Logworms

Logworms were a species of predator that lived in the Deepwoods. They were extremely deadly and floated like hover-worms. Logworms often lurked on the outskirts of the Silver Pastures because the pickings were so good there.

Characteristics

As the name suggests, logworms were somewhat log-like in appearance. They were large and somewhat cylindrical. Their skin was brown and rough, like bark. Green moss and ferns often grew on them as well, completing the appearance. Unlike logs, logworms had cavernous mouths and throats that smelled of putrid meat. Within the throat multiple rings of sharp teeth were found, and around it there was a ring of green eyes. On the bottom of logworms’ bodies there were knot-like ducts that spewed powerful jets of air, inhaled via their huge mouths, to keep them hovering and moving. In the process the ducts produced a loud, shrill, hissing noise. Logworms went dormant when they had food in their belly, and they remained harmless until the food was digested after a few weeks.

Hunting

Alone

Alone, logworms would lie unmoving on the ground with their mouth closed, so they looked like a log, to trick prey into coming closer. When prey did approach, they would rise up and attack by surprise. A logworm would suck in air with huge force so that prey would be inhaled. Then it would constrict its body to crush the life out of the prey.

In a Group

In a group, logworms executed a more complex hunting strategy known as a cascade. Logworms would find a herd of migrating tilder and surround it without the tilder noticing. Three sides would have only one logworm, and the fourth would have a huge group of hundreds of them. One of the lone logworms would move in on the herd to startle it, and when the tilder tried to get away by running the other way another logworm would reveal itself to stop them. Then when the tilder tried to run a different way the third logworm would rise up to block them. The tilder would then flee in the only remaining direction and be inhaled and crushed by the large group of logworms lying in wait for them there. After the cascade was over, the logworms would all go off separate ways until the sound of migrating tilder triggered another cascade.

Role in the Edge Chronicles

In the Rook Trilogy

In The Last of the Sky Pirates, Rook, Magda, Stob, and Hekkle were threatened by logworms twice on their journey to the Free Glades. Both incidents occurred on the outskirts of the Silver Pastures. First, when they were arriving in the Silver Pastures, Magda and Stob failed to recognise a logworm, they thought it was just a log, so a logworm ended up right in the midst of the group. It almost ate them, and it did eat their prowlgrins. Rook only escaped because Knuckle arrived at just the right time and rescued him in his skycraft. Later, when the group was departing the Silver Pastures, they encountered a logworm as they were walking, but they recognised the danger in time to climb a tree to avoid it. They then watched as the logworm was devoured from the inside out after it swallowed a swarm of snickets.

In the Cade Saga

In Doombringer, Phineal Glyfphith was nearly eaten by a logworm in the woods behind Cade’s cabin. Cade, who rushed to help Phineal, was nearly eaten by the logworm as well, but Tug saved them both by throwing a huge boulder into the creature’s mouth, choking it. Later, Cade and Phineal witnessed a cascade of logworms devour a herd of tilder. Even later, the hammerhead goblins of the Hammerhead Nations drew a horde of logworms out of the depths of the Western Woods to devour the mire-pearlers that were attacking the Farrow Ridges.