Teldin looked up into the mighty redwoods on the shore and felt a deep sense of unease. He glanced back at the ship and saw Gaye and a few gnomes watching them from the top deck. The ship's cheery banners drooped in the still, warm air. He raised a hand and waved good-bye. Everyone but Gaye returned the wave; Gaye stared silently back, her expression unreadable. Maybe she was pouting because she had to stay behind. See if I care, thought Teldin, and dropped his gaze to the bulk of the ship. He wondered whether Sylvie or Loomfinger was on the helm, watching them leave. Sylvie had gotten a little more sleep and was looking much better now. Aelfred had given her the news on their current location, and she'd hardly believed a word of it.

The walk across the fallen tree was uneventful, though getting down from the thirty-foot-high trunk once the shore was reached proved difficult. Gomja managed to find a huge tangle of rotting roots and vines that served as a rope ladder, and everyone was sent down before the giff tried his luck. The vines held, but only barely.

"Thad way," said Dyffed, pointing with a bandaged right hand. Teldin winced at the sight of the injuries the bursting of the thingfinder had caused; the gnome's index and middle fingers were missing, and the white cloth wrapping his hand was already slightly stained with red.

Gomja took a breath and readied his two pistols. "In formation, road step," he said in his normal, sea-deep voice. "Forward!" Everyone fell in behind him as he set off with confident strides into the dark and pathless wood.

It wasn't long before the stench of rotting algae and wood was replaced by the smell of redwoods and earth. The ancient trees reached over their heads like the pillars of a tremendous cathedral. Shrieking birdlike cries echoed through the forest, many originating from far overhead among the distant branches. Teldin once thought he heard the skullbird again, but he saw no sign of it.

They marched for at least ten minutes before Teldin saw a gnome in the middle of the formation turn his head to the left, as if he was listening to something. The gnome poked another one beside him, whispered, and both looked to the left with wide and curious eyes. Teldin looked, too, but saw and heard nothing. Nonetheless…

Teldin clapped his hands together once, giving the signal Aelfred had arranged for stopping the column. All the gnomes halted at once, with Gomja and Aelfred doing so a moment later and looking back in confusion. The gnomes quickly looked to the left and listened with grave concentration.

"Interesting arrangement of rhythmic low-frequency noise, remarkably similar to slow bipedal ambulatory movements," said Dyffed, cupping both hands around his big ears. "Must be a big one."

"Then let's keep moving," said Aelfred, hoisting his crossbow and starting ahead again. Gomja nodded and waved the column on. For a moment, Teldin was almost glad the big giff was with them. He thought he'd understood Dyffed to say that the noises the gnomes could hear were like footsteps-big ones. If so, he wanted to keep moving as well. Gnomes heard things humans and others never would.

They proceeded on for perhaps another five minutes before one of the gnomes looked to the left, gave a wild gasp, and accidentally fired his crossbow into the air. Everyone stopped and looked.

An immense, ragged figure was now visible among the most distant of the mighty trees. It was making its way with long, slow footsteps that cracked saplings and crushed fallen logs with each step. The creature was vaguely manlike, but grotesquely thick bodied, with short, twisted legs and a flat, misshapen had. It was of astounding size, as tall and as broad across the shoulders as the main mast of the Probe. The cydopes Teldin remembered from the Rock of Bral would not have reached past this creature's wide belly.

A skullbird's high-pitched screech rang through the forest, as if offering encouragement and directions. Within moments, the titanic creature caught sight of the party. It started to smile. It took a house-spanning step forward.

"Run for it!" shouted Aelfred.

"Prepare to fire!" roared Gomja, raising his pistols.

"The hell we'll fight!" Aelfred shouted back. "That thing could break our ship in half!"

The gnomes were paralyzed with anxiety and fear, unsure of which commander to obey. The oncoming monster made the choice for them by stopping to seize a young redwood in its hands. The tree was every inch of one hundred feet high, but the giant merely wrapped his gargantuan hands around it and tugged once on the trunk. With an awful groaning and snapping, the tree tore free of the earth, trailing its broken roots. With a crooked-toothed leer, the colossus shook the tree briefly, snapping off its upper branches, then slowly advanced on the party again. It clutched the tree like a spear.

"Perhaps we should find more defensible ground," said Gomja thoughtfully, lowering his pistols. "Then we can-"

"Run for the horn!" Aelfred shouted. The gnomes took this as their signal, and they instantly broke formation, running pell-mell through the redwoods as fast as their short legs could carry them. Aelfred took the lead, Gomja stayed in the middle, and Teldin brought up the rear.

Teldin fought the urge to run at full speed, knowing that the gnomes could not possibly catch up to him if he did. He forced himself into a jog, but the cold hand of panic urged him on as the rumbling thunder of the humanoid colossus came on behind him. Some of the gnomes dropped or threw away their weapons to speed their flight, but Teldin held his as tightly as he could. Aelfred and Gomja did the same.

The long, regular thunder behind them grew steadily louder, mixed with the cracking of branches and the calls of frightened animals. Teldin risked a glance behind him as he can, seeing that the human mountain was slowed by the narrow spacing of the redwoods. The giant's tree-sized spear snagged and caught other trees, tearing out house-sized chunks of bark. Teldin guessed the creature was only a fifth of a mile behind them and gaining.

Ahead, Teldin saw what appeared to be a break in the forest leading to open air. He took another look behind and saw that none of the gnomes had fallen down-a miracle if there ever was one. The giant was now closer still, each stride sweeping over the forest floor with ponderous ease.

Teldin looked ahead again. Aelfred and two unusually quick gnomes had broken out of the tree line into the open space. Moments later, the rest of the gnomes and Gomja poured out of the forest behind them, with Teldin at the rear. The titanic humanoid was only five hundred feet back and still gaining with each earth-shaking step.

For some reason, Teldin noticed, the huge giff was slowing down now and looking up into the sky, as if searching for something. Teldin had no time to find out what it was. He knew the whole group had but seconds left before the monstrous creature was upon them. Far ahead, across a long stretch of bumpy ground, Teldin noticed a vast, whorled spire, which he recognized as the megafauna's horn. Somewhere at the top of the horn was the fal, but the horn itself was still several miles away. There was no way to get to it in time to escape the colossus.

Teldin slowed down and shouted out at the top of his lungs. "Split up and run for the horn! It can't catch us all!"

The gnomes paid no attention to him, as they were already running off in different directions in their awful panic. Teldin turned around, facing back toward the forest. As he did, the colossus broke through the tree line and strode out into the open with broad, slow steps that shook the ground at Teldin's feet. The behemoth's monstrous spear was clutched tightly in its wagon-sized fists. It was perhaps three hundred feet away.

"Teldin!" The roaring voice was Gomja's. He turned and saw the giff motioning for Teldin to run to him. The giff was off to one side, maybe two hundred feet away.