The river Tew narrowed rapidly as the eight travellers followed it south. Dozens of tributaries, some of them up to a hundred yards wide, flowed into it from sources all along the Red Mountains, and they crossed them with difficulty, careful to avoid the crocodiles and river snakes that infested them. Once, a river as wide as the Tew itself flowed in from the west and they waded across, only having to swim in a couple of places where the water grew deeper. They roped themselves together so that they would always be connected to someone with their feet firmly on the river bed, all the while nervously scanning the skies for any sign of the dragon. The obvious thing for it to do was find a nice, wide tributary that they had to cross and beat them to it. Then, when they were right in the middle of it, standing in shoulder high water and dozens of yards from either shore, it would strike, swooping down on them and boiling them all with a single blast of fire.

     They were lucky, however, and got across the river without seeing any sign of the giant reptile. Either it was waiting out of sight around a bend in the river, or it was still somewhere up ahead, waiting near an even better ambushing point. They didn't dare hope that they might have lost it completely. If the dragon didn't find them on the way, it would be waiting for them at Sen Camaris. What they would do then, none of them knew. They would face that problem when they came to it.

     Gradually, the forest changed its character, the giant greybeams slowly becoming scarcer and being replaced by the smaller mahogany, redbeam and velvetbark trees which dominated the equatorial regions. The dense carpet of leaves and the giant fungi that grew in it disappeared from the forest floor, to be replaced by the more normal jungle undergrowth of breadfruits, milkblooms, shologhids and other fleshy leafed, bright flowered plants, reaching up to where the main forest canopy began. The canopy was much thinner here, allowing the sun to shine through and encouraging the undergrowth to grow so thickly that the fighters had to hack their way through it with their swords.

     "We could make better time if we found the path left by the Shads and followed that," suggested Thomas as he pulled his jacket free from the sticky grasp of a giant sundew. "That wouldn't make as much noise, either. Every creature within half a mile must be able to hear us, including any Shads that might be in the area."

     "We'd be more visible, though, wouldn't we?" pointed out Lirenna. "If we accidentally get too close behind them, they'd see us."

     "It's a good idea, though," said Drake. "Let's do it."

     They angled a little to the west, and a few hours later crossed the hacked and chopped path left by the Shadowsoldiers. The green, fleshy vegetation lying on the ground was limp and growing brown along its cut ends, indicating that it had been lying there for several hours. If Pars had been with them, Drake thought, he could have told them exactly how long ago the Shads had passed the spot and how far behind them they now were to within an accuracy of half an hour. Not only that, the little grikon could have flown on ahead to spy on them, and perhaps kill a couple of stragglers with its spitting poison. As it was, though, the best the priest could do was estimate that they were about twelve hours behind the enemy, not bad considering he'd half expected to find themselves several days behind while they struggled through the stubborn undergrowth.

     He told Petronax, who was delighted. "If we're lucky, we might be able to overtake them," he said. "We get right up close behind them, and then strike out through the jungle to one side and past them. We've only got to get to Sen Camaris a day or so ahead of them, just long enough to get the Orb and get out of there. Then we can disappear into the jungle and they'll never find us."

     "The part where we overtake them is pretty risky, though, isn't it?" pointed out Shaun. "They're bound to have a couple of stragglers a few hundred yards behind the main force, in case we try exactly that, as well as a few outriders in the jungle on either side. It only needs one of them to see us and raise the alarm and it'll all be over. There'll be no escaping, like we did in the city. If they get wind of us out here, it'll all be over."

     "True," agreed Petronax, "but we can't just follow them all the way there. Once they get the Orb, we'll never get it away from them. Our only hope of success lies in getting there ahead of them."

     "He's right," said Thomas. "We have to risk it. If we don't, if we let them get there first, then we might as well all go home right now. I don't mind telling you that the idea of going back to Kenestra gets more attractive with every passing mile. I've got so many ticks and mites in my clothes and hair, it's a wonder I don't pass out from blood loss."

     "You're not the only one," agreed Jerry, running his fingers through his hair and grimacing as he felt the purple, pea sized bloodsuckers nestling there. Every time they stopped, and every morning before setting out for the day, they groomed each other, extracting the parasites with a red hot needle to get the heads out as well, but a new bunch would fasten onto them before they'd been walking an hour. "Either we make a serious attempt to overtake them or we give up and go home right now. I've had it with this jungle!"

     "Is that how you all feel?" asked Drake.

     "It is," affirmed Diana vehemently. "I don't mind the ticks and mites so much, but those leeches..." She shuddered in revulsion. "This had got to be the most thoroughly unpleasant place in the world."

     "Oh, leeches are nothing," said Matthew cheerfully. "I heard about some really nasty little creatures that live around these parts that..."

     "Matt," warned Shaun. "We don't want to hear any of your horror stories right now, thank you."

     "But they're real! They really exist!"

     "All the more reason to keep quiet about them. I suggest you direct all your energies towards looking out for Shads."

     "If we're all agreed then," continued Drake, "Let's make some speed. I'll go on ahead, try to spot their stragglers and outriders." They hurried on with greater speed, therefore. Striding hurriedly through the chopped and trampled undergrowth, the priest gradually pulling ahead of the others until he was lost from sight among the trees.

☆☆☆

     As well as being one of the most thoroughly unpleasant places in the world, the jungle was also one of the noisiest. The din of jungle animals and birds all around them was incessant, keeping up even at night, with the howling of monkeys and the roaring of big cats competing with the screeching and whistling of parrots and the singing of bower birds. Loudest of all, however, was an ear piercing shriek that rose gradually all around them, reaching a crescendo so loud that they had to plug their ears or risk suffering serious damage to their hearing. It would then stop abruptly, leaving a ringing silence in their ears before starting again a few minutes later. They had no idea what kind of creature was causing the din, however, and in fact hardly ever saw any of the noisy creatures around them. They would hear a rustle and look around to see a branch swaying where some arboreal creature had just left it, or if they were really lucky, they would catch the briefest glimpse of a monkey's rear end as it disappeared among some leafy branches.

     It was very worrying, as Petronax pointed out. If the vast numbers of jungle animals they could hear all around them could hide themselves so effectively, then so could unfriendly jungle natives. People lived in this jungle. Humans and others, living in small, widely separated villages, and they often objected violently to intruders passing through their territory. At the soldier's suggestion, therefore, they scanned the jungle on either side of them for any sign that natives were lurking there, waiting to ambush them. The danger was greater than it normally would have been, because the Shadowsoldiers had gone ahead of them, alerting the jungle's inhabitants to the presence of intruders. It was another good reason for the eight travellers to overtake them, as soon as possible.

     Then, the day after Drake had gone on ahead, they began to see strange strands of white thread strung between the tree branches above them. They looked like cotton or cobwebs and stretched for up to twenty feet from one tree to another, often with hundreds of individual strands wound together to form a cable up to an inch thick. Most of them were high up out of reach, but in places a few strands, apparently broken, hung down to the ground and Thomas examined them with great interest. "Fascinating," he said. "It looks like silk. Probably spun by some kind of giant insect or spider."

     "Keep an eye out, everyone," said Shaun. "Some kinds of giant spider have a poisonous bite."

     "What I can't understand is how they've been wound together into ropes and cables," added Thomas. "Maybe someone's found a way to domesticate the creatures that spin them and harvest their silk. And yet, if you look at the way they're attached to the tree, it's as if the spiders put them there themselves. It's almost as if the spiders have learned how to weave their own webs. Not just into ropes, but perhaps into sheets and cloth as well."

     "Is there a species of intelligent spider?" asked Lirenna.

     "Not that I know of. Mind you, in the five years I was there, I only read a fraction of the books in Lexandria's library. Who knows what's in the books I didn't read? There are a lot of stranger things in the world than intelligent spiders."