The net sack moved as the giant bent over. The sound of wood creaking filled their ears as it lifted up a door of some kind, and then they were tipped out, end over end, into a deep pit in the mulchy soil. A lid made of thick tree branches slammed down on top of them, shutting them in.

And then . . . silence.

*

‘This is a larder, isn’t it?’ Lug’s whisper came through the damp darkness. Liska was actually relieved that there was some noise – her heart had been beating so hard, she thought the others might be able to hear it and know how frightened she was.

‘It might be,’ she said. ‘Can you have a look around outside? Try and find out where we are?’

‘How can I do that?’ Lug’s whisper turned into a wail. ‘There’s a massive wooden door over our heads!’

‘I meant with your worms, dunderhead,’ Liska snapped. ‘Using your “powers”.’

‘How can a handful of tiny worms help us now? We’re doomed!’

Liska sighed. She climbed on to Lug’s lap and poked his face with her wet, foxy nose. ‘Stop that, now,’ she said. ‘This is one time your worms will be perfect. You can use them to listen in, can’t you? Like you did when you spied on Elowen . . .’

‘Oh, right. Yes. Yes, I can do that.’

She could hear Lug muttering and sensed him moving his hands around in the dark. A few moments later, he whispered again.

‘Well, there are lots of worms in the soil here. Aporrectodea nocturna and Lumbricus terrestris mostly. It’s very moist and damp. Good conditions.’

‘I don’t care what types of worm there are, Lug!’ Liska hissed. What tiny scraps of her patience that remained had now worn away. ‘What’s the giant doing?’

‘Right. Yes. Giant. Well, I can’t see it because worms have no eyes. But I can hear it out there. It’s breathing. And muttering words I can’t quite understand. Like its singing to itself. A lullaby maybe. Or a nursery rhyme.’

Liska remembered Deenai saying that the giant was deeply hurt. Not with broken limbs or battle scars, but wounds to its soul, to its core. Damage that years of loneliness had either caused or made worse. Which meant she had no idea what it might do next – what its plan was. Were they really in danger of being eaten? Or did it have some other, more grisly fate in store? Either way, they had to escape.

‘If we make a hole, I can be wriggling out,’ said Fishbone. ‘Maybe I can get giant’s attention – make it chase me so you humies can get away.’

‘That’s very brave,’ Liska said. ‘But I don’t think it would help. We’d be running around in the dark forest alone. It could easily just catch us again.’