[Child of the 7th Age]

Stamo had written out a simple note on a small strip of pine bark, using a stone stained with soot to inscribe the letters and a picture. Then he had tied the message onto Owl's leg using a thin leather thong. Stamo was not sure whether Wenda or Mara would be able to read his simple words, but the sinister image of a dark shadow hanging over the trail just behind the two robed men would hopefully convey the basic idea to the women. If they were lucky, Wenda might even be able to understand Owl's speech.

With deliberate, powerful strokes, Owl made his way towards the north. Keeping close to the ground, he flew from perch to perch, carefully scanning the area for any sign of a small pack of reindeer followed by a human woman. The far North was home to Owl, and he was familiar with the territory and all the twists and turns of the forest and hills. He had been flying steadily for more than an hour when he glimpsed a small band of travellers, now off the trail and cutting over the fields.

Owl could see the reindeer and the human. More puzzling, however, was the tall treeish character who strode purposefully along the path, carrying the woman on his shoulder. Owl pulled up onto a branch overhead, wondering what to do. Could this gigantic figure be trusted, or was he an emissary of one of the dark shadows, the evil creatures that Tevildo described with such hard and bitter words? For one moment, Owl hesitated until he noticed that the animals and woman seemed content, even thankful, to be in the presence of the large tree thing.

Gliding down from the branch, Owl landed on the ground in front of the group and began to cry out in a loud voice: hooo-uh, hooo-uh, hooo-uh, wuh-wuh-wuh. He held out his leg with the message attached and hoped that someone would understand his words: how a dark and fearsome presence had crept up the path in back of the two-leggeds and now threatened to overtake them.