Kyara stopped to watch as a heavily armoured and very angry looking dwarf rode through the camp on a goat, of all things. There were a few dwarves in the band, but none that looked anywhere near as impressive as this one, and she had never seen one riding a goat before. He looked her way and she noted his lack of a beard with surprise before her eyes travelled down and she realised he was definitely a she. That was interesting. She had never met a female dwarf, one of the dwarves in the band had told her that dwarven women were few in number and rarely left their homeland. What was this one doing here then? Her armour, although it had seen a lot better days, was clearly high quality as was the large black axe on her back. She looked like a real warrior, out of place in this band of children and rejects.

The dwarf dismounted outside Rafford's tent and pushed inside without so much as a knock. Now there was someone who might just have both the strength and temperament to stand up to the idiot leader. Curious, Kyara sat down where she could see the tent and tried to appear like she wasn't watching it. About 20 minutes later, the dwarf stormed back out of the tent looking even angrier than she had going in and led her goat off towards the stables. Kyara briefly considered going after her and introducing herself, but decided against it. Best to let her calm down.

-5 days later-

Kyara crouched in the cover of the trees, watching the road and trying to resist the urge to shift position or rub her cold arms. One of the men behind her coughed loudly and she turned to glare at him. They'd been waiting in the cold for hours and she was as uncomfortable as they were, but they still needed to be quiet and not risk alerting their target of the ambush waiting for them. They were being paid a lot of money to kill the old duke who would soon be travelling down this road, enough that Rafford himself had decided to come. She didn't want to be the focus of his anger if they failed. Kine, who she had been briefly introduced to the day before, stood behind the tree next to her, completely silent. Even Rafford could tell that Kine was more capable than most if not all of the soldiers in the band and she had been put in charge of the 30 men with them on this mission.

The sound of horses pulled her attention back to the road. [i]Finally[/i]. She focused on her power and felt its energy fill her, ready to be used. Five armed guards on horseback rounded the corner first, weapons sheathed but alert, scanning the area for danger. The carriage followed after and the men behind her shifted and murmured. She gestured for them to be silent without turning around. She had to get the timing of this just right or they could get away. Ten or so more guards came into sight as she waited, until the carriage was right where she wanted it. She reached out with her power and concentrated on what she wanted, strong gusts of winds blew from each side of the road, pushing against the trees that had already been weakened by the soldiers' axes. Four loud cracks sounded as the trees fell onto the road in front and behind of the carriage. The guards unsheathed their weapons and several were already pointing bows towards the trees, but before they could fire the wind spun around them, forming into a whirlwind that spooked their horses and made their bows useless. Another crack sounded as lightning leapt from her hands to one of the five guards in front struggling to control their terrified horses. The man and his horse collapsed and lay twitching on the ground, the smell of burnt flesh drifting up towards her.