Treading the savanna carefully, they almost didn’t realize that they’d found Shakala until they looked closer at the trees looming into view against the clear, starlit sky. The branches seemed oddly twisted, almost into a woven helter-skelter shape, a copse of them lined up like the arms of veldt soldiers. Glittering yellow eyes looked down at them from vantage points high overhead. Then, as much by instinct as anything else, given the silence of the footfalls, they realized they were encircled.