Step Two: Oxen Hel

"Fall back!!" Baldwin screamed as Aetri dashed towards him with murderous eyes.

The Uld were dicing the Britons to pieces, they certainly listened to the instructions, slicing at knee and groin, severing arms at the joint as they thrust spears through the open visors.

This was beautiful, Aetri felt the storm above, the slaughter around him and in that moment, felt the beast he truly was.

Baldwin's men scrambled back in a tight formation, shields clanging together in a defensive wall... behind Baldwin and the Ignix.

Black-Crow shot in, her arm cracking through the air to throw a deadly sharp kunai which cut through the air, and into the soft flesh of the Ignix's eye.

The foul serpent reeled back, screeching horribly and bucking Baldwin around in his saddle.

"Make the Call Now boy!" Lee roared, riding butcher into the shield wall and sending men flying with her Eastern club.

"STEP TWO!?" Tyrg shot through from his gang, screaming as He flew with twin axes into the enemy force.

Aetri could only pull Mystery back, drawing Blackbolt and grasping a black studded arrow. The Arrow slid into place and with a sharp draw, he fired the arrow high into the stormy sky.

It flew high and into the crackling clouds which were disturbed by streaking bolts of lightning.

As it pierced into the Sky, the Bolt flashed once again, filling the shadow with light for less than a moment, before they struck the Arrows copper studs.

The head of the arrow, packed with a yellow powder, exploded within the above, scattering the night with dashes of reds and Greys, a clear signal and the colours of death.

"OXEN HEL!!!" Aetri roared.

Far back from the gates... a fierce swarm of flicking sounds, many bodies whistling as they bolted through the wind, the cloud of arrows with their little notches packed with small tufts of hay.

Aetri lashed Mystery, driving her to dash out of the village centre and into the woods where the Uld all retreated in turn.

The Britons barely had time to react and while many had their shields on hand, Arrows from curved Uld bows fire much faster than an arrow loosed from the Birton longbow.

Cries of death and pain echoed from their ranks, the arrows were barbed, sticky in the flesh and painful to remove, and with the wind rolling in from the southern shores, and with it, the hay shed into the air, the thick reeds dancing amidst the smoke... and Aetri smiled.

The Arrows had planted themselves in everything, feeding the sky with the hay-reeds, the Ignix yowled as it struggled, Baldwin himself struggled to loose an arrow from his bleeding arm.

But the Uld were safe, hidden in the forest and underbrush where Aetri closed his eyes and prayed, that the Oxen would catch the scent.

Of course, as the furred beasts could sense the reeds scattering to the air, and it t'was not long before the deep rumble of colossal steps boomed in their direction. Aetri grinned as the stomping hoard marched over the hill. The Oxen whee bunched up, sprinting so fast that they tumbled amongst one another, it was by some unknown miracle that they had not shambled into one of the flaming buildings. But All was well and step two of their plan had come to fruition, Aetri watched with a smile, as a blankest of Oxen hell rolled down the hill and towards the city square, where the Briton forces cowered in fear and the Ignix screeched. The Oxen butted their heads against these forces, sending the bloody crunch of bone snapping in armour, as man and beast alike were made past under the heel of the Oxen hoard.

The Ignix roared with displeasure, raising and batting its fiery wings to scare the Oxen away, but a certain horned head peeked up with fury. Alfred did not stir in fear at the embers pushed into the air by the Ignix's flaming feathers, the Mighty Oxen bull roared its own wrath, shaking the trees and cracking with the flashing bolts in the midnight storm.

With Alfred in their lead, the Oxen began to drive the Ignix back, the flaming beast blowing flame at the Oxen, they reacted none, even as their fur caught flame, the hulking beasts pushed the Ignix rapidly back down the hill and towards the River at the end of the Village.

Aetri and the Uld, safely tucked away beneath the trees, grinned with a wicked flare, victory was on the horizon. The Oxen were driving back the Ignix and Baldwin's Britons down to the lake, and right there in the middle battlefield, where scouts poorly defended their camps all the way to the shore, ripe for the picking.

The Nameless lad could feel the hunger in his bones, this surging electricity, oozing focus from the sweat of his brow. Aetri walked free of the men, patting Mystery who he had hitched to the trees with the others. "You be good, Lass." He whispered, the horse grunting as He tested Balckbolts bowstring and beckoned his men forward.

Lee and Crow led men from the opposite side as they saw them leave the shadows, the next move was clear. Tyrg had slid in by Aetri's side as they slithered in between the houses, keeping off the road and in the shadows "I will hang from the gallows before I let any man responsible for her death alive." He whispered.

Aetri gazed at Tyrg, and his blue eyes caught a peek at the darkness behind those golden orbs, Lee and crow had noticed it, tyrg's men had felt it, this nameless outsider was changing, and that there was an Omen of Ire on the air "We Avenge Jarl Frigga, that is all."

Aetri's shadow barely dashed after him as He swept in closer, crossing through the shadows with an arrow drawn at his bow, his whisper echoing among his allies, the Skjal forces moments from death "Step 3?"