The Widejaw tribe was enjoying the meat of its victims when the demon arrived, offering a deal even sweeter than human flesh.

The raid had begun like any other—with roars, with sharpened bronze, and with the guzzling of hot blood.

"We will slay the men and children, and we will take the women to bear our sons!" Slyn had shouted that morning, voice hoarse. He raised a string of shrunken heads, jangling the lurid trophies. "Widejaws will feast upon human meat!"

Across the camp, his warriors roared—a thousand killers. They beat their bronze apa swords against their ring mail, and they stomped their leather boots. Tattoos coiled across their faces and bald heads, a strand for every enemy they had slain; most men sported dozens of the coiling marks. Rings pierced their noses and brows, and bronze disks stretched their earlobes.

Most glorious—more than tattoos, rings, or weapons—were their deformities. Each man of Widejaw, on his thirteenth summer, slashed his own cheeks open from mouth to ears, the wounds then cauterized. As they roared, the men's jaws opened like the jaws of sharks, revealing their teeth down to the molars.

All other tribes flee in terror upon seeing our jaws, Slyn thought. He opened his own wide jaw—he had slashed his cheeks thirty years ago—and shouted for all his men to hear.

"Widejaw will rule the plains from ice to sea!" He pounded his sword against his chest. "Widejaw will be an empire! We will be greater than the all other tribes. We will be greater than the lands across the sea." He shook his sword over his head. "We will be greater than Requiem, the tribe of reptiles!"

His warriors bellowed louder than ever. They had heard of this so-called kingdom in the west, this land of dragons, this Requiem. Slyn feared no other enemy—not the northerners in the lands of ice, not the forest dwellers who skinned their enemies alive, not even the southerners across the sea who built towers of stone. But dragons . . . dragons were worthy adversaries. Dragons were a threat the Widejaw tribe would have to conquer.

But not yet, Slyn thought. Not yet. First we must grow our power, slay our enemies, capture their women, and eat the flesh of their children. We will grow stronger, strong enough to slay dragons.

He raised the skull of Chieftain Heltok of the Bearclaw tribe. Blood filled the skull, collected from the children of Bearclaw which he himself, Chieftain Slyn of Widejaw, had slain and consumed only yesterday. He brought the skull to his mouth and drank deeply. Blood trickled down his chin and chest.

"Drink, warriors of Widejaw!" he shouted. "Drink for war."