Inside the longhall, chaos. Some wanted to fight with pitchforks and hunting bows. Others wept and gathered children. An old woman named Elara, who everyone thought was deaf and half-mad, stood up. “I remember the last time,” she said. “Forty years ago. The Raven tribe. We fed them, and they left the well intact. Offer them a feast. Not to fill their bellies—to slow them down. Then we light the hidden path behind the chapel and slip into the caves.”
The targeting was not random. It was a science of cruelty. a village targeted by barbarians
First, they cut the road. A felled oak and a line of sharpened stakes sealed the Vale off from the king’s garrison two days’ ride away. Then, they took the miller’s daughter. Not killed—taken. They dragged her to the edge of the village green and tied her to the hitching post, a living promise of what would happen if the doors did not open. Inside the longhall, chaos