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Lyric laughed, but then she stopped, and another round of anxious looks made their way through the group. Everyone had heard me crow about smelling my mom’s cinnamon rolls. “Probably just my imagination, but I can smell them, even through the mossy scents coming off the tree trunks.”

Austri and Revel exchanged looks of concern. Austri nodded. “Boneweavers. They’ve found their new treasure.”

Eight

“What are boneweavers? And again, I have no treasures to offer.” I held out my arms to illustrate the point. Madigan grabbed my outstretched hand and nearly pulled me out of my boots as she yanked me toward a group of trees. I bounced along behind her. Lyric stayed close. We passed massive tree trunks that were positively dripping with a sticky, sage green moss. My thick cloak picked up some of the gooey substance as we sliced between the maze of trees.

Madigan stopped at a place she seemed to deem safe from whatever it was we were running from. Austri was breathing hard by the time he joined us. He’d managed to nearly coat his cloak in green moss. His torch was almost entirely extinguished.

Lyric pointed at his shoulder where most of the sticky moss had landed. “Uh, Austri, think you’ve got a little something there.”

Austri’s short neck didn’t make it easy for him to look at his shoulder but he managed. “Bloody mess. I look like a grassy hill.”

We tried to stifle our laughter.

“Shh, they’re here.” Revel’s admonishment brought us all to attention. He stared at the pathetic flame on the torch. “I was counting on that torch to scare the little fuckers off.” He took the torch from Austri’s hand. “It’ll have to do.”

“When they see the mighty Revel Greyhart staring them down, they’ll probably run anyway,” Austri chortled. “Either that or they’ll tear you to shreds and collect big enough bones to skip the jewelry and carve out canoes.”

Revel raised an annoyed brow at him. “Green’s a good color on you, Austri.” Revel turned and headed back through the maze of trees with the dying torch.

Madigan had wandered a few trees over. She crouched down and stared through a jigsaw puzzle of branches. “I can see them from here.”

“Good,” I headed toward her. “I want to see what these treasure hunters look like.” My mind was conjuring small men with pirate patches and swords, maybe a gold earring or two. I crouched down next to Madigan. She pointed out the best sightline. And the first “treasure hunter” came into view. I shrieked and fell back on my bottom.

“Quiet,” Madigan whispered. “They’ve got great ears.”

“Yes, yes, they do.” My voice creaked out of my dry throat. I managed to get my feet beneath me again. I wiped the dirt off my butt and willed myself to peer through the opening again. “They have ears like a bat or a … a goblin. In fact, goblin would pretty much cover everything, the long, pointy noses, the impossibly long arms and big bare feet. And those clawed fingers.” I leaned forward. “Is that a tooth hanging down from the upper lip?”

“Yes, they use those to get the bark off the unsun trees,” Madigan explained. “They only eat the leaves and bark from that tree. There are areas in the Wilds where the unsuns have been completely stripped bare.” As she spoke, more of the odd little creatures filled the clearing. They spoke in high-pitched squeaky whispers to each other.

I’d been so stunned by their physical appearance, I’d ignored something quite profound. While their clothing consisted of only short, tattered loin cloths, each creature was bedecked—bejeweled, even—with smooth white bones of varying shapes and sizes. The bones had been fashioned into bracelets, necklaces, earrings and even crowns.

“They’re wearing bones,” I said unnecessarily, but it was hard to believe.

“And that’s why they’re dangerous. Boneweavers spend their entire lives collecting bones to make jewelry and other embellishments. In their society, the boneweaver with the finest and most rare bones has the highest position. Right now, that leathery old guy with the small skull crown is their leader.”

“Is that a human skull? Looks small.” My stomach dropped to my feet. “It’s not a child’s skull, is it?”

Madigan shook her head, but she didn’t seem entirely sure. “Probably a tyrak. I think you call them monkeys in the human world.”

“Still, they don’t look all that dangerous,” I said.

She grabbed my arm. “Shh, hold on. You’re about to get a firsthand look at their hunting method.”

I sat up straighter. “You mean Revel?”

“Shh, no, of course not. He’s probably still waiting in the trees.” She pointed ahead. A stout piggish looking animal with pink eyes and curved tusks came waddling aimlessly out of the surrounding trees. In a flash that made lightning look slow, dozens of boneweavers swarmed the poor creature. My hands flew to my ears to block the sounds that followed. Bloody flesh flew through the air for less than a minute, then the frenzy slowed and the boneweavers backed off their victim. A pile of bones lay in a heap. A boneweaver with a short leg and missing hand stepped out of the circle. He wore far less of the macabre jewelry than the others, just a short necklace of thin bones and one small bone pierced through the tip of his long nose. He began gathering the bones but left alone the freshly ripped hunks of flesh.

“So, they don’t use the meat?” I asked. “Only the bones.”

“They have no use for the flesh. They’ve almost cleared the Ironfall Wilds of other creatures.” Madigan turned a wry smile my direction. “Now you can see why we avoid them. People bones are a high prize, and the bones of a—” She stopped.

I nodded. “A tri-mix like me.”

“Yes. Very rare. Like a rare jewel.”

“Not feeling like a rare jewel. But why did Austri know they were near when I smelled cinnamon rolls?”