The eyes of a burrowing owl reflected light in an orange hue, like smoldering coals of fire. Grath, for all his knowledge, had not known this. It was unsettling to be watched. From a little hollow dug into the lake's bank, the owl observed them. It was small, probably only about the height of Grath's waist (maybe 5 or 6 digits tall). Its burrow was just at the edge of the cursed fog. Trarn watched it from the branches, then slowly leveled his crossbow. The glowing eyes moved, rotating in the air as it cocked its head at them. Trarn fired. With a click, the bolt sped on its way, disappearing into the humid air.

SHREEEEEEEEEIIIIIHHHHHH!!!!!

The bird wailed, its voice piercing the night like a glass bolt through wet leaves. "I think I hit its leg," Trarn muttered. Grath nodded in excitement. The two young men clambered down the tree. They reached the ground and cautiously approached the cursed fog. Grath hesitated. From the air, the burrow had seemed clearly in the safe zone of the lake's protective steam, but now he wasn't so sure. He couldn't easily see where the magenta haze of the cursed fog began or ended. It was not thick enough to tell exactly where it started. Grath's mind burned with fears: What if the fog had shifted while I was climbing down? Or what if in the dawn light I hadn't seen its edge clearly? If I go there, will I be blistered and scarred for life or worse? Grath pushed the thoughts down and pressed forward a little closer. There was blood at the tunnel's entrance. Trarn had hit the owl for certain. The blood led inside the narrow tunnel. He would have to go in crouched over or on hands and knees. Grath drew his dagger. He had come too far to stop now. Trarn was shorter and would be better suited to the tunnel, but Grath would not ask him to go in there.

"Wait here and call to me if the cursed fog rolls in."

Grath strode forward. He heard Trarn start to say something, but words did not arrive. Grath took a deep breath and held it. In encounters with cursed fog, it was said that holding your breath could buy you a little more time. In the first days, as far back as history went, to the very first decade, it was noted in written scraps of brown leaf paper:

"The ground is cursed that none should walk it. The gods have punished man for his arrogance, and for his greed they have banished him from the face of the world. The fog will burn his skin and boil his breath in his chest should he dare to walk the forbidden land."

Now Grath dared; he sprinted to the tunnel, then dropped to all fours. Shambling along, his dagger gripped in his shaking right hand, he felt no burns or blisters, but he held his breath for another 30 digits into the tunnel's depths, then he breathed out with a hushed tone. It was dark now, and the tunnel twisted ahead. Grath grimaced. He hadn't thought this far. Fighting a maimed burrowing owl in pitch black darkness... not a great idea.

"Trarn, can you climb back up to the ship and get a glowvial?"

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There was a moment of silence, then Trarn's voice called back evenly:

"Yes..."

The tone sounded annoyed, like a child at school being told there would be extra homework. Grath didn't blame him. He stayed in the tunnel, waiting for his comrade to get the glowvial.

"I am tossing it!"

"Go ahead."

Grath crawled back to the tunnel entrance and retrieved a ball of cloth Trarn had thrown there. He unraveled it to reveal a glass vial with no cork. Inert glow-concoction had been poured inside, then the vial had been melted shut at the top. Grath shook the vial, and green light sprang from the previously gray liquid inside. He could see the trail of blood better now. It was a lot of blood. The owl couldn't live long injured like that. Grath followed the trail, his light held in his left fist. The vial only shone a little way ahead. He crawled through a right-hand bend, then back to the left. His heart pounded as the dark ahead of him taunted him with images of slashing talons and gouging beaks. Finally, Grath emerged out of the narrow tunnel into a wide room. The roof was a little higher; he could crouch now. The screeching began almost immediately. Somewhere just outside the half-circle of his light, two birds shrieked a cacophony. His ears pleaded with him to flee, to get far from the screeching, piercing wails. But Grath's ambition and reckless abandon held up to the battering. He stepped forward. His light found a large, partially built circle of grasses and twigs, dried animal dung as well. It was the start of a nest; no eggs though, that's unfortunate. Grath stepped over the low wall of the nest directly toward the middle of it. Two glints of light appeared, green in the light of his glowvial. The owl leaped, its wings ghostly silent in the air as it flapped toward him, talons outstretched toward his face. Grath barely reacted in time. He arched his chest and head back, bending at the knees as he did so. In the same motion, Grath stabbed up at the owl's center as it hurtled over him. His stone blade caught in its lower body and dug deep. One of the owl's talons tore into his right shoulder. Both bird and man crashed to the floor in a cyclone of flailing wings, talons, feathers, and dark blade. Grath stabbed over and over. As claws tore at his chest and arms, he drove the blade home. The bitter cold shale dove raggedly through skin and muscle, cutting arteries and loosing blood. Moments later, Grath gasped for air after the brief melee had left him breathless. The bird was dead. He had put all his power into those strikes and stabbed it full of holes. Somewhere else in the room, the owl's mate squawked weakly. It was the one Trarn had bolted, and it was bleeding out. Grath found it and put it out of its misery. He dragged the two birds out of the tunnel, one after the other. Crossing the treacherous ground near the cursed fog, he brought them to Trarn, and the two of them butchered and cleaned the birds. They took the claws, feathers, beaks, and gizzards and returned triumphant to the Flounder.