Bianca's hand flew to the blade at her hip before she even thought about it. The Sterling warriors on either side of her were already moving, weapons out, eyes locked on the door.
"How many?" she asked.
"With my uncle involved?" Tobias grabbed a second blade from the wall, tossing it to her without hesitation. "Assume more than we can see."
Glass exploded inward. The first attacker burst through the smithy's rear window in a blur of dark fur and claws. A Sterling warrior met him mid-air, both of them crashing into the forge's cooling embers, tools scattering everywhere.
"Behind you!" Tobias shouted, and Bianca spun just in time to catch a second attacker's strike on her borrowed blade, the impact jarring up her arm hard enough to numb her fingers.
She wasn't a fighter. She'd spent her
