The first horn blast cracks across the settlement like a stone thrown into still water. Conversations cut short, market stalls jolt, and heads snap toward the northern treeline. A second horn follows, deeper and closer, leaving no room for doubt.

Raiders.

Draqmazon sisters surge out of the frost-draped woods in a wave of shouting, snarling bodies. They hit the outskirts fast, torches and steel flashing as the first huts go up in flame. Doors fly inward as panicked families spill into the open, scrambling for safety.

Two local warrior-women sprint to meet the attack, shields raised, spears leveled. They’re disciplined, fast, but terrified. Helfragga Garmutn strides ahead of her war-band, dragging her mace across the ground until sparks flick off the metal. She meets the defenders head-on. The first spear scrapes her pauldron as she swings, smashing through a shield and sending its bearer skidding across the dirt. The second guard tries to parry and gets hammered down with the next swing, breath knocked out of her in a choking gasp.

A younger male guard rushes in from behind a shed, shouting for reinforcements. One of Helfragga’s sisters clocks him across the jaw with the rim of her shield, dropping him before his cry can finish.

Villagers scatter in every direction. Smoke rises. Raiders kick through doors, grab people by the arms, overturn carts, and laugh as they strip anything of value.

Helfragga lifts her mace above her head and roars into the chaos, claiming the settlement with sound before she even enters. Her roar breaks into a manic smile, she's already drunk on the violence.

Thank Moradaia she has not yet seen you.