At the break of dawn, when the world was still silvered with dew and the air was thick with the promise of secrets, we were roused from our slumber by a thunderous rumbling that shook the very earth beneath our bedrolls. The sound was so deep and resonant that it seemed to rise from the bones of the land itself, echoing through the roots of the ancient trees and setting the birds to flight in a panicked flurry. At first, in the haze between dream and waking, I thought it the tread of elephants, for I had heard tales of such creatures roaming the southern plains—great, grey beasts with ears like sails and trunks like serpents.
But as the sound drew nearer, growing ever more insistent, it became clear that these were no creatures of the southern wilds. No, these were something older, someth
