*Sadrianna*

Sadrianna sighed internally yet again. Bjorn was such an insecure little child.

She'd been assigned weeks ago to his Scourer group, the five-man team down a member due to pregnancy. By all accounts – meaning the gossip she could dreg up from the tent-hands – the woman she was replacing was a skilled tracker and the only one who could smooth over the leader's inflated ego.

His father held a position of prominence in his clan, and as such he walked around with a permanent sneer on his face and a superiority complex to make a god blush. He'd earned his position as leader of the small unit by a combination of strength of arms and nepotism.

The first week or two was fine, and she was thankful for the opportunity to get out with the team. This initiative was actually something her father had spear-headed a few decades ago. In an attempt to increase cohesion between the clans, the council decided that – at least during The Blending – camp guards and Scourer groups should be made up of multiple clans.

It was a good idea in theory, and she'd seen the benefits during the first fortnight where she'd gotten to know members of the other clans, but she suspected it was perhaps doing more harm than good at this point. Each member of her team, as far as she could tell, now harboured a profound dislike of the Black-Sky clan. Hard not to when Bjorn was their representative.

She could see why he would be appointed to lead a Scourer group in the abstract. He was tall and strong-featured – looked the part, certainly – with a mane of white hair and an enormous bow nearly as tall as he was slung across his back. He gave commands naturally, oozed confidence, and didn't panic in a crisis. In many ways he was the perfect fit, but that arrogance was a killer. He had taken his time to assess her, and only after two weeks had he become confident in his conclusion that he was stronger than her. Once that had happened, the problems began.

With nobody left in the group to challenge his power, he began to revel in it. Taking less time to discuss with others, letting his disdain for the 'lower' clans truly show. Some within the ancient clans seemed to be of the opinion that the higher up the mountains one lived, the better one was. It was an opinion that Bjorn clearly shared. True to their name, the clan Black-Sky usually resided in the high peaks, conveniently leaving them at the top of their ideological framework of importance. Funny how that always seemed to be the case.

So here she was, scouting ahead of the rest of her team and praying she would find nobody entering the territory that they were patrolling. Bjorn had already taken liberties with some traders drawn to the mass of humanity presented by The Blending this year. She'd managed to keep him from extracting bribes from them by careful massaging of his ego and reminding him of the displeasure of his father if he did so, but it was a close-run thing.

It also hadn't stopped him from making the traders cringe with his threats. It had been hard to hold herself back from smacking the man after Bjorn had made some unsavoury comments about the trader's son.

But so it was that she found herself looping through the forest, tree to tree, keeping her eyes peeled and senses sharp for anything out of place. With luck, nothing would be amiss, and this patrol would be uninteresting.

As it so often went in her life though, things got complicated.

As she usually did when scouting, she periodically activated Myriad Senses, observing the world as her prey did. This was her only Skill that had no utility in combat, but she had – upon advice from her father and one of the clan elders – put an immense amount of work into her study of each of the animals she used as inspiration for her other Skills. And not just for the traits she was keen to gain.

For example, Markhor's Rush was primarily a distance closing and impact Skill, but when observing the Markhosian Goat to base the Skill off, she had also taken care to observe the way its great horns could collect sound and funnel it through to its stubby ears, thereby granting it an incredible fidelity of hearing. Similarly, with each of her other Skills she had picked up a new or enhanced sense from each creature and folded them expertly into an entirely separate Skill – Myriad Senses.

She used that Skill now, flickering through enhanced hearing, hawk-like vision, a tremor sense from a Frozen-Hare that partly inspired her finishing move – Glacial Carcass – and a strong heat and radiation sense courtesy of the many species of Gecko she had studied as a child for Gecko's Grip and later Unorthodox Movement.

Those many senses were now warning her of people. Three or four, she couldn't yet be sure. They were moving slowly, at a jog if she had to guess by the steady footfalls, and either heavily armoured or well-muscled judging by the weight. Her nose picked up no unusual smells from this range, but they were down-wind of her current position, and so she moved closer.

Spiralling above, working her way through canopies and along branches, she scuttled like a beetle and did her best to remain beyond their senses. She brushed past a branch at one point, not noticing the rot that had started to set in, and so not accounting for its brittle nature. The crack that followed was not loud in the forest, and should not be out of place either, but it still made her wince. She noticed the heavy woman in her gecko-given sense flare with heat briefly as the branch snapped, and she decided it was time to report back.

Most likely a coincidence, since she had not reacted outwardly in any other way, but her body temperature had not fluctuated much at all in the preceding half-hour that Sadrianna had observed her, and it felt like too much of a coincidence for her to be certain she hadn't been noticed.

She retreated back to her group, informing them of her findings and urging a cautious approach. For once, Bjorn took her advice, and led them to a place where they could observe the people she had spotted if they kept up their trajectory and speed. The forest was broken for a league in each direction, bisected by a fast-flowing river and its flood-plain on either side. Given the time of year, the autumn rains had not yet started and so the basin was filled with thick grasses rather than bog. Still though, the group would have to emerge onto open ground for a few hundred yards, giving them team plenty of time to observe the group and take their measure.

It would also be an excellent place for an ambush, Sadrianna noticed, and the fact that Bjorn hadn't said anything about it concerned her. Nothing was easy with that man, and she did not trust him to deal with this situation with anything resembling calm. On Instinct she edged away from the group slightly, peeling round to one side so she was off-centre and better positioned to interfere if he tried something stupid.

The four travellers emerged from the forest like wraiths – one moment a plain of grassland stood empty, and the next it was full of movement. They jogged in a pack, equidistant from one another, and keeping pace effortlessly, without the need for communication. Not that it was a particularly difficult thing to do when focusing, but the way they moved spoke of an understanding of one another that was gained only through long affiliation. Each bore arms – one a wide-bladed sword, two bearing spears and shields and the tall man at the back wore a straight-edged single bladed weapon of unfamiliar design. They were relatively lightly armoured, except for the one with the heavy sword, who looked like a one-woman battering ram given flesh.

They crossed the distance methodically and appeared none the wiser to Sadrianna's Scourer group hiding just out of sight in the trees before them. She glanced over at Bjorn, waiting for him to announce their presence before the group reached the tree-line.

That would be her signal. If they got within twenty strides and he said nothing, she would step in herself. Despite their unfamiliar appearance, she would not allow innocents to walk into an ambush, for that is surely what it would mean for Bjorn to let them pass beneath them.

Just as she was about to be forced to directly intervene, Bjorn's smooth voice cut across the clearing, echoing about in that unusual way he had. She still wasn't sure of the details of his Skill, but at this point had decided she didn't really care. It may have uses in combat she would need to watch out for, but she was hoping to avoid open conflict with him anyway, so hopefully it wouldn't be relevant before she finished the short-term assignment.

The group came to a halt rapidly, no doubt due to the outright threat Bjorn posed as his greeting. She inwardly seethed at the arrogance and incompetence he displayed with a single sentence. Already this event had become significantly more dangerous to both groups because of the prick's ego, and they weren't even a dozen heartbeats into the meeting.

There was a back and forth as the leader stepped forwards to negotiate, doing an admirable job of attempting to calm the situation despite his clear lack of familiarity with the language. Bjorn continued to be completely intransigent, and the lack of cowering and fear in the group of four obviously rankled him.

Even so, she was caught off-guard when he sent an arrow thudding into the ground by the old man's foot. She hadn't yet de-activated Myriad Senses, and so didn't miss the flash of heat that erupted from the large woman for a moment as the arrow was released. Even without the Skill though, she could feel the tension in the air thicken all the same.

Bjorn gave one final command – completely unreasonable as it was – and then the younger man bearing shield and spear stepped forwards to speak. He spoke perfectly, his language fluid and fluent but sporting a strange mix of accents from all clans, such that he sounded native to none of them. As she was attempting to puzzle out the mystery he represented, she felt Bjorn stiffen from his position on the tree to her left. Her intuition warned her of incoming stupidity, and she acted without thinking, shouting for her companions to 'hold', even as she started to move.

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She heard Bjorn's command of 'Vashedan!' and would have cringed if she had the time. It was a ritualistic battle-cry rarely used by anyone outside of pitched battles, which the mountain clans rarely took-part in, anyway. Another sign of his lack of suitability for the role of leader, signalling a desire to recreate the stories and legends of the past with no concept of what constituted an appropriate use of violence and what did not.

Knowing what was coming, and knowing also that she would be too late, she acted regardless; leaping from her tree and barrelling in front of the likely flightpath of Bjorn's arrows with Markhor's Rush pushing her forwards.

*Lamb*

Several things happened at once. I heard arrows whistling through the air, and primed for combat as I'd been, I activated Check-Step instinctively. It was likely all that saved my life. The slightly dilated time and enhanced reactions granted by the Skill allowed me to wrench my shield up to cover my chest and neck, and I hunkered down behind the reassuring hunk of metal.

Adrenaline shot through my system, and my eyes widened as I took in the projectiles speeding my way. I felt an intense heat from behind and to my left, Vera having activated her aura. As an ally, I was exempt from its effects, but I knew that whoever was hiding in those trees would be drawn to her like a moth to flame. An inexorable, unrelenting flame.

I couldn't feel Nathlan, but I had no doubt he was even now forming a runic circle around us, working on a battlefield-altering effect to slow and bind our enemies while Vera and Jorge waded into the fray.

Jorge was even more obvious in his actions. His spear – a dull wooden thing devoid of decoration – appeared in his hand in an instant and flashed out before me. I winced at the scream of metal against metal that echoed around the river basin as his spearpoint deflected the first arrow, and then I felt my shoulder jolt with the impact of the second arrow thudding into my shield, clanging off and knocking me back a step with its sheer power.

My quick instincts had saved my life, but the force of the impact had rocked me, leaving my shield drooping and my torso exposed as the third and final arrow winged its way towards my throat. I drew in a breath to shout, or scream, or just make any gods-damned noise before I died, but there was no time.

I wasn't the same man I'd once been – I was confident of that much. The Lamb that had arrived in this world would have been in awe of the power and competence that I now possessed, but even knowing that I'd expected to greet my death, when it inevitably came, with eyes screwed shut and a comically fearful expression on my face. So it was a surprise that I stared that final arrow down, unblinking and stoic as it came to claim my life.

That was how I saw her save me with my own eyes. One moment I was staring death in the face, and the next a streak of light was blurring across my vision. She was crowned in a burning halo of twisted antlers forged from mana, and she surged across from my right, closer to where the arrow had come from but still perpendicular to it. As if she had been lying in wait.

I thought at first that this was just another part of the ambush, and expected more of the barbarian fighters to smash into our flank from the trees to our side. But she was alone, and even as I noticed her blinding form appear, she was bucking her head like a stag, sending the final arrow on a rogue trajectory far over my left shoulder.

All was chaos for a few moments; the sound of crackling grass as it curled to ash in a sphere around Vera as she strode forwards to stand before me, blade held out to one side in a lethal promise. The raucous shouting of whoever had sent the arrows our way, the strange view of the barbarian woman standing tall with her back to us, chin tilted towards the tree line and head still haloed in an impressive crown of antlers.

I hunkered down behind my shield and tried to regain my breath from the near-death experience. If this escalated further, my job would be to stay on the edges of the fight and only intervene if an opportunity presented itself. I was a scavenger, a skirmisher, picking targets when the conditions suited me, and otherwise acting as a last line of defence for Nathlan if anyone slipped through the terrifying noose of Jorge and Vera's combined assault. I needed to be ready.

The barbarian woman shouted back at the tree line. My thumping heart and the outraged bellows of the man who had ordered the attack were too loud for me to make out her words, but the commanding tone was plain.

It was a messy few seconds where nobody seemed to be able to hear anyone else, and catastrophic violence rode the wings of the future just above us. A single new attack, or a simple word from Jorge, would see whoever was in those trees massacred. Vera would spare no mercy for those that had attacked in cold blood, and while I was still reeling from the attack, I was starting to understand our position here.

Nathlan and I might be outmatched, based purely on the speed the barbarian woman before us had displayed, but I'd back Jorge and Vera against anyone. I was hoping this wouldn't escalate further, but it was for our enemies' souls I was praying, not our own.

*Sadrianna*

She saw the first two arrows slip past her as she moved, their speed too great for her to catch, and all she could do was pray to the Thirteen Peaks and Seven Valleys that the travellers had their own methods of defence.

She had sent her spear spiralling forth from her hand to intercept the first two arrows and had missed, but her momentum had brought her within grasping distance of the last. Markhor's Rush wreathed her head in life force, and she trusted in that tangle of conjured horn to deflect the last projectile.

She heard the clang of metal on metal, but no thudding of flesh being punctured, no tortured screams or wet coughing to signal a serious injury. She couldn't spare a moment to glance back and survey the situation, since she was sure Bjorn would use her distraction to attempt to finish the job, so she simply trusted in her senses and intuition.

Interposing herself between the travellers and her Scourer group, she glared up at Bjorn and challenged him. "Hold, you fool! What were you thinking?"

His reply was as stupid as she would expect, though still disappointing, nonetheless. "They are a threat to the clans. If you stand with them, you will die alongside them!"

"They were no threat before you shot at them, moron!" She replied, then realising the scale of the problem he had created, spoke again before he could interrupt. "Varney, Ross – secure him. He's gone too far this time."

Bjorn sputtered, and she was disappointed to see the two burley members of their Scourer group hesitate. They were both from his Clan as well, but that is why she had chosen them for the job. If she, or Hashtet – her other team-member – had moved to apprehend Bjorn then he could very well spin it as a retaliatory action against clan Black-Sky rather than the necessary pre-emptive peacekeeping action that it was.

Seeing the lack of conviction in her allies, and Bjorn reaching for another arrow, she slammed her spear butt into a rock by her feet, the crack drawing Bjorn's attention for a moment.

"Draw another arrow from your quiver and I will deliver you to your father in pieces. This I swear on the honour of my clan," she said the words quietly, but with such an intensity that they cut through the clearing all the same.

Her team-members stilled, knowing this was not simply an idle threat from her but a promise she would fulfil. Bjorn slowed his hand, resting it against his quiver but making no further moves. The pressure mounted as they stared each other down.

*Lamb*

I stood quietly, not willing to relax my stance as the dark-haired woman before me castigated her companion and ordered his arrest. She clearly had sway in the group, but the lack of response to her demands made me suspect that she was far from the leader.

The man with the deep, echoing voice was clearly nominally in charge, and while he seemed to be the only one willing to commit to a course of violence, the woman before him seemed to be the only one willing to put herself in harm's way to prevent it.

I sighed internally, a vague feeling of frustration at people in general tickling my mind. Bjorn seemed like an ass, sure, but I couldn't give much credit to the three others who simply stood on the sidelines and watched him attack us without cause. What did I care who fired the arrow, so long as they would all standby and watch me bleed out if it struck true.

Fair play to the woman though – she was quite literally putting her life on the line for strangers. I wanted to speak up in support, but knew that any move I made, verbal or otherwise, was just as likely to hurt as help.

This was clearly a power struggle, with group dynamics playing heavily in the background that I was far too ignorant of to risk involving myself. That being said, I marked the place she was staring at in my mind, knowing it was where Bjorn hid. If a fight did break out again, I'd be aiming to cut the head off the snake while Jorge and Vera distracted the others.

I had to be careful though – the power in that arrow was certainly a step above what I was used to, easily able to piece my leather armour and punch right through my body if it hit.

Finally, the woman seemed to relax a hair, half-turning her head to address me, while still keeping her gaze facing the trees.

"You. Why are you here?" she called, clear and loud enough for all to hear. I assumed this was a test of some sort and decided to keep things simple.

"As my friend stated, we are here to trade, and to speak with your elders."

Better keep it vague than make statements I wasn't actually sure about. After all, I only had the vaguest summary of Jorge's plans.

She seemed satisfied, nodding. "And how is it that you know our language?"

I shrugged, "My friend – Jorge – has met with the mountain clans before and picked up some of their language. He understands more than he can speak. I do not know all the details – who he met with or when – but you can ask him. As for me…"

I paused, deciding that discretion was the better part of valour. She seemed helpful, and I was thankful she'd stepped in to prevent a fight, but I wasn't about to trust her with one of my biggest secrets. I recalled one of the first conversation in this world I had overheard, and Nathlan's comments about my language comprehension.

"I have a Skill; Scholar's Tongue. It lets me speak most extant languages. I do not grasp the historic or cultural significance of the words I use, but can translate roughly on a phrase for phrase basis."

It wasn't strictly true, but I didn't understand the details of my God-Touched boon entirely myself, and was hoping that she would likewise not know the details of the Scholar's Tongue Skill Nathlan had mentioned all those moons ago. Perhaps I'd picked up a few of the prejudices of this new world, too, but the pelt-wearing warrior before me didn't seem to be the most… academic… sort. My gamble appeared to pay off though, since she only shrugged and called up to the trees once more.

"Satisfied? Heshtat, Ross, Varney… I will not ask again. Take his weapon and bind his hands, and I will deal with the lowlanders. Bjorn is clearly unfit to lead this Scourer group, and I will take command in the interim until we return from patrol."

She waited a heartbeat for acknowledgement from the rest of her cowardly team, or so I had dubbed them, and when none came, she growled – literally growled! – before turning her head slightly to address me once more.

"Back up a few hundred paces. I will deal with this. Do not move until I signal you again, understood?"

It was a command laced with authority, with the unshakable certainty that it would be followed. And why not? Seemed a sensible thing to do to get out of the way of whatever fight was brewing. I could only hope the woman would be victorious, as I didn't fancy facing Bjorn or his crew myself. Jorge and Vera could likely kill them with ease, but you never knew how stray arrows could fly in stressful situations, and I didn't relish the idea of taking an arrow to the knee. My adventuring career would be over before it truly began.

I nodded, then spoke to my friends. "Back up. She has some business to sort with her boss. Slow and steady, back to the tree line behind us, and we wait there for her signal."

The others didn't protest, and we eased back, hands never leaving our weapons and eyes scanning the trees in front for any signs of shooting arrows. Bjorn shouted something again when it was clear we were leaving, but he was interrupted by Sadrianna, who clanged her shield and spear together and advanced to the treeline.

I didn't have a good view of what happened next, but the sound itself was terrifying enough.

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