The birds were roused by Noah’s waking whistle, mimicking the morning calls they often gave off to wake others and the humans below them. He heard them shifting and fluttering awake in the trees. Elann came to him, her bow, arrows, and wrist-guards in tow. He looked to her with the same alerted eyes as Aimee and shook his head. “No storm,” he simply said, unknowingly lying. The rain wasn’t going to fall but all of this spoke in warning and Zulrav was attempting to forewarn all those in the camp, though it was only Noah who could hear the deity clearly. There were words on the winds and a deep speaking in the thundering above, the voice of Zulrav.

Aimee stood before the lead guard of the caravan, a gruff man who had been in the business for a long while she figured. She gave him all of her warning and unease and at first he was going to dismiss her as a spooked woman but he considered her two identities, one of a wolf and that of a woman. The man had a dog at home and recalled how they would behave before storms. It was a lucky circumstance but it made the man listen to Aimee enough to start rousing the rest of the guards from their laze, even waking those who had fallen asleep.

There was another surging wind coming in from the forest to their south side and the smell of new human life came to her snout in full. Her ears turned towards the scent and picked up the quiet thud of approaching hooves. The treetops went up in an uproarious chorus of warning calls, calls that Aimee understood well enough.

As the birds shouted above, Noah looked past Elann towards the direction of the river to the south and peered through the trunks. The clouds were encroaching over the moon but her peered on in search of anything. Lightning struck the distance, illuminating the entire area for the briefest of instances. It was enough for Noah to make out the crouched down figures in the thicket. The sound of hoofbeats came from the same side and the birds wailed on. Wide-eyed, he looked to Elann and reached to her, grasping ahold of the fabric of her top tightly.

The music of the camp ceased entirely as the birds drowned them out and the inhabitants were standing, watching the guards as they readied themselves. Aimee looked in the direction of the approaching hoofbeats and listened to the whisper of an arrow as it loosed in her direction. Her breath caught as it flew and sunk into the guard to her right, making him shout out in instantaneous pain as he fell backwards. His body didn’t hit the ground before Aimee was sailing over it, running towards Elann and Noah. As her foot hit the ground from her jump the battlecries of the creeping assailants erupted to rival the birds, who were thrown into the air by the angry voices.

Boots clunked on the ground as women screamed out in fright, going for their children in the tents. The guards had barely a half-second to collect themselves before their comrade was down and the assailants were advancing on the camp. Aimee ran on, panic in her eyes as the first sounds of blue steel clanged against one another.

Noah looked to his sister as the battle erupted behind her. There were only footsoldiers right now but the horses coming in sounded louder with each second. There was a humming in Noah’s ears, something resembling the sound of when he was struck by lightning in order to create the stormgems. His sights went inside of the wagon’s car and noted the humming was coming from inside it. The trunk the gems were stored in had pale white light spilling out of the closed lid.

Aimee came to them and he met her hurried gaze with his own. “The stormgems,” he said frantically to her. He couldn’t move fast enough himself to get them but knew his sister’s nimble frame was light enough to do so seeing as she had made short work of sprinting across the camp to them.

She stuttered a nod in his direction and ran around him and Elann to throw herself into the wagon. Her feet thudded loudly on the sanded wood floor and the chest creaked aloud as she thrust it upwards and open. Inside was the bag of gems, of which she heaved out with a breath. The bag clattered noisily to the floor but she didn’t pause there to give him the bag. She jumped over to her own chest and threw the lid open. Reaching inside, she produced a shining dagger without a sheath. It was a simple curved dirk. She tucked the handle into her palm and used her other hand to scoop up the sack of gems, spilling a few of them out before she had a collected handle of the fabric sack.

She came back to the exit of the wagon and jumped down, the bag of gems dropping the side she carried them on as they caught up with her leap. Aimee turned and threw the bag back onto the edge of the wagon and reached inside, grabbing the first one she could and handing it to Noah’s eager hands. He had not seen the dagger gifted to him by Elann during their marriage since they left Syliras, and the last he saw of it, Elann had it. For now he had his gem and hoped the secret he unlocked would reveal itself to him again when it came to defending himself and his family.

Aimee composed herself  beside Elann and looked on with frightened horror as the common men protected their families with heirloom swords and daggers. The assailing cavalry bursted from the thicket, a collection of five horsemen, one of them barking orders as soon as he arrived. The bright gem in Noah’s hand caught the attention of the man and he hollered an order towards the two Kelvics and the Benshira, his sword pointed at them. 

Heeding the lead bandit’s order, two of the horsemen who arrived with him turned their horses about and charged towards the trio. Aimee didn’t let her fright keep her stiff. She was used to reacting in the face of danger; if she couldn’t run then she fought and in this instance she chose the latter. Her free hand came up, the palm opening as it was thrusted forward. Her fingers were licked with flames as an orb of embers was conjured and thrown towards the rightmost horseman. The orb sailed through the air and detonated into an engulfment of flame just before the horseman’s horse and spooked the roden creature, causing it to rear up and throw its rider down onto his back.

The other horse was spooked as well, stopping in its charge. The mounted horseman gripped the reins and ripped the horse broadside, regaining control but leaving him open to attack as he fought to keep his horse underneath him.