even so it seems soon to them that the net of the hunters drew ever more tightly upon them , and though they had reached the edge of the more familiar woods and passed the glooms of the forest of taurfuin , still were there many leagues of peril yet to pass between them and the caverns of the king , and even did they reach ever there it seemed like they would but draw the chase behind them thither and melko 's hate upon all that woodland folk .