A few days later, they came across a tributary of the river Tew. It was small compared with the Tew itself but still fully two miles across, and they had to spend a day building a raft from toadstool trunks to cross it. It was a daunting crossing as they paddled their way past herds of colossal reptilian creatures that eyed them warily and shook their heads menacingly. They were herbivores, with huge, wide mouths that strained floating mats of flowering weed out of the water, but they were easily big enough to turn the raft into matchwood if they took fright and attacked them.

Occasionally they caught glimpses of other creatures. Huge, serpentine forms with serrated ridges running along their backs that could only have been predators. They ignored the raft for the most part, but at one point one of the creatures bumped them as it swam beneath them, almost throwing Jerry into the water. They paddled faster, desperate to reach the far shore, their spirits quailing at the sight of the trees, made so small by the distance despite their huge size. It took them the whole day to make the crossing, but eventually, as the yellow sun was dropping out of sight among the trees, they finally pulled the raft up the muddy bank and leapt off it, immediately sinking up to their knees in the mud. The larger members of their party pulled the smaller ones up the bank to firm ground, and then they made camp as darkness began to fall.

Paradoxically, the river seemed bigger and wider here than it had in Kenestra. There, its far bank had been so far away that it had been almost out of sight, and it had seemed more like standing on the shore of an ocean. Here, however, the far bank was close enough to be clearly visible, and its nature as a river was undeniable. A very, very wide river.

"How will we know when we're close to Connistantol?" Shaun asked Petronax the next morning as they were preparing to move out.

"We'll find a dry riverbed branching away from the river," replied the soldier. "That's the course the river used to follow in the days of the Empire, and the city stands on its bank. The river changed its course about two hundred years ago, after a massive earthquake."

"An earthquake!" said Diana in alarm. "Is this area prone to earthquakes?"

"No," said Petronax reassuringly. "It was a freak occurrence, the only one ever recorded in this part of the world." He removed his helmet and scratched his head before replacing it. "The history of this area was included in the mission briefings, and apparently the earthquake flattened every tree within two hundred miles of the epicentre. The spot's easy to find because the greybeams there are still less than a hundred feet high. They're thought to take well over a thousand years to reach their full height. "

"So what caused the earthquake, then?" asked Thomas.

"Nobody knows. We're hundreds of miles from the nearest geologically active zone. A trog might be able to tell you, they know more about the nature of rocks and the underground world than any other race."

The land bordering the river grew increasingly wet and swampy as they went, so they gave it a wider berth, riding their horses a hundred yards from the water's edge. The Tew was a slow flowing river, and lay within a much broader river channel which it had gradually eroded for itself. This channel was between fifty and a hundred miles wide and, on average, about six feet lower than the surrounding forest. This channel crept slowly across the continent, moving, on average, only a few feet east or west every century, but within it the river was free to find its way to the sea by whatever tortuous route it chose, splitting into dozens of smaller rivulets, each up to a mile across, which formed hundreds of islands miles wide and dozens of miles long. Each of these rivulets twisted and turned like agonized earthworms, forming great loops thirty to fifty miles across, gradually pinching themselves off to form horseshoe lakes that eventually silted up and dried out.

The ground within the river channel was slightly damper and softer than the higher ground around it, and a slightly different population of fungi inhabited it. The tall fengalla fungi were rarer here, and in their place grew a lower and squatter variety with several stalks growing from a single bladder. The greybeam trees were smaller as well, only reaching three to four hundred tall, and a few other trees managed to survive among them, most common of which were lizard barks and various species of mahogany.

The animal life was different too. Trolls were much rarer, and in their place were large numbers of enormous crocodiles, growing up to thirty feet long. Most of them spent most of their time sunbathing on the banks of the river, but a few went further inland, and the eight travellers came across several of them during the course of their journey. Fortunately, they were slow and cumbersome on land and didn't trouble them.

They had worried that the dry riverbed might be hard to find, and that they might go right past it without knowing, since it would be over a mile wide, very shallow and, by now, completely overgrown with forest, but when they finally came across it they recognised it instantly. Although the bottom of the riverbed was identical to the surrounding forest, its banks were surprisingly steep, having a slope of almost thirty degrees from horizontal.

"Not far now," said Petronax happily. "Another four, five days at most. The city lies on the river's north bank, so all we've got to do is follow this slope and it'll take us right to it."

"Hey, can you smell burning?" asked Lirenna suddenly.

They all started sniffing, and they all agreed that there was a very faint smell of smoke in the air. "Where do you suppose it's coming from?" asked Shaun in puzzlement. "This forest's much too damp too burn."

"The wind's coming from up ahead, the direction the city's in," said Petronax anxiously. "It could be the Shads, clearing the city by burning away the vegetation. If it is, they're further ahead of us than I thought. Come on, we've got to hurry."

It took them only a day and a half, the dry riverbed being straighter than they had expected. Connistantol had been built right on the water's edge, with a high concrete embankment to prevent the wandering river from eroding it away, similar to those still used by Kenestran riverside cities. Back in its prime, the river flowing past the city had been regularly dredged, to prevent it from changing course and leaving the city high and dry, cut off from the river traffic on which it had depended. As a consequence the dead city was now half surrounded by a half mile wide, twelve foot deep trench which still contained a little water in the bottom. It was just enough to form a marshy area five miles long, the only spot in the forest apart from the river itself that was open to the sky.

The first thing they noticed as the city came into view through the trees was the thick, black plume of smoke that rose high into the sky to form a dark cloud spreading out towards the east. "They're still searching, still clearing the city," said Petronax with relief. "That means they haven't found it yet. This is our chance to get ahead of them! I know exactly where to look. We can get in, find the book and get out again without them even knowing we're here."

"If we're lucky," said Shaun unhappily. "There's a hundred of them. Enough that they'll be able to post a couple of men at every intersection."

"They don't know about us," said the Beltharan, though. "They don't know there's someone else after the book. They have no reason to be vigilant. They'll probably be half asleep."

"So our plan is to hope that the enemy is complacent and stupid?" said the woodsman doubtfully.

"No, obviously not. But that doesn't mean we can't take advantage of it if they are. Come on."

They crept closer to the city, moving as quietly as mice. As they edged their way along the twelve foot high, vine covered city walls towards one of the smaller entrances, they passed a region where the wall had been partially ruined, with cracks reaching down from the top and partially filled with the woody trunks of creepers that had grown to the size of trees over the centuries. They paused there as they tried to peer through the crumbling fissures, reaching in with their hands to pull out great clumps of the rotting vegetation that had accumulated there, but they froze when a great whooshing, roaring sound came from the other side of the wall, a sound identical to that made by the burner of a hot air balloon, although none of them could have known that.

"What..." began Matthew, but Drake waved him to silence and listened intently. Inside the city, just a few feet away and separated from them by only the city wall, came the sounds of people talking. They couldn't hear what was being said but, whereas one of the voices was definitely human, the other was equally definitely not. There was a rasping, grunting, bestial quality to it that marked its owner as a humanoid, probably either an ogre or a sholog. Also, the way they were talking indicated unmistakably that the two were, if not friends, at least colleagues, and therefore Shadowsoldiers.

There was another sound as well, one that they were not, at the time, able to identify. It was a flapping, rustling sound, almost like the sound of a group of people trying to fold a large sheet of tarpaulin in a strong breeze, but not quite. There was a quality to the sound that was profoundly disturbing and that sent shivers of ice up and down their spines. They all felt a strong urge to get as far away from the source of that sound as possible, instinctively knowing that they definitely would not like to meet it, whatever it was, face to face.

Moving as quietly as possible, they crept past the door they had intended to use and went on to the next one, two hundred yards further on. It was locked and barred from the inside, but the metal bolts and hinges had rusted over the centuries and looked as though they'd break quite easily. While Drake and Petronax forced it open, the others lightened their loads by dropping off everything they wouldn't need in the city. Their bedrolls, their camping gear and the stolen loot, which they put back in the saddlebags. Shaun and Matthew piled leaves over them before they left, in case any Shadowsoldiers should come this way, while the others kept a careful watch, and then the two woodsmen swung their backpacks onto their backs. "You should leave them behind as well," said Drake.

"What's in them anyway?" asked Diana. "They look heavy."

"You know what's in them. Things we might need. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it."

"Not if it slows you down," said Drake. "Leave them behind."

"They're not heavy," protested Shaun. "We're taking them. We should have a place to meet up, in case we get separated. A prominent landmark outside the city. Everyone memorise this place. Make sure you can find it again on your own, in case you have to."

Drake and Diana shared a glance, both of them suspecting that the woodsman was trying to change the subject, but they both decided to let it go. We have to trust each other, they both thought. Making an issue of this might cause unnecessary tension.

"This is too close to the city to make a good rendezvous point," said Drake therefore. "It should be further away. Remember that fallen tree down by the water's edge?" The others nodded. "If we're forced to scatter and run, we'll meet up there." The others nodded to say they remembered the place. "Okay. If we're all ready, let's go." They made ready to move out, but before they did Shaun and Matthew shared an unreadable glance. Diana saw it and she frowned. What were her brothers up to?

The wall was six feet thick and the door opened into a short tunnel running through it. At the other end was another door, equally decrepit and easy to open. Peering through it, Drake checked to see that there were no Shadowsoldiers in the vicinity before waving them all through, and then he put the door back in place in case any enemies came that way. The damage they had done to it was only visible if it was examined closely.