Would you look at that?” Lieutenant Fred Reynolds blurted, mesmerized, gazing down the long, sparsely wooded slope at the open valley beyond. He hadn’t spoken much since his rescue. He remained worried about his friend Ensign Kari-Faask, and uncertainty about his own status usually kept him uncharacteristically mum. His borrowed horse started slightly at his sudden, unexpected outburst, and the silent, intimidating riders strung out along the soft, deep timber path glared at him. He barely noticed. The heavier forest they remained within was impressive enough, and the closest thing he could compare it to was the redwood forests of his native California. If anything, these trees were even more massive in all respects, but the bark was wrong. They looked like gigantic pines, and even dropped pineapple-size cones and a carpet of very pinelike needles—even if the needles were arranged along a kind of spine, like a fern. Very little sunlight penetrated to the ground, and there was virtually no undergrowth in the vast, dark wood.
