The various tribes inhabit the plains but come together at the rites to celebrate and trade wares. Seft is born a flint miner but his Father and older brothers are abusive, when he falls in love with a herder girl, Neen, he joins her tribe at Riverbend along with his friend Tem. They are good at wordwork and Seft becomes the leader of the cleaver hands.
Seft and his sister in law Joia (a Priestess) dream of building the monument out of Stone instead of the wood it is currently built with. But they have to figure out a way to transport the stone to Riverbend before they can do this.
Han (Joia and Neen's brother) falls in love with a farmer girl Pia. The farmers view women as property and when Pia and Han run away together Stam hunts them down and kills Han and Fell (Woodlander). Stam then forces Pia to return to the Farmland with him by threatening to kill her baby Olin (named after Han's Father).
Fell's brother (Bez) finds the bodies. He visits Pia secretly at the Farmland and confirms that Stam killed his brother. He then kidnaps Stam and takes him back to his village for an execution to restore the balance.
The Farmer's lead by Troon steal The Break from the herders a place where the cattle can pass through to get to the river to drink. Ani ( a village elder and the Mother of Neen, Joia, and Han) talks the herders out of resorting to violence to get back the land. But eventually this leads to disaster. The cattle desperate for water stamped through the break destroying the farmers crops and the farmers threaten to kill the cattle if they do it again. Ani looking for a non violent solution tries to get the farmers to return part of the break so the cattle can get to water but they refuse. Seft comes up with the idea to ask the Woodlanders for part of the wood in exchange for cattle, and proposes to build a path through the woods for the cattle to get to the water. The Woodlanders agree and the herders start clearing the path, but Scagga stupidly decides to burn the vegetation instead of carrying it to the plains and sets the entire woodland on fire. The Woodlanders no longer have enough woods to survive and the Farmers gleefully start plowing up the burnt woods laying claim to it. The Woodlanders ask for recompense (food) from the herders for burning their woods and the Farmers for stealing the land but they refuse to provide food to the Woodlanders. With no way to feed his tribe Bez decides to steal the food they need. Troon retaliates by killing all the elderly, young children and pregnant women left in the Woodlanders village when there is no one there to protect them. Angered by the massacre Bez leads his people to attack Riverbend during the Midwinter Rite when herders and farmers will both be there and burn the Monument. Bez is wounded during the attack and dies shortly after from infection. The rest of his tribe flee to unknown parts. Scagga insist on leading an attack on the Woodlanders to wipe them out for the attack but discover that they are all gone. Chapter 22 ends with Joia singing the song of the dead for the Woodland Tribe that is now extinct.
When Joia and Seft recruit people to bring the stones to Riverbend Troon leads an attack on the herders and the vistors who are with them. Desperate to prevent Troon from killing everyone Joia suggest stampeding the cattle. All the male farmers who are with Troon are killed except for Shen. Shen returns to Farmplace and attempts to take over but Duff has the backing of the women and they force Shen to leave.
The book ends with Stonehenge being built completely of stone.
