[Yshania]

Dusk settled, dressing the reaching canopies in soft ambers and rich mauves, and the sleepy hum of honey-laden bees winding their way back to their hive heightened the druid’s awareness, drawing her abruptly from her reverie. The undertone was subtle, yet enough to raise her from her contemplative state as she tuned into the forests evensong. The sweet scents of jasmine and wild honeysuckle lingered dreamily on the edge of her awareness as the drone took on a deeper, more argumentative tone. Yshania focused, attempting to determine the nature of this threat, and glancing sidelong at Githra, she understood her panther companion had failed to detect this subtle change in balance as he merely flicked his ear in dreamy irritation. Silently she climbed to her feet and unclipped the restraining buckles of her twin scimitars, descending the shallow incline in the direction of the undulating whine. Subconsciously she acknowledged the otherwise silent forest, no birds romancing the treetops, no squirrels chittering over lost and found hazelnuts…even the breeze was absent as the forest seemingly held its breath, waiting.

With one hand on the ready hilt of a scimitar, her other traced gently across the rough then smooth surface of a majestic silver birch, its trunk caressed by the decorative presence of Clematis, and about forty feet from where she concealed her presence groaned the source of the threat. For a moment she was unable to identify the pile of rotting bone and flesh, her attention being drawn by the seething mass of bluefly greedily squabbling over the find. Taking a minute to assess the area, she lowered her shoulders and crept forward to take a closer look. The stench of burning flesh assaulted her now, as she entered the clearing, and she wondered how these charred remains had done little to scorch the earth, their deaths must have been immediate, she reasoned, then she determined this fact as she realised the skulls to be those of trolls. Her eyes watering, she almost missed the message left as atop the highest skull lay a rune, taking note she turned to call Githra, only to be startled by his ever-watchful presence by her side.

Pridwen had already found her way to the riverside and crossed to the north of the fjord where the water stilled its indecisive flow to pool momentarily in a mirror of the orange skies, pond skaters flittering across its surface unthreatened by the quiet. Without a word, Yshania and her animal companions headed north along the riverbank, where possible sticking to the cover of the skirting woodland, fully alert now they would walk undercover of this night, only settling where absolutely necessary and hidden from the day.