They were Gargantuans of their kind, one a male, the other a female.

Their talons warm in blood, their beaks red, their slow brains drunk with a ravenous greed, they rose on their great wings in sullen rage when Peter came suddenly upon them.

He had ceased to be afraid of owls.

There was something shivery in the gritting of their beaks, especially in the dark places, but they had never attacked him, and had always kept out of his reach.

So their presence in a black spruce top directly over the dead fawn did not hold him back now.