“This is the tent of the margalus,” Harl said, and his voice trembled when he spoke. “Will he talk to me?”

Kerrick had heard their voices. He climbed slowly to his feet, although his broken leg had set well it was still sore when he rested his weight on it, and emerged from the tent. Harl turned to face him. The boy’s face was drawn and pale and there were smears upon his cheeks as though tears had been rubbed away.

“You are the margalus and know all about murgu, that is what I have been told.”

“What do you want?”

“Come with me, please, it is important. There is something I must show you.”

There were strange beasts of all kinds here, Kerrick knew. The boy must have found something that he didn’t recognize. He started to turn him away, then thought better of it. It might be something dangerous; he had better look at it. Kerrick nodded then followed the boy away from the fire. As soon as they were far enough distant so that Armun could not overhear him the boy stopped.

“I have killed an owl,” he said, his voice trembling. Kerrick wondered at this, then remembered the stories that Fraken told about the owls and knew why the boy was so frightened. He must find some way to reassure him without violating Fraken’s teachings and beliefs.

“It is not good to kill an owl,” he said. “But you should not let it bother you too much. . .”

“That is not it. There is something else.”

Harl bent and dragged the owl out from under a bush by the end of one long wing, then held it up so that the light of the nearest fires fell upon it.

“This is why I came to you,” Harl said, pointing to the black lump on the owl’s leg.

Kerrick bent close to look. The light from the fire reflected back a quick spark as the creature’s eye opened and closed again.

Kerrick straightened up slowly, then reached out and took the bird from the boy’s hands. “You did the right thing,” he said. “It is wrong to shoot owls, but this is not an owl that we know. This is a marag owl. You were right to kill it, right to come to me. Now run quickly, find the hunter Herilak, tell him to come to my tent at once. Tell him what we have seen on the owl’s leg.”

Har-Havola came as well when he heard what the boy had found, and Sorli who now was sammadar in Ulfadan’s place. They looked at the dead bird and the live marag with its black claws clamped about the owl’s leg. Sorli shuddered when the large eye opened and stared at him, then slowly closed again.

“What is the meaning of this?” Herilak asked.