The trail of blood led down the cobbled narrow lane towards the mosque. A short distance away stood a house with its red-tiled roof gaping where a shell had entered, injuring four ethnic Albanian civilians.
No one was killed, but the 5,000 villagers in rebel-held Sipkovica are not counting on being so lucky next time.
On the main road snaking up the hillside below the village, Macedonian armoured personnel carriers were fighting their way up the little hanging valley, which holds the main guerrilla base in the town of Selce and nearby Sipkovica.
As we entered the village, a fighter of the ethnic Albanian National Liberation Army (NLA), his face sunburned from manning his position in the mountains, strolled by in fatigues.
We asked to speak to him but he drew a zip across his mouth and walked on. His colleagues were down a slope of orchards where some of the fiercest of the clashes with Macedonian forces took place yesterday around the village of Gajre.
While the NLA was fighting, the women and children of Sipkovica were sheltering in cellars. In one house was Nayo, who had recently returned from his home in England to fetch his 13-year-old daughter, Brevina, and bring her to safety.
Now he is trapped in the village, too scared to go to Tetovo and unwilling to attempt the 12hour walk over the snow-covered Shar mountains to the safety of Kosovo.
Brevina, her 80-year-old grandmother, mother and other relatives crouched in a darkened basement, its only window - at ceiling level - blocked off by stacks of wood to protect them from shrapnel.
In the five days since the village first came under fire, the family's neighbours have also been gathering at night to sit around the stove on the mattresses that Nayo has spread on the floor.
Brevnina was brought forward, a slight and pretty girl with an ashen worried face. "I am very scared," she said.
"They started shelling at six o'clock this morning," Nayo said. "We could see the village of Lavce hit by over 20 shells. They are shelling from the ski station and from the mountain opposite as well. We saw helicopters come in three times to lead the attack."
"People don't want this. We just want to live our lives. If you ask me - am I scared? - I have to say I was scared two hours ago. Now I'm not frightened. I only have one life, what else can I do? This is reality."
Like everyone in the village he was aware how close the Macedonian forces were. "They will come here and they will fight," he said. "Then they will destroy this village and my house to show the world how strong they are. I don't want to fight. What have I to fight with - with my empty hands? But if I had a weapon I would fight. I am so shocked by this."
Yugoslav army and Serbian police troops moved into a large section of a buffer zone around Kosovo yesterday in a NATO approved operation meant to send a warning signal to ethnic Albanian guerrillas.
Troops started entering the 5km belt outside Kosovo's borders with the rest of Yugoslavia about 5.30 a.m. Irish time.
Meanwhile, the EU foreign policy and security representative, Mr Javier Solana, said he thought the conflict was under control for the time being.
"I get the impression that we've passed the high point of tensions," Mr Solana said in an interview with the German Die Welt daily.