The Black Scar

A vast burn-break where last summer's fire took the whole rib-slope — black charcoal brush, bare ash, and the new green coming up between.

A shepherd and his whole herd lie where the fire caught them; the bones are already whitening in the ash. Cinder-moths drift through the warm charcoal columns; emberbacks cluster where the heat still lingers. Something larger uses the cover the blackened brush affords — the Scar is the flats' best ambush ground.