The stockade wall was a blue-black rectangle behind them and the blue star burned with the brilliance of a dozen moons, lighting the woods in blue shadow and azure light. Prentiss and the hunter walked a little in front of the two riflemen, winding to keep in the starlit glades.

“It was on the other side of the next grove of trees,” the hunter said in a low voice. “Fred was getting ready to bring in the rest of the woods goat. He shouldn’t have been more than ten minutes behind me⁠—and it’s been over an hour.”

They rounded the grove of trees. At first it seemed there was nothing before them but the empty, grassy glade. Then they saw it lying on the ground no more than twenty feet in front of them.

It was⁠—it had been⁠—a man. He was broken and stamped into hideous shapelessness and something had torn off his arms.