Certain awoken can look into the future. The prince's crowd can literally turn into crows. And the last thing is the massive machines of war the awoken have. I forget the name of them. Anyway it's also open to interprotation that Petra died at some point and was brought back to life by the queens "witches" Also I'm pretty sure shaxx wanted to make an assault and saladin wanted to stay and defend. Shaxx went out against orders and they lost people but it was successful.