The moment had been tense and even with the arrival of more even tempered individuals, Ausan held little love for the moment. Instead, all she wanted was to bash a couple of heads and make them all stop being the asses that they were. This was not the time for foolish pride and arrogance, this was the time to unite and focus on the enemy at hand. Out of the blue raised a cry and in charged a horse, one of their horses. Even before the horse and their rider came into the camp, she knew something horrible had happened.<br/><br/>“Naiya….help us…” she whispered to herself.<br/><br/>As usual, she and the prince moved as one, together they met the horse, which she grabbed the halter of the poor beast had been run to the point of death. Gentle strokes along its neck she gave, as she watched her prince get the report from the determined scout. Kelmin, he had been a good man, dutiful and proud to serve his people.<br/><br/>If she remembered correctly he had a family too…<br/><br/>“Naiya take this man into your arms and show him the warmth of your fire,” she said in silent prayer with Barth’s own words as he laid the man’s now stilled form on the cold earth. As if connected to the life of its rider, the horse whose reins she held lowered to the ground and shuddered merely once more before it too went still.<br/><br/>“Symas!” she called out and then whistled for her mount. The beast had only just been returned to the stables and as yet had not had his saddle removed. At her command, he reared back and kicked open his stall post and charged out to find her. Ausan, not one to wait for anything, ran after Barth until Symas came running up alongside of her. With practiced ease she grabbed a hold of her saddle horn and jumped off the ground while she pulled herself into the saddle of her horse. Soon she and Symas caught up to her prince, and felt into the proper position at his right. With ease she rode in the saddle, the place she was most familiar with and urged her mount onward to the people who needed them.<br/><br/>As they came to the battlefield her voice, wordless but filled with no less passion and determination rose out with that of Barth’s as they charged into the fray. Unlike her prince, however, she did not dismount, instead she and Symas charged through the line of Tutar, the armored horse protected from most blows as it trampled the vile beings beneath its hooves. Their line broken and filled with a desperate rage, some of the Tutar broke off from the combat the follow behind Ausan.<br/><br/>Which was just fine by her.<br/><br/>At the end of their line, she reversed Symas and charged back through the ranks, on this pass she slashed and hacked at all that she could reach until she finally dismounted beside Barth. Shield in hand and back to him, she raised the shield to block on the heavy downward swing from a blade. The training her father gave her brought instantly to bare as she turned with the force of the blow which caused her aggressor to stumble forward to be met with her blade as it was brought down cut the arm clean off at the joint. Now, with her shoulder she threw her weight into the Tutar and slammed into his chest hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. He gasped for breath and stumbled back which she took the advantage of to slice him across the throat. A spray of blood and the gurgles as he died were lost in the chaos of the battle.<br/><br/>Though she hardly stopped there, instead she ducked under the blade of Barth as he swung over her head to open the chest of another Tutar. As she rose back up her shield was brought up higher to deflect an incoming spear that would have otherwise found a new home in the back of her prince. And so their dance of death began, for they were Linden and they were death.