[piosenniel]

It was curiously quiet as wren peeked down from his perch beneath the eaves. The new day’s light was just creeping across the foothills of the mountains, running along the long plane from which they rose. Wren looked down at the courtyard; no creature stirred. And all the bloody leavings of yesterday’s battle had been covered over by a light falling of snow.

Smoke still drifted upward from the chimney. He could see that now as he flew out to the bare, gnarled branches of the apple tree that stood just outside the stone wall of the courtyard. A few glowing embers drifted up with the smoke, burning brightly in the early morning.

Wren shook himself, fluffing out his feathers to keep what little warmth there was trapped against his little form. He hopped about on his branch, hoping soon to see the back door of the Green Man come open and the sturdy arm of the man who worked there begin to scatter handfuls of bread crumbs and other leavings.

As he fluttered about, Wren’s eye caught sight of a small flock of dark birds as they rose up from a stand of trees . . . there in the distance . . . in the forest that blanketed the foothills. They wheeled about in the morning’s air and then scattered. Wren shivered, not from the cold, but from the thought that they had come from that part of the forest where the shadow creature had been . . .