They are gone. The huts and tents of Que-Shu lie abandoned. A strange, creaking sound comes from the center square of the village.
The birds stare coldly into nothing. They perch atop a strange construction thrown together in the center of the square. Two stout posts have been driven into the ground by unspeakable force, their bases nearly splintered by the impact. Ten feet above the ground, a crosspiece pole is lashed to the two uprights. All the poles are charred an blistered. Three chains, the iron of each cold but apparently once melted, creak in the wind. Suspended from each chain, apparently by the feet, is a corpse. Though blackened and seared, the three bodies are certainly not human. Atop the dark structure, a sign, roughly clawed into a shield, has been staped to the crosspiece with a broken swordblade.
