In the end it was one of the archers who raised the alarm. They'd sent a few scouts out to ghost through the trees, watching for the approaching undain. One appeared suddenly on the far banks, chest heaving, eyes wide. At the sight of him, the archers rose as one, flexing the muscles in their arms and fingers, drawing arrows in readiness. Bells began to ring out, passing Nox's messages around the defences.
Cait could feel them now: a tide of the undain rolling forward to engulf Hyrn's Oak. They'd waited for the ice as Hellen had thought. The scout slid down the snow-coated bank onto the frozen Teem, slipping her way across, casting alarmed glances backward all the time. She reached the near shore and was being pulled up the bank by Venn when the undain emerged from the tree-line behind he
