"That's kind of a lot for pre-arranged signals."

"It's closer to a language."

"Talking with animals?"

"Ata-beasts. They're smart. Moreso than humans, sometimes."

"Not saying much, depending on the human."

She laughs. "These ones aren't very." She gestures toward the caravansary. "Still, I feel like putting on a little show for them..."

"What kind of show?"

"Give them a reason to fear us before we kill them."

"I'm in favor."

"Let's get started, then."

She grins, darkly, and starts stalking toward the gate, still in her human form.

No plan, then. Hell, it's only mortals. To the gate.

The guards call on them to identify themselves before shooting, at least, calling reinforcements up to the gate -

Which seems to be their mistake.

Wyld smiles, and her expression shifts, flashing into fangs and sharp feral lines - it's fundamentally, incredibly, deeply terrifying. Light dances across her skin, shadows cloaking her to hide her identity.

Most of the guards fall to their knees. Only one remains standing, eyes wide, body shaking as pleas start falling from her lips.

"I think you want to let us in!" Wyld calls, cheerfully. "I might get angry if you don't."

Oh that's hot.

The woman left standing opens the gate, shakily. One of the guards tries to challenge this - and then Wyld glances at him, and he abruptly changes to 'oh gods please don't hurt me - '

"Good pet," Wyld says to the one who opened the gate. "I'll let you live, how about?" She stalks forward, maintaining her grace and unnerving expression.

Her charm doesn't seem to have the same effect on new people - the guards who hadn't seen her initially are arraying themselves into a defensive formation, guards with longbows on the walls and swords on the ground - and even among the terrified, the less obedient guards try to get their weapons up.

Luc' casually unclips her whip, holding it loosely in her right hand for a moment before sending it snapping out to slice the nose clean off one of the nearby guard's face.

He screams and falls back!

Wyld laughs and launches herself forward, drawing knives and getting up close with the guards, dancing among them. She's faster than them, and dodges all of their blows with an easy grace, answering clumsy sword thrusts and slashes with slit throats - or arms or ribs or arteries nicked just enough to be deadly and messy but not instantly fatal.

Luc' keeps the guards at more of a distance, whip flickering all about and snatching arrows out of the air or swords from fists as often as it leaves bright red lacerations across faces or chests or arms.

Wyld leaves the one who'd opened the gate alive - and the raiders who rush out - but turns the caravansary's guards into a bloody, dying mess.

Subduing the raiders Wyld wants alive isn't very difficult, at least.

"Well, that was fun!" She grins toothily at one of the living raiders. He doesn't seem to agree with her.

"It was," Luc' agrees.

"Now! I'd quite like to know which tribes are helping these assholes," she says to Luc', gesturing at the raiders, "As well as details about their routes, their backers, who they interact with at various points, code words, who has the most authority here or there... Do you feel like doing some interrogations of your own, or just watching me work?"

"It's not precisely my area of expertise. Maybe once you've softened them up a little."

"Then I'll show you the ropes."

She smiles at her victims, stepping forward and addressing them first as a group - targeting their unit cohesion, apparently, their sense of morality, their fear of her - she doesn't lay a single finger on them, not at first, just talks, light dancing across her skin. It seems to be unnerving them, at least, and she zeroes in on one whose expression twitches in a certain way - then easily separates the others, binding and cowing them so she can focus on just one.

She doesn't physically torture the first one - whispers in his ear, drags her fingers down his cheek - he doesn't hold for long, and she gets the tribes they were going to meet out of him.

She breaks his neck, casts him into a side room, and drags another out. This - the most stubborn of the group - she tells about the first's betrayal, and claims she set him free. The woman refuses to give, spitting on the first's name -

Wyld makes this one scream, and leaves the body in plain sight for the next two raiders. She gets better information from them, but piecemeal - and takes her time with them, explaining idly what she's doing to Luc' after each - the speech to weaken their bonds to each other, the first's quiet interrogation to engender a sense of betrayal and futility in the others, the separation and delays to make them nervous, the second's torture to ramp up their fear... Against people trained to resist interrogation, this might usually take a while, but these people's wills are weak...

The last and fifth raider sees the blood splattered around and immediately breaks.

Wyld smiles, listening patiently, and says, "I'll let you run, how about, and give you a chance to get away. You'll have a fifteen minute head start before I come after you," patting the girl's cheek.

The girl nods, face pale with fear, and stumbles to her feet once Wyld cuts her bonds, running out the gate on shaky legs.

Wyld laughs, and glances back at Luc'. "Got more than I was hoping for."

"Not bad."

She laughs, happy.

"I'm going to try to dedicate hunting the one who ran off to Luna. Takes fifteen minutes to see if she accepts. If she does, I'll have to do the actual hunt on my own..." She stares at the sky, thinking. "Might want to decide what to do with our survivors first."

"I can deal with them, if you'd prefer to focus on your hunt."