The Dark Defiles

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“Well, that’s that, I suppose.”

Ringil Eskiath weighed the desiccated human jawbone glumly in the palm of his hand. He crouched on the edge of the opened grave, fighting off a vague urge to jump down into it.

Looks cozy down there. Out of the wind, dark and warm…

He rubbed at his unshaven chin instead. Three days of stubble, rasping on calloused fingers, itching on hollow cheeks. His cloak, puddled about him where he crouched, was soiled at the border and soaking up water from the rain-drenched grass. The shoulder of his sword arm nagged from the unrelenting damp.

He shut out the ache and brooded on what lay below him in the grave.

They’d come a long way for this.

There wasn’t much—shards of wood that might once have formed a casket, a few long strips of leather, cured stiff and crumbling. A mess of small bone fragments, like the leavings of some overenthusiastic soothsayer on the scry…

Gil sighed and levered himself back to his feet. Tossed the jawbone back in with the rest.

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