Meadow on Talan’s Bluff

The day was far from over, hours still from eventide. Pie hunkered beside the treeline listening to the bellow trumpet over the meadow, despatching birds into the air. His stomach clenched, like an eaten rope being pulled taut inside him. He rubbed the back of his neck with his shaking hand.
“What have you been doing, my little snake?” The encapsulated imp stirred and the vapor within his vial flourished. His voice— a shrill accusation.
“Asking what, Loge?” Magpie gave way.
His nervous shifting rustled the feathered robe. The kobold had become acquainted with Loge and his opinion. A period of introduction that had kept him awake through the night until now, since his arrival at the fort.
“Why is THAT following us? It’s not a puppy!” The kobold’s eyes darted over his shoulder toward the distant north, beyond shadows, into a distance that he dreaded. “At the foot of these hills, on. this very field, it stalked its prey that is no more, Magpie.” There was anger and teeth in his voice.
“Do you know what it is?” He whispered, gripping the vial tightly.
“You’ve seen it, Little Snake!”
“I happened upon it,” He tucked his tail and sagged. “… and when I saw, I ran,”
“Oh, that the Tuath had run from this meadow.”
Magpie could smell the death that seeped from the soil, even though ages had past. The bluebells confirmed what had occurred here.
“So you found its final place, where it had been discarded, dug it up and bid it follow?!”
“I was sheltering from a storm. There was no digging.” Magpie’s breathing became rapid, his eyes narrowed as he rubbed his neck.
“An ill fate!” Loge spat out the last word, as if it were gristle. His body twisted inside the vial, and he muttered, “You were fated to step in another’s ordure.”
Magpie stood quickly, facing north over a canopy of snarled branches, holding the vial high, as if it might have better vantage and muttered, “It draws closer.”
“It is steady but slow, by the week’s end it will stand beneath these ramparts again.”
“And then what?”
“I don’t know.”