Prologue | The Visitor
They lay in the still of the valley, huddled in groups against the freezing cold. A late Cretaceous dusk had fallen, forcing a respite from their grueling march south; now the hadrosaurs slept—the clouds of their breath like pulsing gray ghosts.
An animal cried out from somewhere behind them. Seeker raised her head; to her—youngest of all the calves—the call sounded like another duckbill. She looked about, blinking. The snow had stopped. The moon shone; all was silent. She lay her head down.
The call sounded again, closer, followed by a dry rustling and breaking of branches. Seeker mewed and rose with a start. She shuffled around, her back to the herd, and stared into the night with her cow-brown eyes.
Moonlight lay pale and cold across the life-giving cattail ma
