Taran is clinging helplessly to the side of Mount Dragon when the gwythaint sinks its talons into his shoulders and starts to pull him away from the cliff face. He sees its “head, deeply scarred by an old wound” and notices that its “blood-red eyes” carry a “strange gaze of recognition.” He suddenly remembers the gwythaint he saved from the thorn bush all the way back in Book 1. “Was this the