The Staff of the Winds (The Wizard of South Corner Book 1) by William Meighan Page B

the only owl in these skies this night.
    Owen continued to wing his way west and a little bit south into the Gray Hills. The trail below was completely empty. If the gorn had left a force behind to capture pursuers, he did not see it, and he did not believe that even a small party of gorn in those lands could have avoided his notice. After a few hours, he saw the light of fires in a small valley ahead. Stroking to gain more altitude, Owen circled wide of the encampment. There were seven small fires in a large circle that had burned down to glowing coals. People were lying on the ground in small groups in the center. Some were rolled up in blankets, but most just huddled together for warmth. The ones without blankets seemed to Owen to lie strangely, until he realized that their arms were bound behind them.
    Owen saw motion near a tree just outside of the ring of campfires, and glided a little closer to get a better look. He dared not come too close; he knew that he had finally overtaken his enemy, and a good archer might find him a tempting target if he swooped in on this group in decidedly un-owl-like fashion.
    Startled, Owen suddenly realized that he was looking at his first gorn. The shoulders were too high and too wide to be those of a man, and it was covered by a thin patchy coat of long hair. Owen could not discern the color of the gorn in this light, but he thought it might be a mottled sandy gray or brown—colors well suited to blend in with the rocks of mountain or cave which legend held was the natural habitat of the gorn.
    Owen slowly circled the camp three times, and saw perhaps twenty men who looked like soldiers, and perhaps twice that number of gorn. He saw one group of women prisoners huddled together near the center, but he dared not get close enough to see if one of them was Sarah Murray. He deeply hoped that she was still alive and not too badly treated, and vowed that he would see her freed and home again in safety. He was not able to pick out Aaron among the groups of huddled men, but he did think that he spotted his father, Brian.
    Curious, Owen decided to extend along the line of march to the west to see if he could determine where the invaders were headed.  Up into the Gray Hills he flew.  A few leagues beyond the camp, he spotted a great stone tower on a hill with a commanding view of the surrounding countryside.  Although it appeared to be mostly intact, stones had fallen from the walls, and vines had grown over much of the remaining structure.  He landed on a high point of the crumbling wall and peered into the dark and deserted ruin.
    Owen thought back over the stories that the Old Wizard had told them about the men who had fought gallantly against the sorcerers and their gorn before McDonald’s Break had been sealed, closing the only passage in the south across the great natural mountain barrier known as the West Wall, but he could not remember the name of their ancient city. Could this be a watchtower or some outer fortification of that city? No one from South Corner ever traveled in these lands south of the village. The lands themselves were too arid for profitable farming; there wasn’t much game here, and nothing in this direction from which any commerce or other traffic would come. The Old Wizard was likely the last to have had any personal knowledge of this part of the parish (if part of the parish it could rightly be called). From his perch, Owen gazed around the surrounding hills to see if he could spot any other signs of the past civilization that had once flourished here.
    A sudden movement in the dark interior of the tower startled Owen, and in a panic he launched himself from his stone perch. As he was barely airborne, a large chunk of rock glanced off his thigh and spun him in midair. Owen struggled frantically to regain control and dive away from the now sinister stone structure. Disoriented by fear and barely able to achieve controlled flight before crashing, Owen managed to