But Kermadec already knew. “Urdas,” he advised, bending close to Pen to whisper the word. “Not many of them, but enough to keep us in sight without showing themselves. They’re working in relays, small groups of them, each leapfrogging ahead of the others in turn to pick us up as we come past, bracketing us so that we don’t get away.”

Pen felt his heart quicken. “What do they want?”

The Maturen glanced over. His barklike features made him seem one with the trees. “They want to know what we are doing here. They will stay with us until they are sure.”

Pen dropped back again, falling into step with Cinnaminson. “He says he knows about them. He says they are just watching us.”

The Rover girl smiled. “Someone is watching them, too.” Her blind eyes shifted to find his. “The spirits of the air didn’t leave, after all. They are still out there.”

The morning passed away, and the clouds massed and darkened overhead. A storm was blowing in, and it would bring a heavy rain. Kermadec began to look for shelter, but there were no caves or rocky overhangs to keep them dry. Instead, they crawled beneath the protective boughs of a huge fir, hunkering down when the cloudburst struck, staying put until the rains had slowed to a drizzle, then crawling out again, dampened and chilled, to begin walking once more.

That night, they camped in the lee of a lightning-split hardwood that had once risen hundreds of feet into the air and was now as dead as old cornstalks. Its leaves were gone and its limbs blackened and bare, charred bones on a skeleton. All around its shattered trunk, the ground was burned and denuded as well, and their fire cast its broken giant’s shadow into the enfolding darkness. Kermadec doubled the watch, and Pen hardly slept at all. Overhead, clouds scudded across the stars and bats darted through the night like wraiths.

The third day dawned gray and damp, but the rains did not return. The company set out at daybreak, the Urdas tracking it from somewhere in the trees where Pen still could not see them, even if Kermadec could. Pen was tired and irritable from a restless night, and he was unnerved by the constant, unseen presence. His spirits lifted only marginally when Kermadec assured him that they were getting closer to their destination; seeing would be believing.