The game trail wove north by northeast into the endless evergreen waves of the Inamultan Singir. Along the way, they found signs of all sorts of beasts: elk velvet, hawk feathers, porcupine spines, and the scattered bones of an unlucky beaver. They came across a heart-stopping mound of droppings that seemed big, even for a bear.

The men stood around the mound of spoor and spoke of gorgons and dragons. Whent poked at the pile with a stick and shook his head.

“One legend at a time, friends. I believe that’s from a bull moose.”

Relieved, they pressed against the edge of the great boreal forest. Here was a great green sea of untamed trees untouched by axe or saw. Kingly white pines towered over sprawling stands of blue spruce. Larch flickered between the foothills and swayed in every color of flame. Solemn, they walked through the primeval forest, surrounded by plants they could not name, trilled at by birds they’d never heard before.

Not long after, Whent found a line of wolf prints embedded in lichen, and excitement ran down the line. Ives, Ames, and Cocker readied their spears. Flinzer and Stripes checked their bows. Bluddox unslung his battleaxe. They were on to something.

The prints pointed at a stretch of woods so dark they could scarcely see. A deep carpet of needles stole the sound of their steps. The underbrush grew thick, and the birds fell still. On point, Cocker pushed through into a clearing. A shaft of light broke through the trees ahead and lit a cairn capped by a weathered standing stone. Cocker crept forward with his spear raised. Ten paces into the clearing, he came to an abrupt stop.

“What is it, Cock?” Flinzer whispered.

“Skulls!” Cocker hissed as he retreated. “This place is cursed! There are skulls everywhere!”

“Eyes out!” Flinzer ordered.

The men faced out in a circle and barely breathed. The threat might come from any direction, and Flinzer expected to hear some huge monster crash at them. Nothing came. Their hearts wound down, and they peered into the clearing. It was too dark to see much.

“All right. Fan out. Ames, Ives, Bluddox, left. Whent, me, and Stripes go right. Cocker, keep watch here. Sound off if you see anything. Don’t shoot each other. Circle ‘round, care for any kind of trip-line or trap. Meet back here.”

Flinzer snapped off orders, and the hunters set to. They swept the brush around the clearing with care and found themselves back where they’d begun. Ill at ease, Flinzer squinted into the trees.

“Find anything?” Cocker asked.

“More wolf tracks, headed west,” Ives reported.

“Saw that. There’s also a game path that heads due north. No tracks. Might be nothing. Let’s have a look at these skulls,” Flinzer said.

His words had no purchase. The men were not with him. Trifling with curses was too big an ask.

“All right. Cocker, come with me. Rest of you can stay.”

“Hell, why me?”

“‘Cause, if it’s cursed, you’re hexed already.”

Cocker went pale, but he could not refute Flinzer’s logic. They stepped into the silent clearing and let their eyes adjust. Four ancient yews marked the borders. The trunks were hollowed by great age. Time untold had scoured the corners from the standing stone, and it slanted slightly toward the northern yew. The cairn stones had shifted and tumbled. Ten steps in, Flinzer saw the skulls.

A ring of paper-birch trees grew at the periphery of the clearing. To the west, seven trees had arrows shot into their trunks. A skull hung from each shaft by its socket. There was a morbid symmetry. The skulls hung at the same height. Each arrow was sunk dead center. Flinzer and Cocker examined the leftmost skull first. Marks bit deep into the bone.

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“Look at these scores. That’s not wolves or bears,” Flinzer remarked.

“Agreed.”

“Ames! Ives! There’s no curse. Get over here and take a look at this. I think it’s vultures.”

Flinzer beckoned them closer. The shepherdsons approached slowly, stared at the scratched-up skull, and spoke together in hushed Solkheric. “Looks like vultures, all right. Might be a sky burial,” Ives decided.

“What’s that?”

“It’s like a gibbet for the living. They chain you to a rock, and the vultures come and pick you apart.”

“That’s some punishment. What do you have to do to get that?”

“It’s for witches and shapeshifters. Can’t bury them, they’ll spring back to life and crawl out of their grave. Can’t burn them up, either. They reform from dust one year later. If their body’s in the belly of a hundred birds, they can’t come back.”

“No jokes now,” Flinzer cautioned.

“No, people believe it,” Ives said and looked to Ames. As much as they’d teased Cocker, the sheperdsons were uneasy.

“Shapeshifters! You Solkherites are such savages.” Flinzer shook his head.

“The old ways are wisest.” Ives shrugged.

“Hey, Flinz! Look at this,” Stripes called over from the rightmost skull. It was pinned to the tree with not one arrow but three. Shafts shot through both eyes and the wide-open jaw in a perfect triangle. Gray moss hung from its mouth.

“Think that one’s meant to be me?” Flinzer guessed.

“What a garish flourish.” Cocker sniffed and spat.

“You don’t approve of the archery, Captain Cock?” Stripes sniped.

“Narcissistic marksmanship, I call it. Anyone can do that. Why even bother with skulls? The arrows alone are enough to get his point across.” Cocker puffed up, pretending he hadn’t been petrified minutes ago.

“Big-talker Cocker. Look at the trunk behind the bones, you bald-faced blatherskite. You see any other holes? No? That means Threewolf sank that triad on his first attempt.”

“I could do the same.”

“Then, do it,” Stripes challenged.

“Waste of arrows.”

“You lying, back-sliding louse. You’d burn your whole quiver trying. Look at how straight those shafts are shot. That’s his eye-level, eight feet up.”

“Perhaps he pounded them in with a hammer?”

Flinzer considered it and looked closer at the arrows.

“The butts would be flanged from strikes. They’re not.”

“Maybe he stood up on the cairn and shot?”

“He stood on a pile of rocks and sank a perfect triangle from forty paces?” Stripes pressed.

“It’s possible.”

“But not probable.” Flinzer leaned in to kill the tension. “So, yes, he’s showing off. Threewolf is some colossal crack shot. We’ve been at this for days. We can’t find a bloody giant.”

“It’s a setup for sure. I think he’s baiting us in the wrong direction, toward this overwrought threat. We’re being played, waylaid to the west again,” Cocker argued.

Flinzer tugged at his beard and peered up at his mossy counterpart.

“I’m with Cocker here.” Flinzer surprised them all. “Clearly, he can move without a trace. We only find tracks when he wants. So, what’s he doing? Why bother warning us? If he’s such an amazing archer, he ought to just pick us off from afar. It doesn’t add up.”

“Maybe he’s injured, or too old to fight us all. He just scares people off,” Stripes supposed.

“How old are these skulls?” Flinzer asked the Solkherites.

“Hard to tell. They’ve been in the sun for a while. Maybe spring, by the bleaching,” Ives assessed. Ames nodded in agreement.

“So, he’s showing off his spring crop of bounty hunters, to warn us this is our fate. He hopes we’ll lose heart and turn tail.”

“Supposing he’s right? How wise is it to keep coming after a giant witch who doesn’t leave footprints?” Bluddox asked.

“It’s not smart,” Flinzer agreed. “I tell you, though, boys, it grates on me. This macabre braggart believes he can spook us. If anything, I’m now more inclined to run him down.”

“Pride has no place in pursuit,” Stripes admonished Flinzer with his own axiom.

Flinzer jut his lip at the rebuke, but Stripes was surely right.

“Wise words,” Flinzer allowed.

“So, we’re turning back?” Bluddox asked.

“No!” Stripes and Flinzer said simultaneously.

“I FOUND SOMETHING!” Whent called out from the north.