their left.

" LOOSE!! " the lieutenants roared again and this time the boy in front of Mikhael wasn't shaking nearly as badly.

Mikhael watched as two of the wartoks dropped but the others kept coming despite an arrow protruding from their punctured chainmail. This time the lieutenant raced to meet the wartoks head on. With a bestial roar, the wartok swept his huge axe in a blow meant to take the smaller humans legs away. Mikhael's jaw dropped when the lieutenant actually leaped over the blow, twisting and turning over the wartoks head, and his scimitar carved a shining path through the air as it lashed out. When the lieutenant landed the wartok slumped forward and lay lifeless on the ground. There was no time for the lieutenant to revel in his victory as he barely dodged a downward chop that would almost certainly have cut him nearly in two. Blood gushed from the deep wound in the wartok's side that lieutenant Ramn had cut before he moved on. The wartok clutched a hand to his side, slumped to the ground, and looked as though he were struggling to draw in breath. The next wartok stopped before the lieutenant, what Mikhael thought might be fear was etched all over it's ugly face, and raised his axe high overhead. A flash of light was the only warning that the lieutenant had moved until lieutenant Ramn raced forward and took back the scimitar that had embedded itself into the wartok's huge throat. The final wartok was handled with an almost casual reverse-handed slash that opened his throat up in a bloody mess.

" I see your skills have grown," a voice, sounding fresh from the grave, seemed to come from all around them.

" Minmon!! " Mikhael could her lieutenant Crayla roar," Come out and you will see just how much we've improved!! "

The voice chuckled," I think not, fair Crayla, but I will send my servants to you. "

A scream on Mikhael's left made him jump away and focus on where it came from. One of the young women, a handsome girl with dark brown hair, was frantically trying to get away from something that had her foot trapped. Mikhael's eyes widened in disbelief as he got a good look at what held her.

It looked like the skeletal hand of a long-dead man had broken through the ground beneath her feet.

The girl kicked the hand away and sprinted towards the "safety" that the lieutenants offered. Mikhael was backing away with the other recruits when he felt a tug on his leg. He let out a hoarse cry of fear as he fell to the ground and another bony hand clenched his hair.

" Somebody help me!! " he roared, but it looked as though no one had heard him.

Suddenly someone broke the hold of the skeletal hands and whatever was clutching his hair. Lieutenant Crayla helped him to his feet and clapped him hard on the back before she went charging off with a wild battlecry. Mikhael looked around and found that they were surrounded by...

The urge to scream and run and scream threatened to bubble up within Mikhael at the sight of... it couldn't BE!!

Skeletons were walking, running, and fighting all across the yard. They moved in a jerky, yet fluid way that looked entirely unnatural. They were armed with short-hafted rusty axes that looked as though they would fall apart at any moment. Mikhael stumbled over something and looked down in horror to see the body of the trembling archer that had found some courage at the end. The crumbled remains of a skeleton lay at his feet where the boy had met his end from an axeblow to the back of the head. Anger, hot and urgent, surged within Mikhael and he let out a bellow that surprised even him with it's intensity.

The young man lashed out with his longsword at the skeletons that seemed to emerge from everywhere. Mikhael sidestepped to the right and swept his longsword to the left. The skeleton's jaw dropped in what Mikhael hoped was a scream as the blade decapitated it. Mikhael's world became nothing so much as screaming and swinging his longsword with frantic desperation. Time seemed to speed up and slow down at the same time. Every slash, every desperate dodge, even near miss, even bone-shattering blow, all seemed to take an eternity while they passed in an instant.

It was thus that Mikhael found himself standing over the shattered remnants of a skeleton. The point of his longsword was firmly planted through the top of the skull of the reanimated skeleton. The young man turned, wincing in pain as blood seeped through his shirt, and stared in dismay across the battlefield. Bodies lay everywhere, grull, wartok, pieces of the living skeletons, and humans. Only a half dozen or so remained standing and most of them looked as though they would soon join those on the ground. Lieutenants Ramn and Crayla stood proudly before an emaciated looking man in sandy brown robes who held a staff with a crimson jewel atop it.

" I will return with an army the likes of which you have never seen. I will see you DIE!! "

The man raised his staff high and a blinding white light burst from the jewel. Mikhael covered his eyes and when the light faded he saw that he man was gone. A mighty roar rolled over the keep and Mikhael's heart soared as he looked up to see a Dragon of the Order flying circles around the blackwings.

" I love it when they say that," he heard lieutenant Crayla mutter as she and her partner began seeing to the injured recruits.

It was then that the day's events caught up with young Mikhael and he succumbed to his exhaustion.