Page 73 of Legacy Elite

Not worn smooth. Gone.

The stone inside the circle is rough and uneven, covered in dozens of overlapping cuts.

Crouching beside Freya, I lean in, "What was there?"

"No idea."

"Don't touch it," she says.

"I wasn't."

"You were about to."

I was absolutely about to.

She holds two fingers just above the damaged stone. "These are tool marks."

"How can you tell?"

"Because weather doesn't do that."

That, even I can see. The border around the circle is still clean enough to follow, but somebody has hacked the entire center down below it.

"Someone cut it off," I say.

"Looks like it."

"Why?"

Freya glances at me. "That's a different question."

She stands, still studying the stone, then looks past it down the slope.

"Wait."

"What?"

She moves a few steps to the side, trying to see through the trees.

"I think there's another one."

We get the stretcher moving again and follow her down the slope. It isn't far, maybe sixty feet, before Freya stops beside another moss-covered stone almost completely buried between two trees.

This time I know what I'm looking at.

Same height. Same straight edges. Same circular panel on the face.

Same missing center.

"Oh, shit."

Freya clears just enough moss to see the damage, then looks back toward the first stone.

"Two in a line."

"Boundary markers?"

"Could be."