Chapter 195: Full circle
Irwin instinctively searched for heat signatures as he scanned the pile of massacred creatures, finding none. Each body, no matter its size, was cold and dead.
"What does something like this?" Myda whispered again. They aren't even eaten!"
Irwin looked at the bodies, absently knowing that if he'd come here before having been to Scour and seeing what he had there, he'd likely be vomiting. Now, he was just disgusted and worried.
He was about to say something when Twyl poked his cheek.
Irwin looked at her in surprise, only to see the raven's piercing blue eyes staring at something further away. He couldn't determine what it was, and he hesitated to go closer.
"Can you see what that is?" he whispered, pointing at what looked like an indent or smudge in the ground beside a tree.
Myda looked up from inspecting some of the bodies.
"Oh…" she hissed, standing up and taking two steps back. "That's the biggest footprint I've ever seen! Bird, I think, or some giant reptile."
Bird… bird… Irwin thought as he felt a distant memory slowly bubble up and, with it, a trickle of fear.
"Bablibon," he whispered, horrified. It couldn't be, could it? That thing had died back in the portal at the hand of that four-horned Galub!
There was a shiver from his pocket, and he turned to Twyl.
"Tell Daubutim that there is a small chance that the Bablibon might be here," he whispered.