There was not a soul in residence at the Double Barrel that did not come awake abruptly and with their skin crawling as the shrill, unearthly wail ululated across the dark night sky. Falling heavily to the floor, she struggled to win free from the sheets a fitful slumber had wrapped her in. Jyslin blistered the air with a few choice curses and climbed to her hooves ... there were times when being the proud owner of a lovely set of gracefully curved horns could be a source of exasperation, such as just then when the sound of ripping stitches mingled with the preternatural howl that continued on an impossibly long time.
"I don't have time for this," She muttered, gathering the satin sheet and tying it about herself toga style.
Stopping only to snatch her great great grandmother's rapier from it's sheath where it hung on the post at the foot of the bed as she went by, she flung open the door and exited to the hallway a mere heartbeat or two before anyone else. Taking advantage of the momentary absence of bodies between her and the stairwell, she sprinted to the stairs and took each set in a couple of elegantly executed leaps while the doors behind her opened to allow the rest of the family access to the hall.
Knowing that her backup was almost literally on her heels, she reached the main landing and rushed out into the yard as the scream that had roused them all finally trailed off into a silence every bit as terrible as the wail had been. In the absence of sound, the eerie stillness that followed was of the sort that, should you be a creature with hair that could stand on end, well, it would do exactly that as a natural consequence. Even the sound of the other assorted family members following her out into the large, cobbled courtyard and spreading out to look about the space enclosed by the outer wall and the structure of the Inn proper, did not sound quite right to ears so recently victim to an ear-splitting auditory barrage.
Several of the householders stayed back closer to the entrance of the Inn, both to give their more martial peers space to fight should it be needed and to protect any patrons who may have been similarly disturbed by the unholy caterwaul. Luckily, on this day it would seem that the paying customers deemed it wiser to allow the Inn staff to handle this matter while they themselves remained as safe as they could be hiding under the bedcovers. All that were there could feel the sense of malice that permeated the air, it sat upon Jyslin's dusky purple skin in a way that generated an involuntary shudder of revulsion. Thick and cloying, not unlike that feeling before the sky erupts into thunder and lightning, it seemed to adhere to anything it touched with a persistence that suggested purpose.
And yet, nothing ... the silence persisted.
The nervous system of a living being can only sustain an alarm state for a specific length of time without actual threat being in evidence. Some of the younger cousins began to laugh, nervously at first but gaining in confidence as nothing continued to happen. Relief began to bubble up from deep inside at what appeared to be a failure on the danger's part to manifest. Surely, something should have happened by not and it was no time at all before a contagious case of the giggles was racing through them all.
Jyslin hissed at them to be quiet, sensitive pointed ears picking up the faintest sounds of movement from the other side of the stout, iron reinforced, wooden gate, but it was too late.
They had been heard ...
Something hit the gate with enough force to splinter wood
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