The fight had quieted, just slightly. The screeches and the thunder of bodies clashing had begun to fade into something else—panting breaths, groans of pain, and the heavy stillness that follows the storm.
Only the cries of the natives who couldn't fight now echoed through the shrine clearing. They were huddled, eyes wide, painted faces smeared with blood and ash. They stood frozen in disbelief, watching their riors fall one by one. Their champions were dead or dying, and the foreigners—those strange outsiders they had meant to feast on—were still standing.
Well… most of them.
