The journey of Violant and Mortimer proceeded satisfyingly without any major problems. The distance between Avallach and the capital took approximately two weeks to traverse and they already travelled for five days now.

The route itself was well planned, for they managed every single day to reach a settlement where they would spend the night at the local inn. Although insisting on treatment befitting their social status as nobles, the margravial siblings nonetheless readily compromised if the service was somewhat lacking since they acknowledged the innkeeper’s honest efforts.

The day before, they had met some obnoxious viscount though, who had given the publican and his staff a very hard time and would surely have continued to pester the commoners with his excessive demands, had Mortimer not stepped up as a mediator. How the viscount had groveled when faced with the margrave’s designated heir!

But that was just the way many nobles were like after all: nearly drowning in overflowing luxuries, arrogantly looking down on those ranked below them but sycophantically bootlicking those ranked above. But there were also decent nobles who were upright and moderate in their actions. Without those nobles, the kingdom long since would have sunken into anarchy. The Avallachs and most of their close acquaintances were indisputably part of the latter faction consisting of capable feudal lords and government workers.

It was quite fresh although the sun was shining. Large puddles in the potholed cobblestone road were testament to the fact that the last bit of rainfall hadn’t been more than half an hour ago.

Violant wore a hooded raincoat. She had sat the rainfall out while riding on her water horse’s back. Huwcyn was completely drenched, leaving water droplets wherever he went, but that didn’t concern him much. The stallion was a denizen of the other march whose natural habitat was the depth of the waterbodies. As such, he was resistant against the dampness his drenched fur brought about and surely wouldn’t fall ill from the humidity and the brisk wind ruffling through his fur.

The travelers inside the coach had it better since they were safe from the grasp of the elements. Only poor Andrew serving as the coachman had to personally brave the torrents of water falling from the sky. The rain clouds were now gone though.

It had been quite a while since Violant, Mortimer and their servants had encountered another human soul. Most likely other travelers had sought shelter from the rain. The only ones bustlingly out and about were the birds singing at the top of their voices and the insects buzzing around on their search for pollen and nectar.

The gloomy dark spruce trees on both sides of the road nonetheless facilitated the spread of a dark atmosphere fraught with meaning despite the bright sunshine falling through their branches and the bustling life all around. Coupled with the dreariness remaining from the rainfall, it was as if an almost corporeal dreadful foreboding hung over the road lined with vast woodland.

Just moments later, an anguished scream echoed through the woods. It appeared to come from further down the road.

Violant was on guard. “Millicent, my spear please.” she ordered.

Shortly afterwards a long weapon, one of the dwarven smith Hanarr’s masterpieces, was thrown out of the opened carriage door.

The young lady successfully managed to catch the projectile as if she was used to doing this every day. In fact she actually had repeatedly practiced this pointless kind of action during her training with Parcie. Now she benefited from this training.

As for why the spear was with her maid in the first place: Mortimer had admittedly conceded Violant riding on horseback instead of travelling in the carriage but he had taken her weapon into his custody because it would reflect poorly on the magravial house’s honor when the margrave’s daughter was found to be travelling while armed, especially when it came to such an unfeminine weapon like the spear.

Violant didn’t stay a moment longer. Hurrying her mount, she dashed forward to find out the cause of the distressed voice she had heard moments earlier.

Mortimer couldn’t help but shake his head in another kind of distress, soon ordering his butler to follow his sister with the carriage wherever she was going.

One or two curves of the road further there was a carriage on the roadside. It was toppled over because of a broken axle stuck in the boggy ground. Several armed men tried to guard the stranded vehicle with their weapons drawn but most of them seemed to be at a disadvantage against their opponents.

The coach and its guards were surrounded and continuously attacked by a pack of snarling beasts. Some twelve hunchbacked hyenas with darkly spotted ash grey fur snapped after the men who were giving their utmost in defending the fallen carriage. Those crocottas were fearsome predators occasionally found in the other march, and how it seemed they had left the otherworldly realm while searching for prey either deliberately or accidentally.

Whatever the reason, the knights fighting the driveling and eerily laughing beasts were unable of inflicting any injury on the otherworldly beasts. Their iron swords glanced off the crocottas’ thick fur without doing any harm.

To the back, cowered against the fallen carriage, there was a delicate young woman whose tender cream-faced complexion was further highlighted by her flowing deep black hair. The frilly sea blue dress she wore gave away her identity as a noble. At the moment she was accompanied by her two equally scared maids who nonetheless tried to calm down their frightened mistress. It wasn’t calming to see, however, how some crocotta looked over again and again with a hungry gaze in its dark red eyes.

This was the scene Violant and Huwcyn came upon at their arrival. Although she never had laid eyes on a live specimen before, the girl knew thanks to her otherworld studies exactly what a crocotta was. As such she knew that the predators were invulnerable against iron. But that didn’t matter in the least, for she had magic at her disposal after all.

How the defenders were taken aback when all of a sudden several crocottas died a ghastly death of being hit by lightning from the clear sky, all the while leaving the iron clad men in the monsters’ immediate vicinity completely unharmed! Up until this very moment none of the two parties had become aware of the newcomers at the scene. The nauseating smell of burnt flesh and fur now filled the air.

The crocottas were confused. Should they continue their attack, attack the lone rider whose surroundings smelled like static charge instead, or rather retreat? To top it off, the alpha female leading the pack had been among the electrocuted animals, thus leading to a completely headless behavior of those left behind. At the end, the crocottas retreated with their tails between their legs while whimpering miserably.

Seeing that the whole situation seemed resolved, Violant, who had indeed been the one causing the lightning, dismounted from her steed and made towards the wrecked carriage.

“Greetings.” she said “I am Violant of Avallach, daughter of Margrave Orderic of Avallach. As I chanced upon your plight I decided to lend a helping hand, especially so as those vicious creatures you had the misfortune to encounter can normally only be found within the other march.”

The knights and the ladies behind them appeared inexpressibly glad about the turn of events. They wiped their sweat from the foreheads and some tried helping up their mistress whose legs were still wobbly due to the suffered fright. An atmosphere of relief spread over the scene.

Then all of a sudden Huwcyn shouted from the back: “Violant, it isn’t over yet!”