Chapter 4
The ghost-owlOld as she was, Urak was still as agile as a mountain goat. She knew Boggoron had found Deva and she was excited. She left her cave as soon as the sun was high enough to melt the gleaming frost crystals, a stole of lynx fur over her bony shoulders and a long woollen cloak keeping her warm against the breeze that came off the snow still lingering on the high peaks. She felt like celebrating and she wanted a crowd. She had long since lost all contact with the villagers who lived in the valleys. It was decades since she had emerged from the mountains in physical form, and no villager would dare venture into the gorge itself and brave the terrors of meeting the fearsome owl-woman against whom generations of parents had warned their children. Sometimes she had been lonel
