What she was, Lugh thought, was socially awkward.  She was precocious in her understanding of giants and in mobilizing her folk to fight them.  She was sweet and, it seemed at times, flirtatious by turns with him.  She knew him, knew of his extremely long life, understood to some extent what that meant, could hold her own despite his experience, and yet Oatey seemed totally awkward in the rest of her life.

He found her fascinating.  He found her frightening.

Lugh rubbed the tethered divination bones around his neck.  Again he wondered about those bones.  Did the Norfolk woman, Von, protect her kin with their guidance and not him primarily?  Could bits of bone be more than their substance?  Of course, he used them for guidance. 

With a jolt Lugh realised that in truth he did depend on them.  What madness?  He trusted their directed randomness when he was unsure, likely when decisions were the most critical.  What could he do but shake his head, was his life no more than a string of accidents and this of Oatey Moss just the latest of centuries worth.

Lugh sighed, she had been inconsolable, weeping from embarrassment for leaving him, at least she had represented that as her reason for her tears.  He had held her while her tears drenched him, stroked her hair through wracking sobs, and layed beside her in confusion when she drifted off to sleep.

Finally, he too had slept.  He hadn’t sensed her leaving, so it was alone again that he woke in her room full of books, abandoned, still not knowing her or even the way out of this infernal warren.  Oatey Moss was frustrating like Von had never been.

He drew off his bones and unstrung them from their cord.  They were old, yellowed, and polished by his chest where they rode, and the by the years.  He knew the marks well, but their original intent he could not guess, had never even thought to imagine.  Perhaps Von had her revenge after all. 

Perhaps by these she knew him, after he had fled, reading his heart where they lay, and then she must have hated what she saw there.  “Oh bones of Von. . .”  He caressed them with familiarity, like a talisman of self, though they were no such thing.  These had been given him and they had shaped him by accident or by intent, for twice a hundred years and more.  The urge came to throw them away, but it was the feeling of a moment only and he pressed them between his palms and whispered them,  “Tell me true, do you serve me?” 

Lugh breathed his life on them like an incantation and released them upon the bed.  They fell, he read, one mark first, and three marks. . .” His stomach lurched, he felt a moment of sickness, but then he saw, and with a rush was relieved, “. . . gods be good, two marked, so yes.”

How important was it to know if he could trust his most trusted councilors, these bones?  He was alarmed when a mad titter slipped out unbidden.  Was he mad?  No, he meant to wonder if he was mad to trust the bones, surely, “Oh bones. . .”  He cursed himself for weak foolishness.  “One and Two and Three can’t tell me what I don’t know to ask.” 

Lugh pressed bones and cupped hands against his forehead, though his mind was empty, but fearful.  Tension built in him.  He should throw, how else to know?  But what to know? He felt himself casting without a question, his body doing without thought.  Can I trust her? It came to his mind as the bones spilled.  There was rustling he heard, someone coming. 

“I thought we might need some breakfast.  I hope I found things you like.” Oatey said in a bright happy voice as she swept back into his world.

Lugh glanced and thought he saw a three and maybe another before he scooped up his divination bones.  “I wondered where you’d got to.”  He said with casualness that he knew for a lie.

. . . The old skald, Barnen, was no friend, but Hunter couldn’t grudge the man his spot by the fire.  It had been a hard Winter, only recently did its icy grip show signs of loosening, and the days nearing Imbolc already.  Hunter had sung when asked despite the venomous glances of the wizened old teller.  The story of the Magic Lady had held them rapt a time or two as well, but folk in general and Rig himself pumped him for news of parts beyond their little sphere.  He embroidered the news of the lands he had travelled into a rich tapestry, but nothing caught their attention like the news of the burned out village.

Truth to tell, Hunter had avoided the subject for fear that this Rig had had a hand in it, but too many ales and familiarity had caused him to let down his guard.  On the topic of turmoil and war he had dropped the news as an aside, “You know what I mean. . .” He’d blathered, “like those poor folk on the other side of the mountain, all of them killed and their village burned to the ground.”

There was shocked silence, for indeed nobody but Hunter did know it.  Anger followed and women weeping.  The entire scene turned from eventide ease to pointed interrogation.

Barnen the Skald was the only one the least bit happy.  It seemed there was much back and forth and everyone related to someone over the mountain, but no more and Hunter Wilde had borne the news and told it too late.

There was nothing for it but to go with a scouting party, a fact finding effort, to see what had befallen their kin.  Hunter knew the way of these things, he was the outsider, in their fear and pain and the desire for revenge could easily fall on him.  so he went, trying to seem concerned and likemindedly all for revenge while ignoring the dirty looks and the sharpening of knives.

It was a long walk and Hunter made himself useful and free by ranging ahead and bringing down fresh meat for the party.  Slowly the questioning around the fire became less accusatory.  Hunter had known their folk, had planned to spend Winter with them, had taken care of them in death as best he could.  He could name many of them though he confessed he had tried not to remember names as he buried the dead who had not been treated kindly.

They drew some of these details from Hunter and anger flared again, but now it was not aimed at him.  that relief was soon overshadowed by their approach to the place full of so many nightmarish memories.

The village was nothing but blackened timbers sticking up through the snow, lonely and forlorn.  Hunter showed the place he’d laid the villagers.  Then the grim work of learning what had befallen the villagers began so that they might be avenged.

When he had come upon the tragedy, Hunter had worried first about burying the villagers to protect them from Winter scavengers.  He had come late to the massacre, snow already hiding some of the carnage so that as they tried to make sense of the horror they came upon bodies, bodies torn by scavengers at times, but at others frozen in icy snow, as they were, by the rictus of death.

Horrific wounds marked the folk.  Many seemed mauled as if by animals, but as they ranged out from the buildings they found weapons, sharp edged stones embedded in mauls, short stone tipped spears, bone hafted obsidian knives, and here and there something man made and innocent as a rusty kitchen knife turned into something vicious.  Many of the weapons had fetishes attached to them made of bone and human hair.

The mood at camp was somber and watchful.  Clearly a war party of some strength had fallen on the village.  They were savages, without the use of metal, but they were accomplished killers and well organized if the totality of slaughter was any indication.  The deaths in the village had been brutal, but relatively quick.  Not so those who seemed to have escaped or even fought back.  In the woods there were bodies of people who had suffered cruel and intentionally long deaths.

The night was long, but few could console themselves in sleep.  Everyone knew there would be more grizzly finds on the morrow.  The watch did not need to be reminded to keep themselves from dozing.  It was fairly clear that where their kin had been slaughtered was now enemy territory.

Finally the sun rose, blood red, tinging the world with anger as the men gathered themselves for another depressing day of finding the dead.

There was a foreboding, a sense of dread, as they approached a rocky gorge.  They were not surprised to find a body on the ice rimed rocks below.  It was a surprise that for once nobody was related to the corpse.  With ropes and much clamoring and hauling they brought the dead thing up.

The body was not human, at least not in the way any of them would recognise humanity.  It was obviously one of the raiders, they found brutal stone tipped weapons like those they found in the villagers.  The creature, though slightly shorter than the men of the party, was heavier, with a savage visage, powerfully muscled, and perhaps most alarming of all, it was female.

There was a clear trail along the top of the cliff.  Hunter felt the foreboding worst of all from that direction.  Now that they knew their enemy a bit better they all clinched their weapons tighter and looked around furtively, fearing ambush around every tree.

Hunter led them, step by step, into the dark foreboding wood.  There was no breeze to stir the Winter dead branches that clawed toward the sky.  “Do you smell it?” Hunter murmured as much to himself as those with him.  there was a stink in the still air, a stench of sulfur and corruption.

The land rose until they topped a rise, the stench smote them in the face.  Moss hung trees formed a dark tunnel down into the sheltered copse.

“I’ll not go there,” a man’s quavering voice suggested he might not stand either, and there were murmurs of agreement.