Lord Demeter of the Elegant Towers had been fighting a bad war against goblin invaders for years. Not only were his forces greatly outnumbered, the goblins had little difficulty fighting at night, in pitch blackness, owing to their ability to see in the dark. Year after year they encroached closer and closer, until at last they had amassed a powerful army comprised of almost all of their forces, within sight of Elegant Towers, armed to the teeth and slavering with hunger by the bloody light of the setting sun.

On the edge of the plain of Quincari they stood, jagged rough rusty blades and savage banners waving in the wind, and Lord Demeter marched out to meet them, his heart heavy. But before he could array his forces and line them up in front of the enemy, he was approached by a young scholar who requested an audience with his Lordship.

If he hadn't been sunk so deeply in despair he would have shooed the young woman away, but, he thought to himself, why not. They held counsel in quick and hushed tones over a flickering brazier in his tent, and when he emerged he had a new spring in his step which none could explain.

The goblins led by the three-fingered fist of Gulbok Scarmaker formed ranks - or as close to forming ranks as their kind could get - on two towering ridges curling above the wide plain where the army of men stood waiting. Not only did they have the high ground but there were fifteen goblins of every size to each human warrior. This battle would be a tasty appetiser before the main course!

The last rays of the setting sun winked out, and taking that as their signal, the horde let our an unearthly ululation and swarmed down the shallow slopes before them like a spreading stain of ink. Dimly did the men see the glitter of their crimson eyes approaching as if a multitude of embers floated above an invisible fire.

And yet Lord Demeter only smiled, and nodded to the young scholar who only an hour before had told him they stood on the site of an ancient city which had once been a great port. Although the sea was long gone and withdrawn far away, still the soul of that city lived on under the dusty dunes, and with it, the weapons it had used to defend itself from raiders as fierce as the goblins.

His forces pulled back to a safe distance as she chanted words of immense antiquity, close enough to the howling goblins to smell the rank villainy of their breath, and then ran as the earth began to rumble beneath her feet.

The goblins slowed and looked doubtfully downwards, but none of them had a chance to escape when suddenly narrow spears of granite shot upwards and skewered them by the dozen, the hundred, the thousand! Answering the eldritch call of the scholar's words, jagged barbs which had once harpooned entire ships now ripped goblin reavers apart until the air was filled with a fine mist of their blood.

Not the length of a man was left unspiked throughout the plain, and the only thing louder than the shrieks of dying goblins was the laughter of Lord Demeter and his men.