Sachihiro

I’m woken in the middle of the most restful sleep I’ve had in days minutes after falling asleep. I groggily/reluctantly open my eyes and see Freydis with a spear in hand and war paint on her body. I’m immediately alert and jumping from the bedroll surveying my immediate surroundings.

"Where is Freyá?" She asks, passing me my single handed battle axe with a fresh honed edge, my dagger and throwing axe thrown at me.

"I don’t know. She was here when I went to sleep. What is happening?" I'm arming myself feeling the urgency in the camp.

"I don’t know but a few people are going around rousing everyone and telling us to prepare for battle."

We both get ready as quickly as we can. This silent preparation is what usually happens during raids so its all very organized. We are out and ready to go in less than a minute and on our way to get shields from a pile. I grab two, putting one on my back and carrying one on my arm. I definitely don’t want another broken shield to limit my fighting.

"Have you ever been on a raid before?" I ask, having never seen her in a fight and needing someone to watch my back.

Freydís shakes her head ‘no’ and I nod looking to find my usual fighting partners. In a battle you want people you trust by your side, or people whose fighting styles you know and whose weaknesses you can compensate for.

"Let’s find Freyá then my friends yes?" I ask while already moving back towards our tent to see if she has returned.

She hasn’t. We then jog towards the tent her older brother’s shares with another warrior, a friend of his I gather. I’ve never been particular close to Asger but he seems an okay sort of warrior. He is about 35 years old and the second son of Ake the Warrior. His eldest brother died a few years ago, killed in a hunt into the Dawn by a windigo. I know this because I comforted Freydis through the month of her mourning.

"Freydìs. Freyá with you?" Asher asks as he looks us over. He also carries a spear and a dagger, their older brother also carried a spear and a dagger. None carry a shield, which is rare amongst the tribes but not unheard of. Their fighting style is strange though, I look at him and his friend whose name I don’t know. We nod at each other and clasp forearms.

"Caden," he introduces himself. Firm grip and firm muscles in his forearm.

"Hiro," I respond as another person suddently walks out of their tent. A woman, a Jotnar judging by her pale beauty. And hieght, that's a tall woman.

Barbarian women are tall and mostly thick and muscular but very shapely with beautiful hips and big strong behinds for sprinting. Jotnar women are a step beyond normal tall. They are almost all as tall as men if not taller and breathtakingly beautiful, in a cold sharp way.

This woman is no different from the mold.

Her long blond hair is tied in a long warriors braid that goes down to her waist, her pale skin looks so soft that a hard grip with subsequently bruise it. Almost all the Jotnar have some variation of blue eyes, this one is no exception.

"Do all the Norse men hold hands while the women do the fighting?" She asks brushing passed.

"I had a good time Asger, Caden. I hope you survive the night," she says as she jogs off towards the Jotnar part of what is slowly turning from a camp into a town.

Even for Barbarians our mountain cousins are a strange lot. With territory at the base of and inclusive of one of the western most Titan Mountains, the Jotnar are an isolated mountain tribe. Mainly raiding far into the mountains for black bears, mountain lions, trolls and orcs than raiding and intermarrying closer to the other tribes.

"Who was that?" I ask almost on reflex as I watch where her silhouette disappeared.

"That my friend was Naglefari," Freydis’ brother Asger says with a longing sigh.

By the look of her and the fact that she is a Jotnar I can probably understand the sentiment. I hear another sigh behind me and look at Caden. He also has the same longing look. Freydis snorts in mild disgust.

"She bedded the both of you together didn’t she?" She says, shaking her head in what I assume is amused disapproval.

"I’m gonna go find my friends and join them for the defense." I say, looking at Asger. He nods.

"Freydis stays with Caden and I and we look for Freya," he says and walks away. They follow.

I follow with my eyes for a moment. This brief exchange is the only time Asger and I have ever spoken to each other, though I’ve been his sister’s lover before. I shake my head and head towards Victor and Dustin’s tents.

Dee is going to head to the Seers, which is probably the safest place to be. Ma is a weird one. Sometimes going among the warriors, sometimes among the noncombatants, but either way she will be safe. Safer than me anyways.

I get to the tents and everyone is armed and ready. Double checking weapons, pissing, shitting, or whatever they do before a battle. I join the pissers.

"What took you so long?" Ava asks suddenly beside me.

I grunt in surprise and give her a nonchalant reply. She is probably looking for a reaction. "I was asleep. Where is the action?" I ask, deflecting anything else she had to say to more important questions.

"Scouts were sent out, but the Seers are spooked. Whoever we are fighting it’s probably a lot of them."

"Or someone very powerful," I say under my breathe.

"What was that?"

"Nothing."

We move towards the others we usually fight among in the village. There are a few new faces I notice. A few people from the other Norse villages I assume.

We don’t have to wait long as out of nowhere shadows pass us by to get deeper into the settlement. Shadows that completely by-pass all of us and are only spotted as an anomaly because of their quickly accumulating numbers. There are hundreds of them within moments. Iakopa tries to intercept one and we all watch his head arch into the night.

A shiver runs up my spine. What in the Gates beyond are we up against?

* * *

Daewon

They hardly make a sound as they fall upon us. Beautiful one moment and ugly the next with viscous, almost monstrous visages. Visages that have nothing but malice and malicious glee painted upon them.

I have my spear and shield in hand, dagger on my waist. 'No matter what your weapon of choice, always have a knife.' Da likes to say. Those words have proven themselves sage advice in a few expeditions into the Dawn for hunts. I live by them now.

I look behind me at the entrance of the tent I share with the Seer trainees Vicar and Agatha. Moroi walks out bare chested and carrying a shield and sword. My loins stir even in this chaos at the sight of her.

I had assumed she was getting dressed, but all that's changed is the presence of boots on her feet, a scant skirt and a warriors braid. I should have braided my hair, it will get in the way.

Our attackers are fast, too fast for me to physically fight I realize quickly. So I resort to spirit energy. They have some sort of cloaks that make them almost invisible in the night, hacking into warriors from unpredictable angles with a strength that belays their lean bodies.

They fall on us like shadows cloacked wraths, taking heads with their descendant.

The only reason I can 'see' them at all is because of the training I'm receiving from the Seers. The land is alive, and if you stay in the same area on Gaia for as long as the tribes have been here land recognizes your claim to it.

You get a territory acknowledged by Gaia, but the boundary is marked by the ashes and bones of your ancestors. Thus, the Gaia acknowledged tribal lands are vast. Much larger than the settled tribal lands. This is how the Seers always know when an attack is coming far in advance. We've left our dead all across these lands.

You can tell when a hostile presence enters your territory regardless of them cloaking their presence. You might not know where exactly they are, but knowing you should be alert is the first step.

The Seers aren't actually that impressive when you figure out what they are doing. But the rest of the tribes usually ignores their spiritual potential and how useful it could be. I close my eyes and project my spiritual energy, communing with the land. I'm not very good yet and can't project far. But it was good enough to protect Sachi against the hag.

I projects spiritual energy in a 16 feet radius around myself. Being sure to include Moroi as I nod to her and lead us towards the Seers longhouse.