This is the song that sings the end of Bone and Shadow.
Sent along their way, guided by the peaceful Sasquatch, the tribe was given a second chance at life, and taken to their place on the Great Trail. This was a gift to them by the the people of Sky and Fire. One they longed to repay.
There were no words between Snow on Ashes and Teeth of Ten Summers. Nothing said about her daughter, or about the man she loved, or about how Snow had felt for her. Silence was all that was conveyed. Nothing was said about the proud Chief, Ten Arrows Strong, and the longing he had in his heart to repay the elders of Sky and Fire for the rescue of his people. Nothing was said between Watches by Moonlight and Dark Day Born about the curse they were each forced to cope with in their own way.
Our story begins with the Tribe of Sky and Fire, marching quickly for the Passage by River, a narrow series of trails along the jagged edge of the Rock Keeper's Kingdom. As they begin their journey into the broken lands a storm falls in a sudden gust, signs of a late spring and an even later summer. This should be a peaceful time to wander the rocks, but instead, they find themselves traveling amongst freezing rain and the cutting winds of a frigid mountain gale.
Encouraging them to the Caves of Black Ice, Snow on Ashes, and the eldest of the Buffalo Hunters, Bear Fist, join the youngest of the Pathfinders, Ember Twilight, who, having been wounded by a burning wolf in the previous adventure, is having trouble encouraging the last of the Tribe along it's way. The three manage to guide their kin against the Howling Winds (and did so with such panache they didn't even have to fight the entrance Attack for the caves, "Falling Spikes," because they took out all the Storm's Damage Boxes before they ever even got there. Go figure.)
Once inside the Cave Snow on Ashes conjured a magical Tepee of smoke and cinders, protecting them from any intruders that might come after them. This was in response to his friend, Ages Like Trees, the tribal storyteller, saying that the events they had all witnessed in the last moon were uncanny and frightful. Indeed, as they tried to rest, each taking a watch, as commanded by Gentle Thunder, the sounds of something came to them. A Perception check revealed that it was not an avalanche, or an earthquake, not thunder…it was something moving…something, larger than a heard…not a heard…
The following morning brought a quite and eerie mist to the passes. The Tribe, now traveling almost single-file along the narrowest parts of the Great Trail, found they were uncomfortable in the silence. This was made all the stranger when the cryptic warnings of Ages Like Trees found Snow on Ashes. "Go," he said to his friend, "I can do no more for him now…"
Joined by Bear Fist, the two discovered the last surviving member of the Tribe of Bone and Shadow. Watches by Moonlight, thin as a sack of bones, wandering in shock and stupor, barely acknowledged them as they approached. Speaking in madness the two carried him back to the tribe, where an emergency camp was made, sending the Pathfinders out to see how long it would be before the mist lifted and the way was clear once again. It was in this time, waiting for Watches to wake once more, that Ember Twilight came rushing back to the tribe in tears. Barely able to speak through her sobs, she told Gentle Thunder and Snow on Ashes and Bear Fist that the whole of the rest of the tribe had been found. They were drowned, bodies scattered out among the smooth stones of the riverbed.
At this time of the year the run-off of the winter snows should have made the river as high as a man is tall in even the most shallow parts. And yet, here the tribe was, amongst the corpses of the Bone and Shadow people, with a river nothing more than a trickling creek.
It was in this moment of deliberation that Snow on Ashes and Bear Fist went to wake Watches by Moonlight for answers, only to find the elder had gone again, wounding his watcher and running into the fog. By the time our heroes arrived it was too late. Watches by Moonlight, now gone entirely to madness, had used ancient blood-rites to cut a spell into his flesh, awakening his tribe in a forbidden spell that reached beyond the veil of death itself. Screams came through the mist, calling them back to their camp, as the undead Tribe of Bone and Shadow emerged from their funeral stones, and rushed up the riverbed in a blind roar of revenge.
Fighting the undead Tribe to a standstill, the two realized there was something out there, in the fog, which had provoked such hysteria from Watches by Moonlight. Unwilling to allow them to leave, and yet unable to find any other solution, Gentle Thunder allowed Snow on Ashes and Bear Fist to travel up the riverbed in search of explanation. She dispatched Redfoot and No Meat Buffalo in the other direction.
Traveling in quiet the two found the cause of the river's end: a great pile of rocks and boulders damming the waters into an unnatural lake. The stones could not have been normal, for the river was high last summer, and these rocks appeared to have been piled there for ages, covered in thick moss and weeds. A perception check revealed a small blackened carving of a ram's head on a kairn of riverstones, to which Snow on Ashes remarked, "The Horned Man has been here." As they pondered this the rocks began to move, and a great giant of boulders, moss, and slime crawled up out of the water, himself the dam that held back the river, and attacked them.
Using their gifts and the terrain as best the could, the two defended and slew the great beast, freeing the river and returning to the camp in time to find the tribe had moved out of the riverbed and onto the next of the trail. No drums were played in their welcome. Only the somber faces of those in mourning for the whole of a tribe lost to them. Kin and friend alike, now gone to a cold swirling of black waters, carrying their bodies to Napio.