The shadows between the trees were dark and I stood between two birches, sniffing out the right way. My tail was high. This was no headless mouse. This would impress Ingy.

A shattering scream from the roof of the train; another body tumbling hooves over head. A baleful eye glaring out of the locomotive smoke, and Bienor could no longer deny it: something was there, neither centaur nor human. As he hunkered down against the corner of the coal-car, he struggled to accept it. Whether a ghost, a god, or the malevolent sorcerous eye of Eurytus, it was there. Real. The thunderbird.