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attention. Londih pounded the Crook of Haven upon the floor, raised his free hand to claim his right to speak.
    “As you all know by now, my son and Orick’s son returned from their hunt not with a deer or elk, but with something just as well-shot—these creatures that attacked them upon their way. Orick—a more knowledgeable tracker than me, or any of you—calls them kenku, says that he has heard of them in the old lore, but that he had never heard tales of them upon the mountain, not in our time or our father’s time. Wherever this one came from, it is not from around Haven, but from somewhere else.” Londih paused, let the elders titter among themselves, the weaker ones speaking the loudest.
    Orick was quiet, and Pyla was trying to be but failing. He could not help but engage the fear mongers and gossips, the villagers he knew held suspicions or grudges, or were given to dispiriting words thatplayed havoc with the local morale. Londih looked at his reeve, ordering his silence with his eyes, then at Orick, who he wished he had chosen himself. Once again Londih regretted the choices he’d made, putting Pyla above Orick when first he’d become chief. Then, Londih had been young, and nervous for his position, so putting the weaker, less stoic and confident Pyla closest to him seemed the safest choice. Pyla the talker. With Kohel old enough to be chief himself, there was no need for Londih to fear his own assassination, or at least less, as there would be more to kill: for Orick to become chief, both Pyla and Kohel would also have to die, and Orick could not engineer such a thing without the suspicion inevitably falling upon himself. Nor would he, of course. Londih had found both Orick and his son to be good men, as tough of character as they were of body. Now that Londih’s position was safe, he wished instead that it was Orick who was his closest advisor, for Orick was strong and smart, good with a bow and a blade, the best Haven had to offer. He was not a leader—he spoke too rarely for that—but he was a man that raised whoever he followed, and Londih wished for that elevation, something the more spineless, more stupid, more trivial Pyla could not provide.
    “Orick knows more than I about these beasts, so I will let him describe what he can.” Londih waved his hand,invited the hunter to speak. Orick did not move, did not uncross his substantial arms, but he did describe the kenku at some greater length, repeating not what he’d learned in a book—as Pyla would have—but what he knew from his own wide ranges across the mountain, from those he had met on his travels down into the city, a trip few from Haven had ever made.
    Londih himself had never gone. He could have, but what if he had run into some brother or sister, still bent on reclaiming their birthright, armed and angry across their years of exile? It had not been worth the risk, and so he had forgone the experience, as most of the villagers did. Only a few had ever been to the city, and most never would.
    Orick did not speak long, and even Londih would admit that the usually knowledgeable hunter didn’t know as much about kenku as he did about many other things. “Bandit folk. Said to be bred from the divine power of the Raven Queen herself. Cheats and thieves. Skilled with a blade. Often the bow, poisons. But that’s not all, or even the worst of it,” said Orick, and then he did uncross his arms, putting his palms on the table, and onto the kenku itself. Londih watched as the hunter turned the bowshot creature halfway to free its arm, which Orick lifted to its full extension. The arm was as long as a man’s, but heavier and wider, and its feathers were sturdy, stiff as armor. Orick looked around thetable until everyone saw what he saw, or perhaps until he thought they did. Then he said, “Kenku, as far as I know, do not have wings. Only arms, having made the same trade our own ancestors did when the gods made them into men. These beasts have