Winds of Change

Chapter 18

The man he had told stepped back and took several deep breaths. "Go..."

Thais nodded and willed himself back to Iron-arm. Alanna was fixing her armour as Jewel organised the children to go to the sanctuary.

Susan knelt before Luca, "Once the fighting is over I will need you in the clinic, until then I want you to go with Jewel and help her and Kael keep the cubs out of trouble." Luca nodded even as he put his dagger on. He doubted anyone would breech that far into the keep to get to the sanctuary but he felt better with it on.

The last few people finished putting their gear together, "Come children," Jewel said briskly as she pushed the pram and the two sleeping cubs forward. All had bags with them, with spare clothes, books and projects to occupy their minds. Alanna quickly kissed Kael goodbye and glanced in on her cubs.

"Come on Brave-heart, your cubs will be safe." Iron-arm told her before he started to leave and Alanna nodded and followed.

They went to the great hall; Dominic was just walking into the room. "Why was the call to arms made?" He asked the room.

Iron-arm turned to Thais and gestured for him to explain.

"I woke up feeling anxious so I willed away from the keep and did some 'looking' they are going to attack around midday. Gylphons, Golems, orcs and some huge monster with a club."

Dominic's expression went from calm to furious. "I thought we eradicated them from this continent."

"Eradicated what?" Sage asked as she fixed a buckle.

"We called them Moraths," Dominic said and Sage went pale, she had never seen one, but she had heard stories and had her history lessons.

"And why are you so angry that they are back?" Alanna asked.

Dominic considered Alanna for a moment. "Unlike Gylphons, orcs and Golems, Moraths aren't easy to kill. In fact, it can take an entire flight to take one down. Do you remember how many you saw?"

Thais shook his head and glanced to Luna who simply nodded in understanding and vanished back to the realm of gods so that Thais could use his powers. He closed his eyes and focused as Dominic called Remus to him to deliver a message to Mather to get his people far away from the keep, in fact it would be safer for them to go to Rayal's keep for protection. When Remus returned he would be sending him to his allies for help in the fight to come.

"I need notes for our allies Sage," Dominic said, if the attack happened around midday it would give them precious time to plan. Sage nodded and sat starting to scribe notes as people started to slow down, the fight wasn't about to happen this moment.

"Men, calm down, relax the fighting won't happen until midday but we have much work to do, armour off for now but keep it at the ready. Someone go to the Sanctuary and tell them they can stand down for now. I want the battle student's front and centre." Dominic said starting to fire orders.

"Why the students?" Iron-arm asked quietly as Dominic had never requested the presence of such young battle students before.

"They can help with the preparations and take this as a learning exercise at the same time." Dominic explained.

"If we can get the women of the keep making arrows..." Myth said, "And steal Kael we can put up a decent group of archers."

"Kael doesn't have a bow," Dominic said stating an obvious flaw in her idea, the women he could get making arrows easily but Kael was another matter entirely.

"He can will a copy," Myth corrected.

Dominic considered her, "But Kael is underage..."

"Granted he is a lot younger than I would want on a battle field, but archers will be beneficial in this fight." Myth replied.