It was still dark when Hodgesaargh set out. If you were hunting a phoenix, he reasoned, the dark was probably the best time. Light showed up better in the darkness.

He’d packed a portable wire cage after considering the charred bars of the window, and he’d also spent some time on the glove.

It was basically a puppet, made of yellow cloth with some purple and blue rags tacked on. It was not, he conceded, very much like the drawing of the phoenix, but in his experience birds weren’t choosy observers.

Newly hatched birds were prepared to accept practically anything as their parent. Anyone who’d hatched eggs under a broody hen knew that ducklings could be made to think they were chicks, and poor William the buzzard was a case in point.

The fact that a young phoenix never saw its parent and therefore didn’t know what it was supposed to look like might be a drawback in getting its trust, but this was unknown territory and Hodgesaargh was prepared to try anything. Like bait, for example. He’d packed meat and grain, although the drawing certainly suggested a hawk-like bird, but in case it needed to eat inflammable materials as well he also put in a bag of moth balls and a pint of fish oil. Nets were out of the question, and bird lime was not to be thought of. Hodgesaargh had his pride. Anyway, they probably wouldn’t work.

Since anything might be worth trying, he’d also adapted a duck lure, trying to achieve a sound described by a long-dead falconer as “like unto the cry of a buzzard yet of a lower pitch.” He wasn’t too happy about the result but, on the other hand, maybe a young phoenix didn’t know what a phoenix was meant to sound like, either. It might work, and if he didn’t try it, he’d always be wondering.

He set out.

Soon a cry like a duck in a power dive was heard among the damp, dark hills.