Raiders

It is approaching midnight, Tabiti is on watch with her father and is reaching the end of her endurance, her eyes droop as she longs for her bedroll.

Suddenly a shadow flits across the corner of her vision and she moves her head to follow it, all her senses straining to detect anything that may be out there. A twig snaps in front of her but she is blinded by the darkness and cannot see what has caused the noise, maybe it is just a fox out hunting.

She tenses, every sense alert, irritated by the lingering sluggishness of her own reactions. Something close: bigger than rabbit from the sound of it. If it was a fox, she should be able to smell it. She sniffs the air: which way is the wind, anyway? All these trees closing them in make it hard to tell.

Orlfinn seems oblivious to this and it might have seemed to Tabiti that he may had dozed off, had she been capable of thinking such a thing of her heroic father-by-adoption.

She reaches out, touches his arm, leans in to whispering range. "What was that? Something close, in front."

Surely the horses would have raised the alarm, if.... drat, why did they have to leave them behind? This whole place is so unnatural!

With a snort and a grunt Orlfinn yawns. "Keep watch daughter" he whispers, then says in a normal tone of voice "Time to wake those the next watch daughter." as he rises to his feet and moves to where Starhawk sleeps.

She looks puzzled for a moment, then catches on. Once he is on his feet, she, too, rises, bow of course in hand, checking her quiver. She listens intently in the direction the sound and movement had come from, trying to ignore the rustles of wakening warriors behind her.

Orlfinn nudges the Yelmalian softly with his foot "Starhawk wake up it's your watch." Orlfinn goes down on one knee next to Starhawk and shakes him lightly "Come jealous uncle it is time to wake from your bed."

As Starhawk begins to wake Orlfinn says softly "Tabiti saw something, I'll wake Petronax."

Starhawk is sleeping on with blade close by and it becomes apparent as he wakes. His eyes open and the words Orlfinn is saying penetrates as well as the soft and slow manner in which he is saying it. He nods..

"Damn..", he mutters, "..that dream was getting interesting."

Starhawk gets up from within the shadow of his propped fire door of a shield, yawns softly, pops his plate helm on his head halfway and starts putting his muscled plate cuirass on. His spear is next to him, right where he left it.

"Damn rocky ground near broke some ribs.." he mutters. However secretly he is straining every sense to ascertain what the situation is..

Normally, at the stead, Petronax wakes up like a grumpy old man. Early and bad tempered. Here he does the same, except there's no grumbling or crashing about, waking everyone up. When Orlfinn shakes him with a hiss, his eyes snap open and he grabs his shield. As he's sitting up, his other arm snakes out and he shrugs the baldric of his gladius on, then snatches one of the pila off the ground next to his sleeping roll. Given time, he'll put his helmet on and begin armouring up, limbs first. (In a harsh whisper) "By the seven hells Orlfinn! What is it!?"

"Tabiti saw something we don't know what though." Orlfinn whispers back.

He stops and looks out at the direction Tabiti saw the movement and points at the sky above. "Seems a nice night, been quiet," he says in a normal tone.

Awoken by the chatter and sound of armouring, Parthak quietly emerges from his bedroll and joins the others. Rastorlanth snores loudly, oblivious to the danger.

As Starhawk wakes and sits up he recognises a smell in the air, darkmen are lurking nearby and if he knows anything about trolls they're probably looking for dinner.

"The Hazard Inn whose host I could not countenance has many admirers this night, for kin will ever call to kin. Hungry are they for success of their own."

Starhawk proceeds to armour up..

Looking over, somewhat surprised to see Parthak awake.. Starhawk jests..

"I did not know that herbs there were that only blossom in moonlight?"

Bewildered by the complexities of Starhawk's language Parthak shrugs and replies in a quiet voice, "Light sleeper... What is wrong?"

Meanwhile Tabiti is still straining every sense to find what she thought she had heard. Nothing. No more movement. No scent. No sound. Maybe it's being masked by all the chatter behind her. Maybe whatever it was has been scared off by all the noise.

Her fingers tighten on the bow, then deliberately relax again: strangling the bow spoils your aim.

Surely if there was really anything there it would have attacked by now? She *was* tired. Maybe she'd imagined it? Dreamt it? They're all getting up... if they knew she'd imagined it, woken them for nothing, they were going to be *so* upset with her. Failed, again. She should turn round, tell them there's nothing there. If she dared. Because there isn't, obviously. But what would they say, when they knew they'd been woken for nothing?

Then the quiet urgency of the camp preparing themselves for battle is disturbed by a horrifying roar as a group of trollkins led by two large dark trolls charge out of the darkness swinging war mauls.

Tabiti almost sobs with relief. It was real, it was real! She wasn't going to be in trouble! Then she realises her own danger, and looses the arrow she has nocked at the oncoming horde.

A few of the trollkin are flinging slingshots around while running but these shots are very inaccurate and no harm is done.

There will be no more time for further shooting: she glances over her shoulder, and backs off towards the rest of the group, shouldering her bow and swinging her shield round to defend herself. Her spear is leaning beside her: she grabs it as she retreats, remembering the enchanted runes in the precious metal head.

Gartan meanwhile is writhing on the ground, he appears to be moaning in pain but it is too dark to see what is happening to him. His wolf companion is nowhere to be seen until he bursts through some bushes seizing a trollkin by the arm and dragging it down.

Starhawk, aware of what was going on, casts his spell, 'lantern', so that everyone will have enough light to see by.

He does this on his shield while he is still kneeling with it resting on the ground, since he knows carrying the fire-door makes it harder to do almost anything.

It's not lightwall, presumably because he didn't want to turn on the dinner light for every werewolf in Dorastor. It shines off the front of his shield and illuminates the darkness.

He grins then, presumably excited by the idea of fighting trolls and their stunted brethren, and comes smoothly to his feet, lifting the shield.

"All praise Yelm!" he cries, giving voice to his defiance. "Come and get it." he murmurs a moment later..

Starhawk has on his plate Cuirass and his plate helm, with leather everywhere else. The iron tipped spear in his right hand should come in useful.

Having just clapped his helm to his head, and having shrugged his lorica onto his torso, Petronax swear sulphurously and runs his hoplite shield over to where Starhawk is muttering his part of the lantern-litany. Taking up position on his offside, Petronax strokes the bronze ring holding the focii against his lips and starts whispering

"Grandfather, lend me your ancient strength, Give me your wrathfull arms, your crushing feet, Grandmother, bless me with immortal brawn, Aid your son, when armies meet."

That done, Petronax barks out in his stentorian NCO voice "Form up! Behind the shields! Don't get seperated!"

Shifting the grip on his pilum and holding his scutum so he can just see over the rim, Petronax glares out at the mass of trolls and his face sets in a frown, he stroke the metal ring again and prepares to call on the tame sword spirit his grandmother subdued before time. He desperately wishes to have the old standard planted behind him again, making this a battelground to die on and not just some backwoods skirmish.

"Javelin, useful in these situations I'd wager." murmurs Starhawk,(looking to get his bladesharp off before contact).

"Orlfinn, Petro, we take the big bastards, everyone else concentrate on the troll runts."

There's light behind Tabiti now, and Petro's shouting something. She backs hastily to the new shield wall, wishing desperately that she was on horseback instead of trapped on foot.

Hasturs's dream of rollicking good times in some roadside inn is rudely disturbed by the roar of the troll. Un-warned and unprepared he is completely caught off guard. He rubs his eyes and tries to make out his companions aided by the light of someone's spell.

He sees the others, weapons in hand, joining up in some formation or over, while someone is barking out orders. He sees Rastorlanth also scrambling from his bedroll on the ground. "Well at least I'm not the only one left to fend for myself," he swears to himself. With no time to do much, Hastur grabs his sword and shield from the ground beside him, crouches, and tries to get to the others. "Come on Rastorlanth before you become some troll's dinner!" he yells out.