With the sun high in the sky, a wagon makes its way down a well trotted dirt road that connects the city of Kalindar to Fort Gorgan. The only scenery in view is that of the golden fields, which gave the area its name of The Plains. 

“The sun feels really good today” Trek said, while sitting next to his father in the wagon.

“I agree, let’s hope that it stays like this until we can make it to Fort Gorgan” as his father smiles down at him, holding the reigns to the wagon.

“I’m sure it will!” Trek said with a beaming smile.

Their family isn’t the wealthiest in Kalindar but his father’s merchant shop has his father making trips out to Fort Gorgan and other places like Lothan or Alizter to supply them with traded goods. It takes weeks at a time to get from Kalindar to Fort Gogran and his father finally gave in to let Trek ride with him on this latest trip. He always wondered what Fort Gorgan was like from only hearing stories about it from his father and the other kids around town. Every boy in the Plains had dreams about becoming a war hero. Fighting back the goblins that come out of the Forsaken Mountain, holding the line with their fellow brother’s wave after wave, and knowing that they are the first line of defense to protecting the people of the Plains. In six more years, he will enlist into the army. By that time he would make the age requirement of sixteen to be able to enlist and start training at the Fort.

Soon the Fort came into sight, with its high stone walls, towers rising above the outer walls, and a flag of two swords crossed over a wheat field, waving in the wind. Its walls are made of stones from the local quarry located nearby, hence the reason for their trip here to deliver pickaxes, sledge hammers, shovels, and other tools needed to make the large sections of stone. His father, also seeing the Fort in sight, snaps the reigns to get the horses moving faster.

“We need to get there before sunset, so hold on” as his father ruffles Trek’s hair. He has always done that since Trek was little but he never had the heart to tell him that it annoyed him. Just another way of how his father shows his love.

“Why do we need to get there by sunset?” Trek said, scrunching up his brow.

“There are things at night that you don’t need to be seeing” his father replies.

Why does he keep information to himself and not share it? I’m ten years old! Thought Trek, as he continued to stare at his father. Knowing he won’t pull anything further from him, he looks forward at the rapidly growing sight of Fort Gorgan.

The sun drops lower and lower in the sky leaving shadows of the Forsaken Mountain over the ground. Looking upon it makes you think of the head of a pitchfork with the middle throngs cut in half. No one knows how the shape came to be but many scholars speculate that it comes from the foul creatures that live underneath it, deep in the ground.

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“Do you think we will make it in time before they close the gates?” worry showing on Trek’s face.

“Yes, yes, of course we will. No need to worry yourself, we will get there with plenty of time.”

Coming around a bend in the road, they see smoke coming up from the Fort on the north side facing the mountain. Looking at his father, he starts to notice small drops of sweat correlate on his forehead. Either from worry or from the exertion of pushing the horses faster, we wouldn’t know. He starts to ask a question about it when a loud explosion erupted from the Fort. A wave of fire spreads over the outer walls coming up over the top to hit the soldiers patrolling there. Screams fill the air from the soldiers as they throw themselves on the walkway to put out the fires. Other soldiers run up with buckets of water to douse the flames. Another explosion erupts from the north side filing the air with more screams of burning soldiers.

“No…” his father breaths out. “I was sure we had enough time to make it in.”

“Father, what’s going on? Why is there fire?” Trek yells with his hands covering his ears.

His father snaps the reigns again even harder, thinking that they can still make it before the portcullis closes from the attack. The horses surge with renew vigor and jerks the wagon forward towards the Fort.

As they get closer they start to see the soldiers on top of the walls fire their bows at a black form moving on the ground beneath them. The black form gets bigger and bigger as Trek and his father get closer to the Fort, until it breaks apart with hundreds of goblins running to the portcullis.

The goblins huddled together with their shields raised up to block the arrows coming from above. Some arrows managed to squeeze through the gaps in the shield wall to hit the unfortunate goblins. The goblins barely notice their comrade’s injuries as they continue to stomp over their bodies, further crushing them. With the portcullis in sight, they soon break apart squealing with glee at the kills soon to come.

His father now knows that they won’t make it in time and pulls hard on the reigns to the left. The horses buck in protest but soon goes with the hard turn to turn them around.

The goblins further back in the group see this and went to chase the easier prey behind them. Arrows flew from short bows at the wagon as they run to catch up to them.

As the wagon turns, the goods that are supposed to be delivered to the Fort all slam to the right side of the wagon making the wagon go up onto two wheels on the right side. With the goods being pushed to the right, gravity takes over and the wagon falls onto its side. A loud crash and crack sounded from the wagon being flipped. The horses were able to go against the force of the tipping wagon and managed to break the tong connecting them to the wagon. After the tong was broken, the horses ran away with their new found freedom.

Trek luckily landed on his father who took most of the impact from hitting the ground. His father suffered some scrapes and bruises but managed to stand up. He told Trek to start running, then dug in the back of the wagon for anything to fight off the goblins with. His hands found purchase on a handle of a pickaxe and pulled it out.

“Why are you still standing here? Run! Now!” in a voice that Trek new very well not to fight him on.

“I won’t leave you here to die!” Trek screamed with tears coming down his cheeks.

The goblins were getting closer to where they were, hooting and hollering the entire time.

“Listen to me, you need to run. I’ll hold them off as long as I can.” He then turns around raising his pickaxe, screams out a challenge to them, and runs straight into the waiting hands of the goblins.

“Father!!!” Trek screams as everything goes black…