Autumn FlamesThe deer-skin drum boomed in even rhythm. The sound was held tight by the damp autumn air and didn't reach far outside the camp. Dreary morning rain loosened dying leaves from the trees and spread them out in a carpet, where they waited silently to decay.
The drum boomed the sound of death; the death of a chieftain. A tough woman when in her prime, the chieftain had driven the Turyans and the Vikings from their lands, and kept the southern trappers in order. Still, even she was not immune to the inevitable touch of time. Chronically sick over the summer, she had eventually lapsed to living on the floor of her hut by the time fall arrived.
The tribe's witch, Eera, had been pounding the drum in the dying chieftain's hut since early morning. It would help her journey to the oth
