Edmund tenses, completely losing his train of thought in the sudden stillness of the forest. He looks up and squints past the hanging roots. Still gripping the hilt of his sword, his thumb smoothing over the carved mane of the lion head design, he scans the forest. All he can see are the bare trunks in front of their hiding spot.
"Whaddya make o' that?" he hears then. The booming Giant voice is loud enough that he winces, and the princess beside him sucks in a sharp breath. He sets his hand on her shoulder before lifting a finger to his mouth in a silent warning. Giants may not have the strongest senses, but Edmund can't pinpoint how near they are and doesn't want to give them any help locating this hollow.
In response to the first Giant's question, the others are speaking over each other in shouts. The resulting cacophony makes it hard to decipher individual voices, and Edmund closes his eyes again to focus on the words. One says something about a trail and he hears the word 'human' several times. Edmund's grip on his sword tightens. They must have reached where they'd crossed into this valley. Not quite as far as he'd hoped, then, but now he understands why they've stopped.
Edmund shifts onto the balls of his feet and his thoughts turn to Adan. From a nearer position he's probably more able to follow the conversation, but if he gets too close he could be spotted. Adan's black fur makes him nearly invisible at night, but there's enough snow on the ground that he'd stand out clearly during the day. The only noise Edmund hears is the voices, though. Hounds would doubtless be barking and excited by the unfamiliar scents by now. But if the Giants aren't hunting, what are they doing here?
"Enough!" one of the Giants shouts, and both Edmund and the princess flinch. "We're not here for some Narnian scum and his pets," the voice continues. There's loud scrabbling sounds and no small amount of grumbling, but the noise soon fades and pounding footsteps pick up their pace– sounding more distant and moving farther away this time.
"Thank you, Aslan," Edmund breathes aloud. He plops onto the bedroll, and scrubs a hand through his hair. For several minutes, he and the princess sit motionless as the echoes and tremors of footsteps fade. Just when the normal sounds of the forest– small animals scurrying about, birds trilling overhead– have finally resumed, Adan appears in the entrance of the hollow, startling Edmund a bit with his sudden return.
"They've gone on into the previous valley," Adan confirms. The Wolf shakes his head slightly, still confused by their sudden good fortune. Edmund glances at the princess. Her knees aren't pulled to her chest now, and she's leaning slightly back on her hands.
"Then we should press on," Edmund says, pulling himself up out of the hollow. Adan moves aside as he crawls out, and Edmund reaches back for the girl's hand. As soon as she's out, she starts shaking her skirt and brushing all the dirt off her hood and shoulders. Edmund shakes off his own hood and slips his sword back onto his belt before reaching for his bag and the bedroll. There's a fair amount of debris that's fallen onto both, and he shakes them off as well.
"Perhaps they're unaware of the treaty," Edmund muses, rolling the bedroll up to reattach it. Even as he says it, though, he's not convinced. The Giant Wars were only a few years ago, but that had been one of the concessions that the Giants were most adamant about adding into the treaty– the Narnians stay out of their land, and they'll stay out of Narnia.
"Or they had something more pressing to do than hunt down stray Narnians in their land," Adan retorts. Edmund nods, agreeing that Adan's theory was probably closer to the mark, and then notices that the princess has stilled, one hand frozen in the process of swiping soil off her sleeve.
"We're not in Narnia?" she asks, her eyes growing impossibly wide. She reminds Edmund of a fawn in that moment, and he suddenly understands the term 'doe eyes'.
"No," Edmund says slowly. "I'd say we're nearer to Harfang than the Western Woods by now." He looks at Adan for confirmation.
"Perhaps closer to the North River," Adan corrects. He perches lightly on the snow, ears still tilted toward the direction the Giants went.
"Then–" she cuts herself off and her cheeks, which had already been pink from the cold, seem to lose all color. "We're in the Giants' territory," she whispers. It doesn't sound like a question, but Edmund nods again anyway. The girl stumbles a few steps backward, hitting her back against a tree trunk.
"That doesn't make sense," she says accusingly. Edmund exchanges a confused glance with Adan as he finishes tying the bedroll and hoists the whole pack over his shoulder. Edmund spares one last glance to his right before motioning for Adan to lead on. The girl stares into the forest, though, her gaze unfocused.
Edmund crosses the few steps to her and takes her elbow, nodding toward the path. She straightens, her brow still crinkled in confusion, and allows him to lead her in the direction Adan's heading. Edmund wants to ask the Wolf about the Giants and if he observed anything useful, but the Wolf keeps several yards ahead and Edmund is distracted by the princess's question now.
How does she not know what country they're in? Edmund doesn't understand why her party had been so close to the Giants' border, but he'd assumed the Corsecans must have planned that route. He looks at the girl stumbling along beside him for a moment, lost in her own thoughts.
"Why did you think we were in Narnia?" he asks quietly. The princess shakes herself slightly and glances at him. She stumbles in a divot, but Edmund keeps her from falling with his hold on the girl's elbow. The gloom of the forest and the light dusting of snow that's reached the ground is a bit treacherous, but Edmund has never seen someone so incapable of just walking through the woods. She quickly regains her balance, but Edmund has learned over the course of the morning to keep his hold on her.
"Because we should have been there by now. Even with the detour, it was only supposed to take a week to reach the border of Narnia," she explains. once she has her feet back under her properly. The two continue following Adan while Edmund considers this. A detour would explain why she hadn't arrived on time, but why did the Corsecans not send word?
"What detour?" Edmund asks. Perhaps that was why they'd gone so far east instead of simply heading south into Narnia. Edmund had meant to question her more about her travels last night, but he hadn't gotten back to it. Getting home was more important anyway, or so he'd thought. But now the sinking feeling in his stomach reminded him of his misgivings about the Corsecan king's request, and about his reasons for sending his daughter to Narnia at all.
"The crossing near the Southern Forest – your Western Woods, I think. It was impassable." She swipes at a lock of hair, pushing it back under her hood. "The bridge rotted away or something," she adds.
"Or something?" How does a bridge just rot away? The Corsecan ambassadors had been in Cair Paravel only a month earlier with correspondence from their king. Surely they would have noted something like that in their journeys?
"I didn't see it," she shrugs. "A villager told Burke, and he said we'd have to go downstream to the next crossing..." She trails off, her voice growing softer. Edmund looks at her, seeing the crease between her eyebrows again. She had slowed her steps as she'd spoken, and now she stops and frowns at the ground. Edmund, still with a hand on her elbow, stops beside her. He glances ahead as he drops his hand, but the black Wolf has gone on ahead, disappearing into the gloom between the tightly packed tree trunks.
"What is it?" Edmund questions. He's hopeful that the Giants will block– and perhaps even attack– anyone pursuing them, but he still wants to keep moving in case somehow they are still being followed.
"We never crossed the river," the princess says quietly. If she's talking about the North River – which forms the border between the Ettins and the northern Giants and which stretches across the middle of Corsecant – that means she and her guards had traveled almost due east. Straight toward the Giant's lands.