It was a branch. A very large one at that, I thought that it had to be at least as thick as my thigh. And pinned against my chest, with the branch piercing through what little was now left of its skull, was one of the changelings. It had been pushed even further up the branch it had been impaled by, and I could see a trail of thick green blood mixing with broken parts of chitin and the bright red of my own blood.