The next evening sees Delkash and me camped on a hill some five miles from the ruins of Foxhollow. It has been a quiet day between us, and I have no idea what he’s thinking. I’m still rattled by his abrupt dismissal of my attempt to declare our friendship. I’m emotionally off-balance. It makes everything awkward.

Makari suggested we camp on this hill, when I asked him before we left. He said it was far enough from Foxhollow to be safe from the bonewalker, but close enough that we could have most of the next day to find and—hopefully!—defeat the creature. Delkash made no objection when I pointed out the hill on our approach, so…here we are.

The evening is still and growing colder as it grows darker, with ragged clouds that chase one other across the stars. I’m glad the weather doesn’t forebode rain, since there’s no significant shelter on this hill. We dare a small fire, dug into a hole and hid behind a meager wall of stones to avoid drawing attention, but the heat seems reluctant to leave the burning branches. I bundle myself into my blankets and shiver myself to sleep.

The next day is overcast, though still not threatening rain. We stir the fire to life again and warm some rations to break our fast, before burying the embers and starting off toward the broken village. The land here is hilly and our path meanders quite a bit, following a small brook on its lazy, talkative way toward the dale where the village lies.

“Do you feel that?” Delkash asks me suddenly, and I have to pause and consider what he means. It’s unmistakable when I notice it, though.

“Yes,” I say. There’s a surreal sense of peace and safety here, contrasting sharply with what I know of the area. Makari and Nakata both warned us of this—a charmed talisman in the village somewhere that exudes this artificial sense of wholesomeness and serenity. Whether the bonewalker found and placed it purposefully, or mindlessly takes advantage of it, no one knows. It is certain, though, that many a traveller has been tricked by it this charm, camping within the walls of the ruined town. Few such ever live to see morning.

It’s no surprise, therefore, when we round the shoulder of a hill and see the devastated village before us. The ruin is sixty years old, at least, but there are still broken stone huts half standing around a central green, all overgrown with thistle and deerweed. The stone structures on the near side of the village are scorched and blackened.

A half-constructed barrow rises on the far side of the burned area, a mound of earth twice as tall as I am, with a stone chamber half-buried in the middle. I eye it uneasily, suddenly wondering where in all this devastation the bonewalker might be.

We walk carefully past the barrow, wary of what it might portend. I feel…odd. The enchantment of peace lays like a mask over the deep unease I feel, trying like a too-small bandage to cover the massive wound in this place. I need to explore, to understand the brokenness here, and to see more clearly the terrain.

We walk to the overgrown green in the center, where I hope to get a better vantage of the settlement, but we stop short. Closer, it is easy to see dozens of skeletons laying in the green, still dressed in rags of rotting leather and faded cloth. I expect to see them lying haphazardly, positioned wherever they might have fallen during the battle, but—

“Look at that,” I say, mostly to myself since Delkash hasn’t been much of a conversationalist these last few days. I step closer to a few of the bodies and it is immediately clear that they’ve been posed. And recently, too. There is no earth covering the bones, no weeds growing through the skulls and between the ribs. The remains have been intentionally placed so as to appear as though they were clasping hands with neighbors, forming a circle all the way around the green. Some are more recently dead, too, with bits of rotting flesh and sinew still attached to the bones—probably the remains of unfortunate travelers, fooled by the pleasant enchantment on the area.

I glance at Delkash to see his reaction, and catch a brief glimpse of…disgust? Unease? Something. He hides it quickly, replacing it with his customary look of casual disinterest. I get the feeling that this behavior is unusual for bonewalkers.

I look around, feeling suddenly exposed here in the center of the village, and I see a large house on the far side, mostly standing, though the roof has collapsed in many places, and with an unusual display of statuary along the near wall. The statues—wooden totems, I see as we draw closer—still bear some of their original paint, and it is clear they were brightly colored once. A shaman’s hut?

I pause a dozen yards from the house, Delkash a pace behind me, Rigi perched asleep on my shoulder, and consider the gaping door. I feel certain this was the home of the village shaman, and I yearn to peek inside, to see the familiar implements of the craft I’ve trained in for nearly half my life. I’m about to step forward and look in when I catch a hint of movement inside.

A glimpse of pale bone. A flash of rusted steel.

A chill runs up my spine, and I back away slowly.

It has to be the bonewalker, but why isn’t it coming out to attack us? Has it not seen us? Or…

Or maybe it doesn’t want to come out during the day. Maybe it prefers to attack in the night, when its victims are weary and unwatchful.

We need to draw it out, somehow. Could we bait it by drawing close? How close is close enough? Would it be worth the risk? I’m not feeling great about walking up to the door with that thing hiding inside. There’s got to be another way. Maybe if we had something it wanted…something it needed…

I think of the talisman hidden somewhere in the village, the talisman that blankets the ruins here in the incongruous enchantment of serenity and peace. The bonewalker has obviously benefited from it. Does it retain enough awareness that it would recognize what we held, and come to defend it?

I wonder if the talisman might even be in the shaman’s house, and almost without thought I consider the house with my Sight, certain that I’ll be able to see—or, at least, sense—an object of such mystic power. There’s no sign of it in the house, but…

Looking around, I can sense the direction of the talisman. It’s somewhere to the north, and not too far away.

I don’t bother to explain my thinking to Delkash. He’ll ask, or he’ll follow. For now, I just start off in the direction of the talisman, hoping it will do what I need it to do.