The alarm bells were tolling and cries of goblin invaders pervaded the town confines. The guards manning the walls and towers were in utter disarray. After having watched the southern foothills for more than ten years without incident they were not prepared for what came down them. Their foe had climbed high into the hills from the shadow side, and now came racing down towards Attoras in devices not man-made. The farther they rolled, the more apparent it became that they were great wheels, like the wheel set on a watermill.
The guard named Aphelas would long after today wonder at what suspension and cushion the goblins could have used for the wheels to survive the rocky tumble, and at such speeds. The trick of it was in the bounce, for instead of smashing on the rocks they leapt and revolved with increasing velocity. Indeed some of the wheels still lost their balance, and once they tilted onto their sides and crashed they became little more than flying shards of wood, and a flailing dead body was revealed to have hidden inside it.
Gods! The goblins are riding inside those things! realized Aphelas, now seeing the wheels had seated chambers inside of them, weighted internally so that they remained upright on the inside regardless.
Yet most survived, and by some other strange mechanism (two cloth chutes erupting toward the rear and dragging on the wind) they came to an eventual halt where the foot of the mountain made a plateau, there being a strategic holdfast where the rocky foot budded into town confines in a manner that gave Attoras its star-shaped border. Two of the wheels risked going even further, vaulting clear from mountainous rock and onto the adjacent castle battlement.
Had the goblins tried to claim it by conventional means the town guard would have long since rallied and put a stop to it. But the wheels had given them speed and the guard was already attending another goblin threat at the town eastside. In what was now a spectacle to Aphelas he saw the goblins scurry, having jumped out of the devices, and two at a time, pulled at the sides of the wheels - they folded open like those clever collapsible chairs.
To them the goblins quickly made configurations, locking beams in place and winding ropes. Aphelas could not determine what they had changed into until the long wooden arms came up.
Flung fire pots burned through the sky as the wheels-turned-slings spun and released. The pots, filled with lit-oil, struck the castle yard, against the walls and the town. Where they fell they burst into flames that swept open like liquid. Aphelas knew the pots would not do much damage, save to cause terror, and that the slings of goblins couldn’t possibly throw anything heavier.
But then terror was a weapon on its own, thought Aphelas, as fires spurred on the goblins' rampage and the remainder of the guard that was left in the castle yard could not come together to halt the goblin swarm.
Another volley of fire pots came flying, and this time they struck the scaffolding against the south-east castle wall, where the stone gargoyles would have been mounted. The wooden frameworks burst into flames and suddenly they proved to be a real threat of setting parts of the castle ablaze. Other scaffolding was left intact, and the goblins used the frames to gain access into the castle through the higher windows. This is no accident! With the guard locked out in town and the scaffolding providing the tinder and ladders, a conspiracy formed in Aphelas’ mind. If only they could survive today he would tell everyone of what he suspected.
He rushed for the trapdoor, deciding that his role as watchman was now becoming vain. But one fire pot flew high and it cracked on the tower top. Aphelas escaped the blast of flames, but his heel caught on the low wall of the crenellation, he grabbed for the battlement, but the fingertips of his gloves were slick with wear, and he fell to his death where the goblins were already ramming at the castle door, the hinges and lumbers protesting.
Dream of Embers Book 1 Page 18
