Butcher of Gadobhra Chapter 521

The hordes of starving winter worgs, wolf packs, and Snarlfangs had ravaged across the northern province of Grultain for two days after being driven away from the main army and enticed by Beast Masters to head towards Hurlsford and Rowan Keep. The farms and small villages that hadn't heeded the warnings of the Couriers found themselves with no options other than to hide in root cellars or barricade themselves in attics. This saved only a few people. The animals were hungry, and few basements were deep enough with stone walls. A few minutes of digging spelled their doom, and a single Snarlfang could destroy a wooden house, no matter how many stories.

Only sturdy, stone manor houses had a chance. Two mayors opened their doors and took in every person who made it to them. Another locked his doors, keeping his food for himself. The last tried to do that, and a sturdy blacksmith broke the hinges on the door, letting in his angry neighbors. While they dealt with the ex-mayor, he fixed the hinges and made sure the bars on the windows were secure. The ex-mayor was forced to huddle in a small room and nurse their bruises. He left days later with only the clothes on his back, pushing a wheelbarrow down the road, his only possessions a bag of rotten potatoes and some straw bedding.

Hurlsford fared better for three reasons: The defenses built by the Baron of Gadobhra, the smell of roasted meat on the wind, and a herd of pregnant mares heading toward Sedgewick that smelled delicious. Seven Couriers, all members of House Franklin, saw the horde of canines catch their scent and urged the mares ahead as fast as they could, aided by Courier magic, while five of them baited the packs of animals away from Hurlsford by coming close, throwing spells, and racing away. The cat and mouse games continued until the smell from the sausage in Sedgewick became enough to bring the hordes in that direction. All of the village's animals and most of its people were secure in the underground refuge built to protect them from the wrath of a Frost Devil. Lookouts and the people manning the siege engines were still on duty. Five Contract Workers, three squads comprising most of the town guards, and two dozen players were manning the walls.

While most of the packs followed the Couriers, several hundred turned towards Hurlsford under the direction of three Snarlfangs and a Beastmaster possessing a giant, snowy owl, giving orders. The Beastmaster saw the crews manning ballistas on the four towers. He needed the Snarlfangs to leap the walls and claw through the gates to let the rest of the packs inside, and he needed them alive to control the rest of the packs. While the worgs and wolves worked to find ways in, he summoned additional owls that had followed him south and sent them at the towers.

A dozen large owls attacked two of the towers, surprising the crew there. It was a slaughter in the first, with all four men dying from slashing claws and razor-sharp beaks. Three of the twelve owls went down, the Beastmaster wincing each time one died. The linkage was weak, but still painful. The second tower saw the owls attack and tried to close the heavy shutters on the windows. Meant to protect from arrows, they worked on the owls, with three getting shut before the birds gained access. The fight was less one-sided in this tower as the owls struggled to gain access. Nine owls and four men died. The other two towers were shut tight, and the Beastmaster recalled his birds, forming one flock. His head was pounding, and it would be days after this battle to fully recover. But he could now send in the Snarlfangs. A fifty-foot-high tower would be a problem for them, but not a twenty-foot wall. They could leap high and claw their way to the top of the barrier.

Someone on the wall agreed with the Beastmaster. " Ten to one, those crazy mutts are going to climb the walls and eat our livers for breakfast." Miriam was watching the three snarlfangs, easily the biggest things she could see, moving towards them. She'd seen them before, when they charged the wagons at the battle of Chrystalthorn. The two large stonecutters, Ernest and Bertrand, standing next to her, agreed.

Ernest looked at Bertrand as he hefted a large wooden mallet. "Feel like a round of Bop-a-Mole, old buddy, old pal?"

Bertrad lifted his own large gopher hammer, "I'd be delighted."

Miriam looked at the two other people with her. Ellee and Liam were carpenters, and while they didn't have the sheer muscle power of the stonecutters, they were still strong and fast with their twin adze. "I'll help the bobsy twins here keep the dogs off the wall. Run to that storage tower and grab barrels from the stores. I've got an idea."

The two carpenters took off at a run. Miriam looked up at the sky, seeing a lot of things moving up there. The towers were out of commission until there was a way to deal with the owls, but that was beyond her. Unlike the other workers, Miriam didn't use a gopher hammer or adze. Her work in the smithy had advanced far enough that she'd gained the ability in Tier Four to summon a Flaming Salvage Hammer that let her break down items to reclaim metal for other projects. If something had a use in smithing, the hammer could hit it. She hoped there was a recipe part in the large monsters charging the walls.

The Snarlfangs barely noticed the wide trench filled with brush that circled the town. They bounded to the middle, then the edge of the wall and leaped halfway up, their claws digging into the stone and letting them leap upward again. Ernes and Bertand were waiting. As the Snarlfangs grasped the edge of the wall and heaved themselves upward, each took a gopher hammer to the snout. The huge wooden mallets didn't do nearly the damage that Ozzy did with his Hogsplitter. The Workers used them because they were one of the few weapons they could use. The two stonecutters used them in their work to drive lines of metal wedges into the stone in a quarry and break out the large blocks they needed for construction. A wooden hammer was an all-around tool for them, and because of that, many of their special skills worked with it. Both utilized "Slam into Place" and "Rock Smasher" as they swung their hammers at the snouts of the invading Snarlfangs.

"Today is brought to you by the Letter S, for SMASH!"
"And by the Letter G for Gopher."
"And of course, by the Baron of Gadobhra."

The knockback from the blows dislodged the Snarlfangs, who toppled to the ground. Slightly hurt, but enraged. They lashed out at anything around them, killing a dozen wolves that were filling the trench and leaping at the walls. From the top of the wall came an animal howl of pain as Miriam hit her Snarlfang. Her flaming hammer came down on the top of the beast's snout, slamming it into the stone parapet and breaking off several fangs. The Snarfang's face caught on fire, and it howled in pain and rage, giving her time for another swing that knocked it off the wall.

"Get ready, here they come again."

The Snarlfangs were angry, and their tiny, still-slightly-frozen brains didn't quite grasp what had happened, especially the one with in desperate need of a dentist and a firetruck. The flames hadn't extinguished and were still burning, slowly stripping it of fur and turning it bright red. It surged back of the wall, followed by the other two. The workers barely had to adjust their placement.

"S stands for Skullcrushing."
"G is for Gravity, one of my best friends."
"And this round is brought to you by our friends at ACME Corporation."

Miriam, not the best at snappy repartee, just screamed in the burning Snarlfangs face and knocked out more of its teeth. Powdered, they would make a good additive to the Dark Steel for an enchanted axe. The creature snapped at her, and her second blow never landed, her left arm held fast in its toothless maw, one remaining tooth penetrating her heavy leather gloves. Screaming in pain, she pounded at it with her hammer, shattering its jaw and freeing herself. The flaming monster had a good purchase on the parapet, but lost it as Liam and Elee returned and used barrels of smoked meat to smash it and dislodge it and dislodge it from the wall.

Miriam concentrated and ignored the pain of her mauled arm. "SUMMON ANVIL!" From below in the smithy, her five-hundred-pound anvil appeared where she wanted it, in midair, above the Snarlfang. The monster had barely hit the ground when the anvil landed on its head, spraying brains everywhere. It was instantly torn to pieces by the hungry horde.

Ernest and Bertrand were in awe, but had to deal with the third round of bop-a-snarlfang, hoping the things had a slow learning curve.

"A stands for Anvil."
"And ACME! The Maker of Fine Anvils!"

Liam and Elee hit each of their foes in the head with a 500-pound hogshead of smoked meat, stunning them for a moment. The effect on the pack of starving wolves and worgs was the same as chum tossed to sharks. They lunged for the meat, not caring if they bit off parts of another wolf or a Snarlfang. The larger monsters, enraged by their failure, struck back, slaying wolves by the dozen, which only enflamed things further. More barrels were thrown from different parts of the wall, spreading the chaos. Within ten minutes, the Snarlfangs were torn and bloody, and on their last legs. The wolves were still fighting and feeding on their own.

The Beastmaster, holding his head against the pain and bleeding from sympathetic injuries, managed to get control of the two remaining beasts and had them climb the wall once more. One of them was met by both Ernest and Bertrand, showing their deep friendship over the years by cooperating and not fighting over the kill. Two gopher hammers hit it in the head, cracking its skull and sending its lifeless body to the ground. The second was hit in the head by an anvil as Miriam used the last of her mana to summon and drop it again, killing the third beast.

High in the sky came the honking of geese as forces summoned by the Lord of Ducks arrived to engage the enemy flyers. Dead owls fell to the ground in parts. It was the last damage the Beastmaster in his nearby hiding spot could take. His mind shattered. It would be only an hour before it was found by a stray worg and devoured.

Miriam looked down at the milling wolves, fighting for scraps at the bottom of the steep-sided trench. "No sense wasting all that kindling and oil. Might want to stand back from the edge. She snapped her fingers, and a small spark flew down to the trench, lighting the flammable material. Flames blew up fast, racing around the town. It was messy, and the new walls would be covered in soot, but not many of the creatures below would survive.

To the North, the bulk of the packs headed for Rowan Keep, Sedgewick, and Gadobhra, filtering through the loose forest known as the Hollywood.

Glowing red eyes watched them with malice and a trace of envy. "They didn't even stop to talk shop? How rude. Come along, boys, I think we need to talk to them and remind them who this area belongs to." As usual, the pack of zombie wolves following Chartok said nothing in reply.