BFive days earlier.

The Fortess of Seven Peaks, named for the seven tallest peaks in the Iron-Blood mountain range, the continent spanning mountain range separated the Tiberian Empire, Association of United Dwarven Trade Cities, and the Religious Kingdom of Heliodor from the desert kingdoms of Arakhan. The fortress was built at the center of the only easily traversable pass in the mountain range in order to defend the border and control trade to and from the Empire. It's normal garrison was a mere five hundred men, half from the Empire and half from the Dwarven Trade Cities, due to it's unique construction, it could easily hold off an army five times it's size. It was positioned at the narrowest gap, ony five men abreast, with a front and rear drawbridge. Legions of soldiers have crashed upon its walls like a wave breaking upon a cliff.

The keep it's self was built into the side of the mountain giving the garrison commander a clear view of the courtyard nestled between the gate houses connected to the draw bridges, the design was impregnable, but there was one fatal flaw, if enemy forces did get in there was no where to run.

Just as he had for the past fifty years garrison commander Vangar the Unbreakable stood upon his balcony watching his men with a slient pride as he sipped a glass of Stone-Beards' 1820 Reserve Whiskey. Every night as of late he heard the familiar high pitched scream carried on the wind, it was a sound he had heard many times as a child in the frozen wastes of the northern continent. He had not spoken yet of the terror that was slowly encroaching upon their territory, but now he had little choice.

Panic broke out amongst the men as an ear piercing draconic scream shattered the still air, a great black figure outlined by the light of the moon cast a shadow upon the troops of the fortress. A winged beast with a serpentine neck and wings like those of a bat, it's long powerful tail ending in a bony spikes driping with poison.

A second scream triggered their panic, not the screams of a beast but the hoarse familiar scream of a human gripped in the winged serpent's powerful hind legs. The scream of a human cut off followed by the sickening sound of the human being ripped in half. A wet spatter like a thousand little raindrops hitting the ground broke the silent fear of the men, as blood rained down upon them.

The lowest born member of the dragons and yet perhaps the most brutal and animalistic of all dragon kind, a wyvern. Vangar had faced such beasts before, long before he was commander of the Seven Peaks Fortress. Two hundred yeas ago, on the northern continent, he was a warrior of a Draengar clan known for his formidable power, never had he fallen in battle, he earned the title the Unbreakable. The right of passage of any Draegnar warrior was to slay one of the Wyverns in the high mountains, just as he did in his youth Vangar leapt from the balcony swinging his mighty two handed axe. With a might roar he sunk his axe into the wyverns back shattering one of it's shoulders driving it onto the ground below. The impact of the fall broke the Wyverns other wing and left it dazed, Vangar had tapped into his draconic ancestry and drew upon the rage of the Red Dragon, the most physically powerful of it's kind.

Vangar let out a deafening battle cry whipped up by his battle frenzy he swung his axe into the creatures neck have severing it's neck. A roar of triumph escaped the men as Vangar turned to face the with his bloody axe resting on his shoulders. "This is gonna be a hell of a scrap you bastards, I suggest you prepared to die, for tonight we face death in battle" Vangar stated with grim flatness that shook the men from their celebration and instilled in them a bloody minded determination to face their own death.

Men no long stood openly at their posts, they hugged the eaves of the guard houses and the crenelations of the fotress walls, dwarven arbalists hid carefully concealed in nooks and crannies waiting to fire an explosive tipped bolt into any possible wyvern attack. They were solely focused on an air attack. Most of the night passed in slience, no man dared cough when a nearly invisible monster might suddenly drop out of the night sky and rip you in half. Every high pitched sream in the night sky caused the men's hairs to raise on ends, no matter how far in the distance they were.

A rumbling deep in the earth disturbed the former Captain of the 12th Dwarven Scout brigade, like all dwarven scouts he learned to read miny tremors in the stone to locate the movement of enemy forces underground. Goblin warbands, Orc warbands, dragons, even old evils best left a slumber, you never know what you might run into in the labryintinan underground maze of tunnels, mines, and citys of their ancient ancestors lost empire.

Even now those lessons served him well, he could even tell the differences of each member of his forces by their footsteps. Now what he felt worried him greatly, the tremors had a ravenous hungry feeling in their frantic movement. Only one creature he knew could move as fast through the cave systems of the mountains, the ancient enemy of all dwarves, goblins.

Gangly akward seeming creatures about the size of a human, they were deceptively intelligent and capable of various levels of craftsmanship. They were skilled skirmishers, perfect for hit and run fighting, and ambushing unexpecting foes. They make use of skills to produce effective but crude bows reinforced with strips of steel for added strength, the also favored spears and short curved swords made for cleaveing off limbs. Also like dwarves they could also make use of blasting powder, though goblin blasting powder was far more volatile and dangerous to use.

The ground shook, even those dwarves wo had not trained as the Captain could feel an underground explosion. He motioned to his men and they snapped back into focusing on their current task as the Captain strolled relaxedly across the courtyard. Vangar eyed the Dwarf who strolled across the courtyard like an old man out on a leisurely stroll through a city park with a mixture of disbelief and amusement. He could instantly guage the dwarf as a warrior of the highest calliber, Vangar was old by human years, but compared to a dwarven warrior whose beard now bore more streaks of silver and grey than black he was but a child. "Garrison commander, we've got a goblin warhost about to break into the lower levels" the Dwarven captain stated plain as roast on Sunday. We're it not stated by a veteran of such experience Vangar would have dismissed those words as nothing more than the ramblings of a mad man.

"Right lets move all our forces into the keep, it'll be better for a straight up fight than dealing with Wyverns" Vangar replied. The old dwarf narrowed his eyes at the Draegnar, "no, there's an entire warren of elite goblin warriors down there with a war cheif leading them, they'll just over run us with numbers, we need to send runners while we hold back the warband for as long as we can" the Captain growled. "What if we fail to hold them" Vangar asked grimly. "My men will rig the drawbridge mechanisms with explosives, make it a hell of a lot easier four our forces to retake. Vangar took a deep breath this would be his first real battle in five decades, he shook with excitement. The captain ever the staunch professional kept his emotions firmly in check, as he went about giving orders to the dwarves under his command.

The captain took what little time the had to locate the point at which the would break into the lower floors, it would serve as the perfect bottle neck for his killing ground. Directly ten paces from the entry point he placed a wall of dwarven warriors wielding sheilds and war axes. On the flanks he placed his strongest force, sheild breakers, dwarven warriors who specialize in fighting with two handed axes capable of shattering sheilds and breaking the arm of the wielder in a single blow. He lent his arbalists to Vangar who manned the second line of defense, the great hall, where human warriors could fight comfortably.

An explosion rocked the keep as one of the lower chamber's wall was blown apart leaving a gaping maw of stone threatening to devour them. The cloud of dust and debris that filled the room hardly bothered the battle hardened warriors. The first goblins stumbled through were confused to see the well disciplined wall of dwarven warriors surounding them, but soon the guttural screeching of goblin warcrys could be heard, followed by the deep boom of goblin wardrums. They poured into that small space like a putrid green tsunami of screaming heavily armed goblins crashing upon the sheild wall, the sheild breakers already were hacking into the tightly packed goblins like a butcher with an endless supply of meat. Limbs flew through the air spraying trails of black blood, severed goblin heads rolled underfoot, entrails soon made the stone a slick mess of bile and gore. It was a glorious cacophony of violence, as the frenzied mass of goblins fell to their axes. It was a text book ambush, but now the true war had begun, as more screaming green skins poured through the gap, after a second bast tore another hole in the lower floor they entered a fighting retreat falling back to the main floor but there were to many of them. The captain took one last look at the men around him, he'd had a good life, before giving the order "let none be taken alive, fight to the last man he called out as he charged into the newest opening with a pack full of blasting powder and a torch. They were overrun, only one dwarf now stood guard on the staircase, a sheild breaker, he had long since lost track of how many goblins his great axe had cleaved in twain. His arms grew tied when the goblin war chief stepped into his view, he carried a rune carved dwarven sword. Even for a veteran elite of the shield breakers, something like a runeblade was something that only exsisted in his child hood stories.

Dwarven language was composed of a complicated system of runes where each rune had an individual meaning how ever the runes could be combined to express more complicated. When a dwarven runelord forged a weapon it became the embodiment of the runes carved on its surface. If a blade had been forged with the rune for cleave, it would become the embodiment of every meaning of the word cleave, armor even stone would become cloven in to like a hot knife through butter.

The rune on the blade that danced before his eyes was not as simple as it first seemed, swift, it was far more an ambiguous word for a weapon. Suddenly the warchief moved in for a slash far faster than even a master swordsman could acomlish, he almost parried the below before the blade sliced his neck cleanly in twain.

Vangar gave the orders to blow the drawbridge mechanisms, it was just as the old dwarf said, they were overrun with sheer numbers, swallowed by a sea of ravenous goblins. Once the battle started he drank deeply of the battle rage driving himself into frenzied madness, pain, fear, everything was gone replaced by rage, he swun his axe left and right into the hoard cutting down two or three at a time. Spears pierced his body, arrows stuck out of his flesh here and there, swords hacked at his body but the mighty Draegnar swung his axe till he breathed his last breath.