"Every creation of Life is imperfect, Life with Death's help made them that way. If everything they make is perfect, it would get boring and stale fast. If everything they make instead is imperfect, it has room to change, to evolve. Different environements, different experiences can make a single creation into multiple new beings, all different, not really unique but still interesting!"

-Bee May, the faery of knowledge

"Who knew that making things up can be a job?"

An emergency meeting was called, the entire village was summoned. Sidon and Brielle reported their journey.

"We have the walls, can we keep them outside like we have always done?"

Asked a fisherman.

"I don't think we can this time. They are too many, all of us should kill five to seven men to kill them all. We do not have enough bows. Hell, we don't have enough arrows."

Said Sidon bitterly.

"So, what are we supposed to do?"

Asked a caretaker.

"We will prepare for the worse, get the food and anything important we can carry at the ready, we will try to talk with the army that's coming here. If they are hostile, we will hold them for as much as we can while the young ones flee. We'll try to get word to the capital, the others will hide in the forest and survive, we will fail the king but we can always come back later. We can do nothing if we are dead."

Said Robert.

"Brielle, take Kitty, your child and enough food for the journey to the capital. It's dangerous but you two can be fast and avoid danger at the same time."

Said Todd, Robert nodded.

"Take the bear with you, he is cuddly but can travel for longer than what your legs can. We can put some straps on him and he will bear some of your burden, you can even ride him for a while every day, the smell of a bear should keep the wolves and droppers away unless they come with a big pack. If they do... its better to have a bear than not have one."

Said Sidon.

Brielle looked at Micah and her daughter, he smiled at his wife and nodded, she nodded back.

"So, you dumb backwater forest dwellers finally decided to go and ask for help, uh? We will go with you, I don't wanna stay here a second longer."

Said Tumen. He then gestured to his two bodyguards and the three of them left to prepare for the travel.

The villagers gave the three of them a silent hard look as they left..

"If we leave with them, we will not be able to move as we please."

Kitty said.

"Damn fucking right! Take some caretakers with you, take the supplies, saddle the bear and get going as fast as you can, ignore those three pieces of shit."

Said Todd.

"So what do we do? Wait for the inevitable?"

Asked Stria.

"No. We make traps, we make arrows, open up the secret tunnels. Even if the forest is dangerous, it's better than die here, a chance is better than no chance. When the horde arrives we will let the young, the one that did not have child yet and one of the parents of the families with child leave through the tunnels. The others will buy as much time they can, then we will back away from the walls, burn anything that could be of use to them and flee ourselves through the tunnels."

Said Robert.

The villagers grimly nodded as one and got to work, they had three to four days, they had work to do.

"I can only hope they are locals, it will give us more time."

Said Mary to Fianna.

"Why would they give us more time?"

"Well, I talked with some of the caravan's people while I traveled here. The villagers seems to not notice it but we are a legend in Arthus, all the hunters are super strong, the caravan's guards compared them to the elite of our army, just with worse training and equipment but their fisique is probably better than most elites. And we have Todd here, he is really old now but, when my dad Sial was in the army with him, they gave Todd's scout unit a nickname: Three that made ten thousand flee. They were east, over the mountains, the Federation of Blades collected an army of ten thousand strong and tried to invade our Arthus kingdom through the mountain passes. Todd and his two scouts found them, the mountain garrison was only a thousand men strong, if they fought they would be annihilated. So Todd guided his three man team, they placed traps for days, they boxed the Federation's army on a really narrow pass and brought the mountain down on them, then when they tried to flee, they fell into the traps the scouts placed behind the enemy lines. The Federation's army retreated without spilling the blood of a single Arthus man. Only two thousand left that death trap alive."

Explained Mary.

"Well, that's nice and everything, but... We are not on a mountain, we don't have days, if he can kill a hundred with its traps thats good enough for me."

Shrugged Fianna.

"And then there is your husband."

"Well, I know my husband is strong but, he should not be famous outside, he never left."

"Well... Fame came to him. When he was around ten snows old, the queen tried to come to visit the village, her carriage was ambushed by bandits and the queen's guard was annillathed, the queen had a maid as a body double, not many know that the queen is a great fighter, she was one of the armored guards following the carriage. Sidon appeared from the forest and waved in and out of the trees, he baited, split the bandits and killed a lot of them, his intervenction gave breathing room to the queen's guard, they got their bearings and charged as a single file. The bandits could do nothing when the superior armor, weapon and tactics were applied. Sidon is known outside the village as the man that denied the queen's advances. Apparently the queen never forgot him, a member of the queen's guard comes to the village with the caravans from time to time just to talk with him."

"Uh, my husband never told me."

Said Fianna thoughtful.

"Well, the First Hunter does try to keep a low profile inside the village."

"Eh, he just doesn't wanna be bothered."

Smiled Fianna.

"We have some leggends here, if the people coming here know what they are facing we might be able to escape this unscated."

Mary said hopeful.