... The gathering took place just after the sunset in the centre of the village by the cracking bonfire. The faces of the tribesmen were silent and grim, and even the wind seemed to subside momentarily in that fateful moment.

So it was here. Everyone knew the word, but few knew its true meaning. There were stories whispered around the evening campfires by the old women of the tribe, with skin wrinkled and dry and blind eyes looking into worlds other than our own, fragments of memories, legends, and of course, gossip. Stories of brave warriors with muscles chiseled out of stone turned to blabbering fools and shrieking madmen, tales of exhausted scouts dropping dead to the ground without visible wounds, dead like autumn leaves. Tales of incomprehensible shapes and lurking voices that lured the men further and further from the light, until they forgot everything but their names. Songs about lust so strong that it suppressed even the need to eat, drink and sleep.

Half-forgotten stories, like fat grey moths circling the campfire and flickers in men's glowing eyes, were all around them, for tonight was the night.

The night of The Keaning.