Relieved, the woman let the weight of the boy slip from her hip to the ground. She squatted and pressed a bloodstained wad of cloth to, his cuts as she briefly cooed comfort to calm his panic.

She looked up at the crowd around her. "Ungi is fine. Thank you for your concern, but he was just being a boy. Boys get themselves in trouble."

Kahlan told the others what the woman had said.

"How did he get all clawed up?" Richard wanted to know.

"Ka chenota," the woman answered when Kahlan asked Richard's question.

"A chicken," Richard said before Kahlan could tell him. Apparently, he had learned that chenota meant chicken in the Mud People's language. "A chicken attacked your boy? Ka chenota?"

She blinked when Kahlan translated Richard's question. The woman's cynical laughter rang out through the drumbeat of the rain. "Attacked by a chicken?" Flipping her hand, she scoffed, as if she had thought for a moment they were serious. "Ungi thinks he is a great hunter. He chases chickens. This time he cornered one, frightening it, and it scratched him trying to get away."

Richard squatted down before Ungi, giving the boy's dark fall of wet hair a friendly tousle. "You've been chasing chickens? Ka chenota? Teasing them? That isn't what really happened, is it?"

Instead of interpreting Richard's questions, Kahlan crouched down on the balls of her feet. "Richard, what's this about?"

Richard put a comforting hand on the child's back as his mother wiped at blood running down his chest. "Look at the claw marks," Richard whispered. "Most are around his neck."

Kahlan heaved a chafed sigh. "He no doubt tried to pick it up and hold it to himself. The panicked chicken was simply trying to get away."

Reluctantly, Richard admitted that it could be so.

"This is no great misadventure," Zedd announced from above. "Let me do a little healing on the boy and then we can get in out of this confounded rain and have something to eat. And I have a lot of questions yet to ask."

Richard, still squatted down before the boy, held up a finger, stalling Zedd. He looked into Kahlan's eyes. "Ask him. Please?"

"Tell me why," Kahlan insisted. "Is this about what the Bird Man said? Is that really what this is about? Richard, the man had been drinking."

"Look over my shoulder."

Kahlan peered through the writhing ribbons of rain. Across the narrow passageway, under the dripping grass eaves at the corner of a building, a chicken ruffled its feathers. It was another of the striated Barred Rock breed, as were most of the Mud People's chickens.

Kahlan was cold and miserable and soaking wet. She was beginning to lose her patience as she once again met Richard's waiting gaze.

"A chicken trying to stay out of the rain? Is that what you want me to see?"

"I know you think-"

"Richard!" she growled under her breath. "Listen to me."

She paused, not wanting to be cross with Richard, of all people. She told herself he was simply concerned for their safety. But it was misbegotten concern. Kahlan made herself take a breath. She clasped his shoulder, rubbing with her thumb.

"Richard, you're just feeling bad because Juni died today. I feel bad, too. But that doesn't make it sinister. Maybe he just died from the exertion of running; I've heard of it happening to young people. You have to recognize that sometimes people die, and we never know the reason."

Richard glanced up at the others. Zedd and Ann were busying themselves with admiring Ungi's young muscles in order to avoid what was beginning to sound suspiciously like a lover's spat at their feet. Cara stood near by, scrutinizing the passageways. One of the hunters offered to let Ungi finger his spear shaft to distract the boy from his mother as she ministered to his wounds.

Looking reluctant to quarrel, Richard wiped back his wet hair. "I think it's the same chicken I chased out," he whispered at last. "The one in the window I hit with the stick." Kahlan sighed aloud in exasperation. "Richard, most of the Mud People's chickens look like that one." She again peered across to the underside of the roof. "Besides, it's gone."

Richard looked over his shoulder to see for himself. His gaze swept the empty passageway. " "Ask the boy if he was teasing the chicken, chasing it?" Under the small roof over the door, as Ungi's mother soothed his wounds, she had also been warily watching the conversation she didn't understand going on at her feet. Kahlan licked the rain from her lips. If it meant this much to Richard, Kahlan decided, she could do no less than ask for him. She touched the boy's arm.

"Ungi, is it true that you chased the chicken? Did you try to grab it?"

The boy, still sniffling back tears, shook his head. He pointed up at the roof. "It came down on me." He clawed the air. "It attacked me."

The mother leaned down and swatted his bottom. "Tell these people the truth. You and your friends chase the chickens all the time."

His big black eyes blinked at Richard and Kahlan, both down at his level, down in his world. "I am going to be a great hunter, just like my father. He is a brave hunter, with scars from the beasts he hunts."

Richard smiled at the translation. He gently touched one of the claw cuts. "Here you will have the scar of a hunter, like your brave father. So, you were hunting the chicken, as your mother says? Is that really the truth?"

"I was hungry. I was coming home. The chicken was hunting me," he insisted. His mother spoke his name in admonition. "Well… they perch on the roof there." He again pointed up at the roof over the door. "Maybe I scared it when I came running home, and it slipped on the wet roof and fell on me."

The mother opened the door and shoved the boy inside. "Forgive my son. He is young and makes up stories all the time. He chases chickens all the time. This is not the first time he has been scratched by one. Once, a cock's spur gashed his shoulder. He imagines they are eagles.

"Ungi is a good boy, but he is a boy, and full of stories. When he finds a salamander under a rock, he runs home to show me, to tell me that he found a nest of dragons. He wants his father to come slay them before they can eat us."

Everyone but Richard chuckled. As she bowed her head and turned to go into her home, Richard gently took a hold of her elbow to halt her while he spoke to Kahlan.

"Tell her I'm sorry her boy was hurt. It wasn't Ungi's fault. Tell her that. Tell her I'm sorry."

Kahlan frowned at Richard's words. She changed them a little when she translated, lest they be misconstrued.

"We are sorry Ungi was hurt. We hope he is soon well. If not, or if any of the cuts are deep, come tell us and Zedd will use magic to heal your boy."

The mother nodded and smiled her gratitude before bidding them a good day and ducking through her doorway. Kahlan didn't think she looked very eager to have magic plied on her son.

After watching the door close, Kahlan gave Richard's hand a squeeze. "All right? Are you satisfied it wasn't what you thought? That it was nothing?

He stared off down the empty passageway a moment. "I just thought…" He finally conceded with contrite smile. "I just worry about your safety, that's all."

"As long as we're all wet," Zedd grumbled, "we might as well go over and see Juni's body. I'm certainly not going to stand here in the rain if you two are going to start kissing."

Zedd motioned Richard to lead the way and let him know he meant him to be quick about it. As Richard started out, Zedd hooked Kahlan's arm and let everyone else pass. He held her back as they slogged on through the mud, allowing the others to gain a little distance on them.

Zedd put an arm around her shoulders and leaned close, even though Kahlan was sure his words wouldn't be heard over the roar of the rain. "Now, dear one, I want to know what it is you think I wouldn't believe."