The Dorset and Saqqaq came under cover of fog.
As always.
They moved like ghosts between the trees, their stone-tipped spears glinting faintly in the gray light, their skin daubed in war paint the color of ash and blood.
From the ridgeline, they descended toward the Vinlander village nestled by the river; huts of bark and thatch, faint trails of cooking smoke rising in lazy curls.
The fields beyond were bare. The longhouse door hung open.
Too open.
Still, they crept forward.
The Dorset scout, short, lean, his braided hair knotted with bone adornments, raised a fist. The line halted. There were no signs of sentries. No barking dogs. No horns.
It smelled wrong.
But they had seen this before. Villages abandoned. Terrified. Too easy.
They stepped forward again.
And the earth gave way.
A scream, short, sharp, then choked, as the lead warrior plunged into the ground, impaled on sharpened stakes hidden beneath branches and moss.
Blood sprayed upward. The raiders froze.
