Little White crossed the ridge, and Shi Hou swung down from his back.
His boot pressed into the soft mud and ground against something hard.
He looked down-a shattered bone fragment, its dark red rune markings not yet entirely faded.
A beast's bone. Perhaps a human's. In the Great Wilderness, it was hard to tell.
The village at the foot of the mountain was even more dilapidated than it had looked from afar.
Most of the enclosing wall had collapsed, its gaps piled with charred wooden stakes and rubble. Several houses had lost their roofs entirely, their rafters jutting out like broken bones. The smell of dried blood hung in the air, mixed with earth and burnt wood. When the wind swept through, it caught in the throat.
Shi Hou took two steps forward, and his boot landed in another patch of dark brown, dried blood.
An enormous tree stood at the village entrance.
Its trunk was two girths thicker than the Willow Deity's main trunk, and its roots spread dozens of meters across the ground, plunging deep into the soil.
But not a single branch remained.
Only a few broken stubs remained on its bare crown, their jagged ends looking as though something had torn them off by force. Its bark was cracked and dry, a deathly, ashen gray.
Shi Hao paused for half a beat as he slid down from Little White's back.
His large eyes fixed on the withered tree, and he said nothing.
Furball lay on his shoulder and went quiet too.
Kang huddled in the crook of Shi Hou's shoulder, nostrils fluttering, and gave an uncertain snort.
Whoosh!
A bone arrow skimmed past Shi Hou's ear and buried itself in the ground behind him, its white fletching still trembling.
"Stop!"
A crowd surged out from