They reached the high meadows on the second evening.
The outermost shepherd post was still a blackened scar where the night strike had hit. The three bodies had been moved under canvas and guarded without interruption since the runner left for the Moot.
No one had touched the Blackridge marks on the boundary stones. Thorne had ordered them left exactly as they were — evidence, insult, and reminder in equal measure.
Bren met them at the lower rise with a short list of names and the practical details of who had held the watch rotation that night.
Mira had already arranged the burial ground on the eastern slope, above the frost line, where the settlement put its dead when the dead belonged to the territory and not to some older pack's bone field.
Old Haldor stood a little apart, saying nothing, the lines in his face deeper than they had been when Thorne rode north.
