"Jesmind, why don't you wait here with Jasana?" Tarrin asked. "I'd like to keep both of you out of harm's way."

"I can take care of myself, Tarrin," she said indignantly.

"I know that," he said smoothly, "but I also don't want to expose Jasana to danger."

"I'll stay with them, Tarrin," Kimmie offered. "Jasana likes me, and that way there will be two here in case something sneaks by you."

Tarrin nodded appreciatively. "Is that alright with you, Jesmind?"

"That's fine," she agreed.

"Come on, little rat," Kimmie grinned at Jasana, taking her paw. "You and me and your mother are going to play for a while."

"Can we go hunting? Can we fish? Can we climb trees and scare the squirrels?" Jasana asked enthusiastically.

"I saw a stream not too far over that way," Kimmie said, pointing north. "I think there might be some fish in it with our names on them."

"That sounds like a good idea," Jesmind agreed with a smile. "We'll be over there, my mate."

"We'll send someone when it's safe," Tarrin told her, taking her paw for a moment, then watching his mate, daughter, and friend pad off into the forest. Tarrin felt much better knowing that Jesmind would have a second pair of eyes helping to protect his cub. And it looked like Kimmie and Jasana knew each other, and that Jasana liked her. That was also a good thing.

"Alright then, let's get ready," Sathon said after the three of them disappeared into the trees.

Woodkin were at home in the forest, and it showed as they quickly and quietly moved up to the edge of the treeline, looking out on the small hill on which the village was situated, and settled in with speed and stealth. Even the large Centaurs had little trouble moving up to that position without so much as breaking a twig on the ground, and their brown or mottled or reddish coats blended in with the forest to give them camoflage. The Were-kin were all in their hybrid forms, and like that it was easy to tell the Were-wolves from the Were-bears from the Were-boars from the Were-foxes from the Were-rats from the Were-lions. They all looked remarkably akin to Wikuni, with their fur and animal heads situated atop humanoid bodies. In that hybrid form, they would enjoy all the Were immunities and gifts, the things the Were-cats enjoyed all the time. While in human form, a Were-kin was as frail and vulnerable as a human. Only in hybrid or animal form did they gain their Were resistances.

The Aldreth villagers with the Woodkin didn't disappoint their sylvan companions. All of the men were experienced hunters, and they set up with their bows near the road, setting up with a quiet efficiency that surprised the Centaurs that set up to either side of them to protect the fragile humans. Bows were strung and arrows checked, then they too settled in and waited for the signal.

Tarrin found himself crouching in the brush right on the edge of the treeline with Thean on one side and a Were-bear on the other. Tarrin didn't know the Were-bear, but it plopped down beside him without so much as batting an eye, then smiled at him and nodded as it crouched down into the brush so its shaggy brown coat would blend into the shadows. Were-bears were pretty easy going creatures, mellow and laid back, and they didn't mind Were-cats all that much. They were one of the few Were-kin that didn't have a bad opinion of the Were-cats.

"Now comes the waiting," Thean whispered. "You know humans, lad. When will they call for us?"

"Whenever Arren thinks we're ready," he replied quietly. "If he said an hour, knowing Arren, it'll be exactly one hour after Ariana left with the message."

"It's a shame we have to do things this way," the Were-bear said with a low rumble and obvious sadness in his voice. "Violence is so wasteful."

"Sometimes you have to oppose the violent with violence," Tarrin told him quietly. "It's all they understand."

"Truly," the Were-bear rumbled in assent.

"Look there," Thean hissed, pointing out towards the village. A pair of Dal soldiers trotted down from the hill on horses, and they were moving towards the Aldreth road. They got to within about fifty spans of the treeline when one of them suddenly jerked backwards, then toppled out of the saddle. The other whirled his horse around, but then he too fell from the saddle and laid still on the road as the horses bolted back towards the village.

"Why did they do that?" the Were-bear asked.

"I think they were afraid the men would spot them," Tarrin replied. "It was probably a good idea."

"How so?"

"They didn't make any sound when they fell. It's going to take the Dals a few moments to realize their scouts were killed."

The Were-bear looked about to say something, but they all heard a thin blast of a horn from a distance away. It blew again, and then a third time. That was the signal.

"Not that it matters now," the Were-bear chuckled. "Let's get this unpleasant business overwith."

"Well said," Tarrin said as a sudden roaring cry erupted from their side of the forest. The Centaurs charged out of their concealed positions with bows in hand, surrounding the villagers who did the same, but were quickly falling behind their four-legged compatriots. Tarrin was the first in their little pod to crash through the treeline and into open ground, but instead of rushing forward, he pulled up and reached out to the Weave. He found his connection with it and drew in the power of High Sorcery, feeling it flow into him. His paws limned over in Magelight as he collected up sufficient magic to perform the spell he intended, and raised his paws as he wove together a rather volatile weave of Fire, Air, and Divine energy, with token flows of the other Spheres to grant the weave the power of High Sorcery. He would need that boost in power to make the spell reach such a great distance. Had he been closer, High Sorcery wouldn't have been necessary, for the spell wasn't actually very powerful.

A ball of pure fire appeared in his paw, replacing the Magelight, and Tarrin pushed his paw in the direction of the village in a throwing motion. The ball of fire streaked from his paw, leaving behind it a fiery trail of smoke and embers, but embers that did not ignite the grass or thatched roofs over which it travelled as it homed in on its target with magically induced accuracy. Tarrin controlled the ball of fire, and caused it to unerringly strike its target.

The ball struck the roof of the new building of chinked logs, the Dal barracks, and it settled into the thatched roof of the building quickly. A nice little fire blossomed up from the thatch, which would allow anyone inside time to flee while managing to cause distraction and confusion among the Dals for a critical moment while the Rangers and the Woodkin closed the distance. Tarrin had considered just incinerating the building, but there may be innocent villagers inside it.

That was the beginning of a short and decidedly one-sided battle. The Dals had been expecting trouble, but the fire in the barracks managed to confuse them for the critical moment that prevented them from organinzing to meet the two disparate forces attacking from the northwest and the east. The first men to draw blood were the villagers of Aldreth, pulling up short on Karn's order, setting up, then loosing a volley of arrows fired from their deadly Sulasian longbows, bows that had a range that outstripped any other bow made. All fifty six of the men firing those bows were expert shots, and a majority of them struck their targets, causing confused and shouting Dal soldiers to collapse to the ground more than two hundred spans away and uphill. That sudden confusion heralded a cascade of screams and shouts of panic as a large number of the hundred or so Dal soldiers pouring out of the burning building withered under a storm of arrows fired from the Rangers on the other side of the hill. The disorganized men dove for cover from the Aldreth arrows, only to find themselves standing open to the Rangers on the other side of the hill. One of their officers managed to gather up the men and take cover between two buildings, protected from the arrows, but they found themselves holding a desperate line against a large number of transformed Were-kin, creatures that simply charged through their upraised pikes, spears, swords, and shields and fell on the men, disrupting their defensive formation. Their weapons could do the Were-kin no harm, and that caused what organization that existed to shatter when a Were-fox killed the officer rallying the troops.