The ringing in Mers' ears was a high, thin whine that seemed to drown out even the roar of the collapsing timber of that early morning. His gaze was fixed on the threshold of the hovel, where the coal-black incinerated remains of his men lay in a tangled heap.
Not even the ravens would pluck at these corpses; the smell of scorched hair and rendered fat was so cloying it seemed to stain the very air with something so perverse it could not be named.
The limbs of the dead were locked in eerie straight angles, distorted by the heat into a final, desperate pose of escape. It was haunting to look at, as if their spirits were still trying to claw through the air long after their lungs had turned to ash.
