Gavor, flustered and exhausted, and still slightly beribboned, settled on a table outside a small tent near the edge of the Gretmearc, his heart pounding and his crop heaving.
‘Oh, Hawklan dear boy, where are you?’ he muttered. Then, in self-reproach, ‘Fine protector you are, you feathered clown.’
He felt as if he had flown down every aisle in the Gretmearc a hundred times, and peered into every conceivable cranny. Knots of desperation and anxiety balled up in him and threatened to choke him. His claw opened and closed fretfully, scarring the coarse grain of the wooden table.
‘Would you like something to drink?’
Gavor started and spread his wings in readiness for flight. He had had one of these yokels nearly pull his leg off tonight and had let him off lightly, but he was in no mood no
