Alette narrowed her eyes.

"This rotten scumbags aren't mine, and as far as I'm concerned I'd like to gut the person in charge of them," Alette said, before glancing over the corpses. "At least if I haven't done so already."

After all, the leader could have been among the bodies.

"Anyway, I've told you everything I know," Alette continued, resting the spear across her shoulders. "If you want me to do anything else you're gonna have to pay me. ... Or..."

The blue-haired girl gave a look towards Fanilly, and grinned. The blonde wasn't sure she liked that expression from the pigtailed spear-wielder.

From there, Fanilly consented to sending the raven back with a message to the capital. The bodies, as terrible as it was, would need to wait. They had to set out as quickly as they possibly could, after all. However, one more search of the fort was conducted. Unfortunately it didn't turn up anything but death. There was little more reference to... well, anything of note. It was rather mundane notes and journals by the previous occupants of the fort. The most recent date on any of them was from a couple of days ago, falling in line with the age of the bodies. It revealed nothing particularly interesting. Indeed, the only item of note had been the note Tiral discovered earlier. Alette had hung around a bit and poked around, surprisingly pointing out anything unusual to the knights, but overall there was nothing. She'd also kept staring in confusion at Tyaethe, however.

Indeed, soon enough it had become simply too much time spent at the fort. They had to get moving, and they had to move quickly. If there was any chance of catching the people carrying the shard, they had to take it.

And so the Iron Roses set out, as soon as possible.

It was less then an hour of riding, however, before they ran into another unusual sight.

"Ahead... what's that?" Fanilly halted their advance. It was growing somewhat dimmer, so it wasn't entirely easy to tell... but there. In the distance, a carriage was under siege. Figures on horseback had surrounded it, killed its escorts, and were now intent on taking whatever was within it. There was at least twenty of them, and several of them were now approaching the carriage door.

There was no way that Fanilly could ignore this.

"Iron Roses, prepare to charge," she ordered, glancing back over her shoulder towards her knights. There wasn't any time to lose, and they had their best shot if they took the attackers quickly and by surprise. After a moment's delay, in order to let her knights prepare...

"Charge!"

It was little planning, but she wouldn't risk the lives of those inside the carriage. They had to act quickly.