10
The whole fabric of the blockhouse shook as the mass of thralls ploughed into the gate and the tide of Lupines began clawing their way up the sides of the wooden structure. All around the ramparts Theodora’s retinue and the Haltwic militia began to loose their arrows. Soon the whimpers of dead and dying Lupines mingled with the savage battle cries. Still they came.
Torben lunged forward and thrust his spear into the chest of one beast whose head and upper body had crested the parapet and was close to climbing over the wooden barricade. It tried to maintain its hold on the woodwork, its claws scrabbling desperately, sending up splinters of wood and sawdust, but then it tumbled down the ground and out of sight. Torben tightened the grip on his spear as he saw the clawed hands of another
