The horde was so close to the city that the guards could see them, feel how the ground was rumbling when the horde of monsters and beast came even closer to the city.
"Ready your bows, dip the arrows to the oil, nock, mark, draw, light the arrows up and loose!"
Will shouted, and the first volley of arrows left the bowstrings, some hitting the targets and harvesting their numbers, but still, there were many left to kill.
"When you are ready you can release at your own will, don't wait for orders just shoot those bastards down, but also remember we don't have many arrows only thirty to every man, so you better to make all of those arrows to count," Will shouted after the first volley was shot and looked down to the city, what he called a home, where he had spent most of his life, and then he put his iron face back together.
"Hey Will say when the arrows are used, I will then ready the adventures to get over the walls to slaughter the remaining enemies, and I hope some guards also to come there, so just say and open the gates to us, so we can finish the work," Frank said while climbing the stairs back to the wall, to look the tide and then his adventures.
"Say how many of my men are dead, corpses now in the forest, how many I don't see come back, as we didn't see any signs of this tide coming nothing at all, how many lives we could have saved if we would know that this will happen and I know that it is part of the job, that some people will never come back but still I wonder that."
"I'm sorry Frank, some of them were good lads, but as you said it was part of their job, they knew the risks when they decided to be adventures," Will said while patting Frank's shoulder
"And yes I also wonder where they did come from, no words from passing merchants, some probably now dead, because that horde of monsters and beast, no words from scouts or from adventures, that horde, tide whatever just appeared from thin air, from nothingness, just suddenly at our gates getting themselves killed." Will continued.
"I just hope that we don't have any goblin villages here, as you can see they are goblins and wolves down there, so I really don't want that as those bastards breed like rabbits, more and more coming out from those nasty bastards, suddenly there are hundreds of them like down there, then we are in a really bad situation, if there is goblin village we have to exterminate it immediately, as it seems like they are intelligent enough to tame wolves, some of them even has bows equipped and let me tell at you, if they don't have any crafters in their village then I don't deserve to be called an adventurer, as to how otherwise they could have gotten those bows and arrows," Frank said with a straight face.
"That seems very possible but there is always the possibility of that they are just wandering tribe, their village maybe got destroyed, maybe other goblins won and drove them away from their home and now they are desperate enough to try to attack our city, to get food for their tribe, or as you said maybe there is a goblin village here and they hunted all of the prey from the forest, but enough of that we still have to win this battle."
"I really hope that it is just passing tribe, I really hope that," Frank said but before he could continue a panicked guard came to interrupt their conversation.
"Excuse, excuse me but I think that you two have to see this." The guard said with his trembling voice.
"What is it and why are you panicking," Will said while he and Frank followed the soldier and saw massive swamp turtle marching towards the gates.
"Captain, we have tried arrows, stones anything else than oil, as we don't have any more oil, but nothing seems to stop them." The guard said.
"What! Why in the hell there is swamp turtle here, this isn't simple beast tide at all we have to kill it before that turtle destroys our gate, but we have to do it from close quarters, to gang up to the turtle, hit it on its weak spots as our weapons cannot easily penetrate that shell, so open the gates I will order the adventures to stall and kill it, I will also borrow some of your guards, so you keep those arrows coming, protect our back and when there aren't any arrows left to come down." Frank said while he started to run to town from the wall to make his adventures ready for the coming fight.
"Open the gates from them and keep them open from them, so that they can retreat at any moment, you there, you will now command the squad of guards that will go assist the adventures to slay those beasts down there, rest of you now your aim has to be better than ever, make every arrow to count," Will shouted immediately but first made sure that everyone was ready to pour out from the gates, before opening them and when he saw the signal he shouted to the guards.
"Open the gates now and keep them half-closed so that we can close them at every moment."
The adventures and guards started to swarm out of the gates, but before they could continue, one of the swamp turtles was in front of them.
"Kill that turtle as quickly as possible, don't let it past us others depends on us now," Frank shouted while they attacked the turtle and swarmed on it.
The battle was many fatal adventures got crushed by its massive body, or the mouth of the turtle snapped them almost half, so all hope was lost, but then one lucky adventure got a lucky hit with his spear, and it stuck on fatal spot, the turtle collapsing for a moment but that moment was fatal for it as it did get ganged up from all of the sides, hitting on its weak spots.
The swamp turtle collapsed down, when the adventures and guards saw it they started to retreat to back to the city while fending off the goblins and wolves, when will saw that last man has gotten inside he immediately shouted to the gatekeepers to low the gate down so that no more monsters could get inside, but they had forgotten one fatal thing, the massive body of the swamp turtle, it was now stuck between the gates, and they couldn't lower it at all, the gates wide open to the monsters and beasts that saw their moment to come.