“Cool, man.” Muu sighed. “That was fucking cool.”
“It was how you, as a Druid, should address an enemy when you can,” Maebe added. “Your magics are powerful, and you’re strong as well. Very strong. Your strength is what makes you more attuned to the animalistic side of your powers. It is what will give you an edge. Not to mention that you have the blessings of two of the Primordial elementals. This makes you the only one I know of.”
“It’s that rare?” Muu asked after I stepped away from him.
“The elementals have been wary of mankind and spellcasters in general since before the Reckoning.” We stared at her blankly, and she continued, “It was the year-long destruction of human Mages, Wizards, and Sorcerers who brought their magics to bare on their peers and nature. They were responsible for the creation of those like Muu and many of your other friends.”
I had shifted back during her explanation and shook myself out. “So, that’s what the High Elves were talking about.”
“Yes.” She threw her hands out to the side gesturing to our surroundings. “When they did this, they had been at the height of their powers. They sought to subjugate all of humanity, Elves, other manners of creatures, and even the elementals. So, they—the Primordials—sought to separate themselves from that side, and they have. You are the first I have seen them give power to directly.”
“Well, what about spellcasters who use elemental spells, like fireballs?” Bokaj asked from the far side of the cooking fire.
“That is use of mana. That summons the flame and gives it structure.” I racked my brain and thought of the Fireball spell. “It was the mana that opened a channel—insignificant in size really—to the elemental planes and allowed the caster to borrow magic of the appropriate type.”
“So what, they give Zeke is a larger channel?” Jaken asked.
“Possibly.” Maebe shrugged. “That is between them and Zeke.”
“That’s pretty much what they did,” I offered. “They gave me a permanent channel in the form of these tattoos on my hands. They allow me to take on a form of their type. Though, two of the primordials like me a bit more than the others. As I’m sure you can guess. Hell, the flame Primordial likes me so much, I can tinker with fire spells and add flames to others.”
“Yeah, yeah—you’re special,” Muu teased as he elbowed me. “Big whoop, you wanna fight about it?”
“Didn’t I just beat you down with my bear hands?” He looked confused, then closed his eyes and silently flipped me the bird. “Love you too, buddy. But yeah, I’ll be better about how I fight from now on.”
“You wanted to show me something?” Muu asked finally.
“You know about the fastball special, yeah?” His eyes lit up, and he nodded at me. “I was wondering what would happen if you were to use the bracelet and throw me.”
“Oooooh, toys with the boys!” Muu clapped his hands together and prepared himself.
“Mae, could you give us a target, please?” She took my hand in her own and lifted the other out toward an open piece of ground sixty feet away from us.
The creature that burst forth was a large variation on a person but seven feet tall, and it resembled the small shadow Goblins that she used in her room.
“It will suffice?” Maebe looked at me with curiosity.
“It will.” I kissed her cheek. “Thank you. Muu, toss me with the bracelet—hard as you can.”
I shifted into my fox form and hopped into Muu’s outstretched right hand. I laid my body as flat as I could and prepared for what came next.
Muu raised his arm, hiked me back like an Olympian, and hurled me forward impossibly fast. The wind shear from the force exerted on me made it so hard to see and get any kind of reading, but I heard someone yell, “Shift!”
I shifted into my Ursolon form and hit the shadow creature so hard that it split in half. The shadows slid back into the ground, and it faded completely.
I stumbled to a stop and fell to the ground in a dizzy heap, grumbling, “Last resort. Ooooooh, last resort.”
“That was amazing!” I heard Muu shriek in amazement. His maniacal laughter and cackling would have given Shellica a run for her money.
“Yes, I must admit that hit quite well, but you might want to consider a distraction in order to get the most effect from that,” Maebe advised.
I trundled back to the group, and we had some dinner. A nice bit of stew to put our hungry stomachs in proper order. That night, we laid down, Maebe and I together—and just watched the stars.
I wondered if Kayda had made it to her destination okay. I hadn’t been able to feel her since after she left. Maebe must have felt the tension in my body because she turned to me with a knowing look.
“You are worried about her?” She asked, though I gathered she knew the answer was yes. “She is a strong creature, Zeke. She will learn as she can, and then she will return.”
I brushed her multicolored hair from her face and gave her an appreciative peck on the forehead before saying simply, “Thank you.”
As we laid together quietly, the looming jungles south of us, I got the feeling that there was more that we weren’t seeing. That the place itself was wrong. Not in the same way that creatures affected by the influence of War’s minions and generals—but perhaps more alive than that. Changing, growing. I could almost taste discontent and anger in the air. Was this the disease that was eating the forest?
I cast my thoughts toward home. My own culture, already so war-like and quick to corruption, would never stand a chance. And we didn’t have magic to save us. We had guns. Explosives. Nuclear warheads. We could end ourselves in a matter of hours.
Before I could control myself, I growled low in my chest and felt my lover stir. “You feel that as well?”
“I can describe it, I can feel it—but I can’t place it,” I spoke softly.
“This is malice,” she whispered. “What lies in that area has been tainted by it, and it has seeped into the land and poisoned it. The source will likely be what you seek.”
“We have company,” James said softly.
I looked out toward the forest, and there was a great cat, much larger than Tmont or me in my panther form. His mane was matted and stringy; his muscles stood in stark relief against his bones. The lion looked deadly, for certain, but malnourished. His tan hide was injured, and I could smell death in the air. It looked around sadly, and I cast a spell I hadn’t used as much as I probably should have—Nature’s Voice.
I waved to Yohsuke and made a motion with my hands for food. He pulled a half haunch of meat out of his inventory as he had given to Kayda before she left and tossed it to me as quietly as he could.
I stepped through the dome with Maebe following closely and Jaken with his shield as well on my right-hand side.
“Hello, friend,” I started. The lion drooled at the sight of the meat in my hand.
“So hungry,” he growled. “Druid? You are a Druid. The Mother said you might come. I did not believe her.”
“Eat now, save your strength,” I said and brought the food closer to him.
He took it gratefully, and I set to work on him. First, I cast Heal on him, then Regrowth. I watched as his wounds knit back together and the blood sloughed from his skin to the ground. So it hadn’t been his.
Sickening tears, the cracking of bone, and tearing of sinew was all that we heard as the beast feasted.
After he was done and all that remained was a small nub of the bone that he chewed and sucked on as he eyed us, Muu and the others stepped out to join us.
I indicated myself and my friends. “I’m Zeke, this is Maebe, Jaken is the one in metal, Bokaj is the pale Elf, Yohsuke is the dark one, James is the Dragon Elf, and the Dragon-kin is Muu.”
He regarded each of them as I said their names, but he bowed to Maebe.
“I recognize all of you as the Mother’s chosen,” he spoke. “I am Laongal. I will be your guide. Has the Mother taught you her cleansing magics yet, Druid?”
“Healing spells?” I couldn’t keep the confusion from my voice, and he looked slightly alarmed.
“You know not how to cleanse the land?” Laongal gasped. “How does the Mother expect you to succeed?”
“We have our ways,” I offered lamely. Honestly, I was betting she wanted us to take the problem out at the source, and she would heal the jungle. “You want to sleep with us tonight?”
“If you would have me, I would be happy for the reprieve,” the lion replied tiredly, “and also, if you have any more meat, I would appreciate it as well.”
We stepped into the shadow dome, and Maebe snapped her fingers. Her tiny shadow Goblins crawled into existence and with them pulled a huge haunch of meat from an inky pool between them. The meat, bloody and thick, went a long way toward feeding the beastly lion. He left half of it alone after a while and went about cleaning himself.
Maebe and I laid in our shared bedroll once more, and Laongal wandered over to us. “A mated pair? You have done well for yourself, Druid. This one seems powerful. She will hunt well.”
I looked down at Maebe who was smiling, and she added, “I am quite adept at hunting. Mate.”
A rumbling purr that sounded suspiciously like laughter came from the lion where he laid down. He eyed our surroundings a little more before closing his eyes. From what I saw, he didn’t sleep easily, but I guessed it was better than sleeping out in the open, and the equivalent to his god had told him we were cool.
Sleeping that night was odd. I had a dream of the trees around me in the jungle we were going to being rotten to the core. Brittle and the wildlife having to flee—only to die without necessary shelter and food. The death toll was in the hundreds of thousands. I watched as a large shadow loomed over the jungle, and the trees came to life, attacking anything near them. Blood everywhere. So much blood.
My breathing, small frantic puffs of air began to show as if the humidity of the jungle surrounding me no longer mattered. My upper arms began to tingle, then burn slightly. I looked down, and delicate handprints were seared into my skin.
Maebe.
I was dreaming, and she was trying to wake me. I came up out of the dream to find that my biceps were covered in frost the shape of her hands, and she looked at me with concern.
“Are you well?” Her eyes darted over my physical being. “You began to shake and growl, and you kept repeating “no” over and over.”
“It was a nightmare, but it felt… different.” I looked over at all of my friends. The Elves were awake and watching me intently. Muu snored peacefully. “I don’t know what the hell is going on in there, but I think we need to be careful in the jungle. I can’t shake what I felt about it.”
“We’ll be cautious, man.” Jaken walked over to us and looked me over. “You, uh, think that could’ve been a vision from the Mother?”
“It was,” Laongal spoke up with his head on his paws. “When the Mother is pleased with her people, she sends them visions. A vision of your coming was sent to me from her, and I fought my way here.”
“Fought your way here?” James looked toward the jungle as he spoke.
“Yes, there are creatures in the jungle that had once hidden in the shadows of the cliffs beyond that are emboldened by the disease spreading among the wildlife, trees, and brush inside. I did not fight many, but the ones who thought I would be easy prey were proven wrong.”
Jaken began to look him over once more. “So your malnourished looks made them attack? Is the food dying too?”
“The disease spreads mysteriously from plant to prey.” The lion yawned. “We do not eat the sick. Otherwise, we risk being poisoned ourselves. Food is becoming more scarce, yes.”
“What are these creatures?” I asked.
“Spiders,” Laongal spat. “They don’t even have the decency to be food when they die—just disgusting.”
“Fucking spiders,” Bokaj groaned. “It had to fucking be spiders.”
“I know the feeling, man.” I watched as some of the others shivered. “Fuck spiders.”
“Among other creatures of the dark,” the lion muttered. “Nasty things, soul-crushing despair is what they breathe, but those only come out at night, the light of day being too potent and harmful to them.”
“Vampires?” Yohsuke perked up a bit.
“No, beings of shadow and hatred.”
“Oh.” He shrugged and laid back down. “No use discussing it all right now. May as well rest while we can.”
We did our best to rest that night, not knowing what the next day would bring.
Chapter Twenty
“I do not like the way this place smells,” Muu whispered.
My fur—that had been on end since we breached the tree line—swayed in the slight breeze coming through the trees around us, and the scent of decay was all I could gather.
“Be on guard, all of you,” Laongal ordered. His tail swayed back and forth as we followed him. “The jungle is alive, and it may bite.”
“Well, they better have fuckin’ pancakes, baby, ‘cause Daddy’s a hungry lumberjack,” I spat.
“What?” Jaken put a hand on my shoulder. “What the hell was that supposed to mean?”
“Lumberjacks eat panca… I’ve got a bigass axe, man. Leave me ‘lone,” I spat angrily and walked ahead as the others began to chuckle.
The greenery around us was still lush and healthy. The air here was humid and thick, but these plants seemed to be doing well. We walked for a while, strange bird calls and the cries of what sounded like monkeys in the distance all around us.
The sky began to darken as the trees began to grow closer to each other. The canopy above us thickened considerably. While it wasn’t too dark to see by, it was thick shadows and deafening sound from then on.
As we worked our way deeper, the jungle began to turn. Some of the trees became bleached and white in spots. Fungus grew in some places, large mushrooms with huge, spongy tops.
“The sickness has spread further,” Laongal growled deeply. “We should stop here. Druid, speak to the Mother.”
My eyebrows raised slightly, but he wasn’t wrong.
I did something that I hadn’t done since I first pleaded with her to allow me to take her strength. To make me a Druid. I began to speak to her in her tongue, the tongue of the wild—Druidic.
Through a series of bird calls, growls, snarls, and other animal sounds, I pleaded, “Mother, Lady of the Wilds, I beseech you—grant me strength. Help me know how to heal these lands. Help me breathe life back into these trees and the earth here, please.”
The world around me fell away, and not in the traditional sense. I didn’t fade to black. I wasn’t taken anywhere. No animal came to me. Just silence. Pure silence. Then a small, light sound of laughter.
I turned to see a human-looking woman in her mid-forties. She wore a toga, oddly enough, of creamy white and a band of leaves wrapped around her head. Her face was only mildly wrinkled, but there were smile lines beside her purple and gold eyes. Her middling-length hair was a deep gray with streaks of white near her temples.
I was face to face with the Mother. I looked left, and I saw Tmont and Bokaj standing beside us as well. Just as stunned as I was.
Out of instinct, I knelt where I was and grabbed Bokaj’s arm to pull him down beside me.
“We finally meet, little one.” Her voice was much lighter than I thought it would be, but it definitely had that motherly undertone.
“Mother,” Bokaj and I said in unison. Tmont growled and dipped her head.
“Come to me, Tmont.” The panther stood and padded toward the physical—or was it metaphysical—manifestation of the planet and all living life on it. She leaned down and scratched the panther on the chin lovingly. “Good kitty.”
She regarded us after a moment, “Stand. I will not have you kneel as if I was a god, and I am not as displeased with you as I once had been.”
She walked over to us and put her hand on my cheek. “You have not yet earned my fa
vor back—but you are well along your way. Maintain this course, my child.”
I nodded, suddenly unable to find the words to express myself.
She stepped in front of Bokaj. “Our dealings have been minimal, Ranger—but I have seen the way you care for your companion and found it endearing. I shall bless you as well.”
She stepped between us and pressed her palms to our heads, and a searing pain burst through my skull. A thousand needles jabbed behind my eyes, and I lost my footing. On my knees, my head on the floor, I received a notification.
Blessing received!
New abilities unlocked!
Purify – Caster uses concentrated bursts of mana in order to purify the target of the spell of disease, poison, or other maladies. Cost: Dependent (minimum of 100MP). Range: 25 feet. Cooldown: N.A. Number of Targets: Mana total divided by 10 (total potential targets: 5).
“Thank you,” Bokaj groaned.
I held my fist up and gave her a thumb up to indicate I felt the same.
“The pain will fade, little ones.” Mother Nature’s voice sounded distant now. “Be well, and good luck. Remember our deal, and watch out for yourselves.”
I looked up, the dull light still too bright for my eyes and noted that our friends were still gathered around us.
“You saw her, did you not, Druid?” Laongal was suddenly next to me.
“We both did,” Bokaj mumbled. He was holding his head, same as I was.
“Bokaj, you wanna help me clear this place out?” I grumbled.
“Yup.” He stepped over to a pile of fungus on a tree, and I approached the tree closest to me. “Watch our backs.”
Once I was close enough, inside the range of the spell, I cast the spell on the tree and watched in wonder as time seemed to reverse and the spots of fungus and sickly white began to recede. Once they were cleared from the surface, the mana traveled deeper and deeper. Another hundred mana burned clear. The roots were now purified. I watched as fungus on the ground began to shrink, shrivel, and die once it was cut away from the root system.
I looked over and watched as the same thing occurred with Bokaj.
Into the Dragon's Den (Axe Druid Book 2) Page 43