An owl must never be killed.
And Harl had killed one.
Maybe if he buried it, no one would know. He began to dig wildly at the ground with his hands, then stopped. It was no good. The owl knew, and the other owls would know. They would remember. And one day his own tharm would have no owl for a guide because animals never forgot. Never. There were tears in his eyes when he bent over the dead bird, pulled his arrow free. He bent and looked more closely at it in the gathering darkness.
Armun was sitting by the fire when the boy came running up. He stood waiting for her to notice him, but she was in no hurry to do that and poked a bit at the fire first. She was Kerrick’s woman now and she felt the warm contentment suffuse her once again. Kerrick’s woman. The boys did not dare to laugh at her or point any more and she did not have to cover her face.
“What is it?” she asked, trying to be stern but smiling in spite of herself, too filled with happiness to pretend otherwise.
“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.
“It means that the murgu know that we are here,” Kerrick said. “They no longer send the raptors to spy us out for too many did not return. The owl can fly at night, can see in the dark.” He poked the black creature with his fingertip and its cool skin twitched, then was still. “This marag can see in the darkness too. It has seen us and told the murgu. It may have seen us many times.”