[Bêthberry]

Many recent events had made Pip'kha uncharacteristically quiet, even sombre, and he was often lost in his own reflections as his wing beats carried him over a sterile, unnatural terrain.

Brak's sudden loss of heart had bothered him; he would not have expected it of the younger bird and he felt keenly the distruption of the murder's solidarity, as if a friend had taken a path that would eventually sunder the friendship. Iodoc at first would not make eye contact with him, as if his cousin, too, were uncomfortable with events. It was with not a little relief that he had observed Sparrowbane's actions to restore balance and unity to the flock.

Pip'kha found himself spending more and more time doing his reconnaisance flights with the companies of Rik'ki'kew and Kawdor. He didn't understand why, simply that they seemed to share an extra sense. Strange how an experience could determine matters that were far distant from it. Something about the forest and about their return for Fingot Sparrowbane had stayed with the three birds. Every time they were able to stop--a rare occurrence in this desperate-seeming flight--and sip on crushed elderberries, they seemed to relive that sense of a tiny miracle of relief amid the forboding. Pip'kha even took to holding a sprig of the berries in his claws as they flew, a subtle reassurance of something he could not quite understand.

The ground below was variable, some grassland that harboured little of interest, sparse woodland sometimes, other areas rocky, with large outcrops of black-streaked rock and even stranger sights, rotted relics of old mines, the mouths caved in but the scars remaining on the earth. The land was desolate, worked over, as if emptied of all that had been useful and now abandoned. A stillness haunted it.

Then Pip'kha had overheard Akkaw and Fingot speaking of this ruined town they were heading to. An ancient elven town. What were the elves that crebain should fear the ruins of their city? Pip-kha had never seen an elf, although he had caught whispered talk about them.

He left his company and flew back to Akaaw and Sparrowbane.

"What made the city great, Fingot Sparrowbane? You have the wisdom of the old days tucked away with your own years. Share it with us. And why was it worthy of the doom of the Eye?"