Quirrentime — G.J. Kelly

There is something in the mountains...Farrian Marnus, youngest of the King's Councillors and son of a famous Verranian war hero, is urgently summoned to the council chamber... a contingent of Owls have arrived in the capital from the Forest of Tardia!Owls, so called for their brightly-coloured eyes and superb night-vision, have learned that some unidentified and allegedly invisible thing is snatching away mountain folk, leaving no remains but blood to mark their passing. The mountains are beyond Tardian jurisdiction, and so it falls to Verrania's crown to take action...Farrian, a Company Officer in the Verranian Regular Army, is appointed to lead a small expedition into the mountains, there to find the supposed unseen thing, and to destroy it. Together with two friends from his company, and three highly-trained and dangerous elite Scouts of The Tardia, Farri sets out determined not to blemish the family name and the memory of his late lamented father any more than perhaps he already has.The expedition starts badly, politics, friction and distrust between Owls and the Regulars threatening an early end to a mission that some on the council believe is a fool's errand. Surely there can be no such unseen things stalking Verrania's highlands, killing people and leaving no tracks?A fool's errand, then, until the Regulars learn from Shayleena, the Owl scout leader, the ancient Tardian myth of Quirrentime, and more, that she is acting under different orders from her superiors than Farrian has received from his...