One woman spun to face the horde, thrusting a pointed stick. Her weapon snapped against a rider's armor, and the man grabbed her, lifted her onto his horse, and laughed as she floundered. Another woman drew a flint dagger and stabbed herself in the throat, choosing death over slavery. The others kept trying to flee, spinning from side to side, trapped within a ring of horses. Widejaws laughed and plucked them up like falcons snatching mice.

Slyn grinned as he watched his warriors work. The huts burned and the enemy corpses piled up. Already Widejaws were severing heads and stripping them of flesh, collecting the skulls for their trophies.

Smiling thinly, savoring the scent of death, Slyn rode up the tallest hill. All around him sprawled fire and blood, and ahead the great henge rose, its boulders etched with old runes.

A crown of stone, Slyn thought. A crown for a conqueror.

He rode between the towering boulders, his dripping sword held at his side, and saw them there. The Bluewood tribe elders, bearded druids clad in indigo robes, stood holding scrimshawed staffs. They prayed to their stone gods, and tears streamed down their cheeks. They did not flee as Slyn moved between them, cutting them down one by one, silencing their voices until only one remained.

The graybeard prayed, the blood of his comrades staining his robes, as Slyn circled him upon his horse.

"You will live," Slyn said to the druid. "You will flee this place. You will travel south, and you will tell all those on your path of the Widejaw empire." Slyn opened his jaw wide, displaying all his teeth from incisors to molars. "Go and tell them! Go and tell all the land that Slyn of Widejaw rules."

He watched the old man flee across the hills, racing through the devastation and fire. The Widejaw riders jeered as the druid ran by, pelted him with globs of the enemy's flesh, and struck him with the flat of their blades. Blood drenched the man by the time he had cleared the destruction, racing south. Slyn had sent such messengers across the world. Soon all would know of his might and fear him.

"Cut out their skulls!" Slyn shouted from the hilltop. "Take their limbs! Bind their women! Tonight we drink blood from their skulls, cook their flesh on our fires, and plant our seed into their wives and daughters."

He licked his lips, already imagining the evening. The blood would be hot, and the women would quiver beneath him as he mounted them. They would take his seed. They would produce boys, future warriors for Widejaw, or they too would roast upon his cooking fires.

He was about to spur his horse, to lead his men back to his camp, when the demon appeared.