The Widejaws grunted and shifted, becoming sphinxes. They beat their wings and rose past the columns. They vanished into the clouds. Only a hundred men, the women, and the children remained behind, standing upon the bloodstained tiles and between the charred birches.

Slyn walked toward a campfire, grabbed a roast rib, and returned to his throne. He sat down among the coiling oak roots and branches, sniffed at the meat, and tossed is aside. His appetite was gone.

LAIRA

 
LAIRA

She struggled against the leafy vines that bound her to the boulder, unable to free herself. She tried to shift, only for the vines to bind her magic as securely they bound her body.

"Druids, free us!" Laira cried. "You cannot do this."

At her side, Maev was similarly strapped to the same boulder; the rock rose from the grass, large as a hut. The druids' arrows had cast a web of leafy, sticky tendrils around them, and that web now secured them to the stone. Maev looked like some thrashing insect wrapped in green cobwebs. Like Laira, she fought and kicked, unable to free herself.

"Stars damn it!" Maev shouted, face flushed. "Release me and fight me like men. Cowards! I'll tear your limbs off. I'll crack open your heads, scoop out your brains, and piss into your skulls." She spat, trying to reach the druids, but her spit only landed a foot away. "Unbind me or I swear I will burn you all. I will rip your bones out of your living flesh and play them as flutes as you die."

Laira relaxed in her bonds and sighed. She looked at Maev. "I don't think that'll convince them to release us, Maev."

The tattooed, golden-haired woman growled, spat again, and tugged mightily at the leafy strands. "Those cowards. Those sons of whores. I'll burn down this whole village."

With another sigh, Laira looked back at their surroundings. The boulder they were tied to rose from a grassy valley beneath an overcast sky. Hills strewn with jagged dark stones circled the valley like walls, shrouded in mist. Four towering inuksuks rose upon the hilltops, surrounding the dale—statues roughly resembling human shape, constructed of massive boulders larger than men. Mist floated around their jagged stone legs, and deep green runes appeared upon their sandstone chests, one per inuksuk: a barren tree, a tree sprouting young leaves, a tree in full summer growth, and a tree whose leaves were falling.

Below in the valley, guarded by these giants of stone, rose mounds of earth and stone. Small archways, constructed of many small rocks, led into these homes. Grass grew upon the mounds; if not for the doors, they would have seemed like hillocks rather than dwellings.