Wrolf stepped up into the crenelation to find a dead goblin at his feet and an enemy archer on either side of him, bringing arrows to the string. They looked surprised to be facing a fellow dwarf, rather than more goblins.
Theirs were not the first lives Wrolf took—he had killed four or five goblins the day of his capture—but they were the first dwarves. The one closer to shooting he barreled into, bowling them over off the edge of the battlements before rounding on the other, lunging for his gut. The archer's linothorax stopped the blade while he backpedaled, loosing a half-drawn arrow that missed widely. Wrolf lunged, driving his dagger through the dwarf's beard. The tip broke off as he pulled it out.
Thold was up the ladder soon after, and two goblins made it up onto the battlements. Further up, archers and slingers were turning towards them. Some archers dropped their bows, drawing shortswords or axes for the close-quarters fight.
To the south, a sling snapped like a bullwhip as its slinger slung a bullet, which whistled through the air until it cracked against the skull of a goblin. The goblin fell with a whiny "nyeh," but two of its kind charged the slinger, stabbing him repeatedly.
Wrolf turned north. More ladders had reached the wall in that direction; the enemies there were stuck between two hostile mobs. They might retreat.
An archer lunged at Wrolf, slashing with the shortsword that had replaced his bow. Wrolf backpedaled, tripping over the dead goblin, but Thold stabbed the overextended swordsman under the arm, his dagger's blade braking off. The swordsman grunted, dropped his sword, and fell to his knees; he was dead, but he wasn't out of the fight.
Wolm was up shortly, and two dwarves had gone before him. Dozens of goblins had vaulted up onto the wall around them. The defenders were making a fighting retreat, slingers running while the archers kept goblins at bay with axe and sword.
Wolm held a hand out and helped Wrolf to his feet.
"By Thorm, these are shit," Thold swore, holding up his broken dagger.
Wrolf held up his own, with its broken tip. "Whose bright idea was it to make weapons out if iron anyway?"
"Iron's cheap," Wolm said with a shrug. "I was a miner. We found tonnes of the shit digging for copper. The pure stuff's supposed to be harder than bronze, but it's impossible to melt, so you can't purify it. Can't cast it neither; ya work it by heating it up and beating it into shape, like when the gnomes first shaped copper."
"Yeah, well, this ain't the pure stuff." Wrolf threw down his dagger and dug a bronze axe out from the belt of a dead archer. Thold traded his broken-off hilt for the bronze sword of the archer he had stabbed.
Clearing this segment of wall of defenders meant that the slaves below could now approach without getting shot, so they were reaching it in droves now. A half dozen more ladders had been set, and branded slaves were flooding onto the ramparts.
In the city below, spearmen had gathered to retake the ramparts. Some gross of them pushed up a nearby stairwell, with slingers providing covering fire from the street below, but they were pushed back by sheer weight of numbers. As the spearmen were scattered, Wrolf looked back the way he'd come from.
The soldiers hadn't attacked on as wide a front as the slaves; they marched in two columns, one approaching the western gate, the other a particulary large breach a ways to the south. The battering ram had reached the gate, its cover bristling with arrows.
"They probably want us to help with the gate," he mused.
"Well we ain't ordered to," Thold said. "I for one ain't puttin' my life on the line for that bastard. I'm going lootin'."
"Aren't these our people though?" Wrolf asked. "We're all subjects of King Komn. Shouldn't we be rooting for them to win?"
"Obitz take Komn." Thold used the death god's full name for a more potent curse. "He did nothin' to protect us from Thyrn, may Obitz take him as well. I ain't riskin' my life for either king."
Wrolf sighed, but nodded. As much as he hated it, the old dwarf's words made sense. "Alright, wait for me."