"These barrows date back centuries," Elton says, following you back up the slope to the white doorway, "maybe millennia. The Silver Fangs and Shadow Lords weren't the first tribes to guard these lands. We took the Broad Brook Caern from older and wiser Garou, killing and stealing like humans."
Black Tarn told you horrible stories of those years. That's how you first learned of the Shadow Lords. You wonder how a Black Englishman relates to his tribe's ancient crimes. Elton's expression reveals nothing as he steps around Jasper Heaney's corpse and enters the barrow.
"This was one of the oldest. This tribe used to be called the Pita-skog, the Children of the Horned Serpent. I think they're extinct now." He glides effortlessly around the broken bones and ceremonial items, his shadow-cloak trailing in the dust. You follow cautiously. "We'll have to put these back, fix David's sacrilege."
Elton regains some of his vigor once he's back in darkness. You and he return some of the bones to their niches. You explore the copper mirror. It appears to be a Garou artifact of some kind, because you don't think the Indigenous humans would have worked metal like this before the European conquest. Of greater interest: there's a second entrance behind the mirror, screened by grass and vines. When you push through, you can hear a faint, rhythmic hammering.
You follow the sound and look down upon what David Banicki has been doing. You instinctively cover your mouth.
"Oi, cub! Where did you get off t—"
Elton freezes beside you.
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