Wizard in the Woods

by Jeffrey M. Poole

  The next hour found Pravara answering questions from both Lissa and Mikal as they searched. How old do dragons live? How fast do they mature? How high could they fly?

  Pravara banked sharply to her left. Lissa automatically threw her arms around Mikal’s waist. Both of them fell silent as they waited for Pravara to explain her actions.

  I see something.

  Mikal sat up straighter.

  What? What do you see?

  I have located the missing boy.

  You have? That’s wonderful news! I’m glad we found him so quickly!

  Where is he? Lissa asked as she first peered over Pravara’s left flank and then her right. She tried to snuggle against Mikal’s back but ended up getting her chin licked by Peanut, who had just awoken from her nap. I don’t know why I’m trying to look down. The ground is much too far away to be able to see anything.

  Not for a dragon, Mikal contradicted. I’m looking through her eyes right now. She has zoomed in on the ground and… There he is, Pravara! Do you see him? He just ducked behind that large boulder. I think he knows we’re watching him!

  The scene shifted from a group of large boulders and started skimming across the surrounding landscape. Pravara was looking for a place to land. Their shared eyesight landed on a tiny glade that looked like it was way too small to accommodate a full size dragon.

  You can’t fit in there, Mikal told her. You’re way too big.

  While not perfect, it will do, Pravara argued. We must land as soon as possible before the boy disappears.

  Just be careful. I don’t want you hurting yourself trying to land. There’d be no room for escape if something happened to us down there. I don’t care how good you are. There’s gonna be no taking off once you’re on the ground. There just isn’t enough room.

  I understand. Cease your fretting. I will be fine.

  ‘Cease my fretting’? I know you didn’t just say that to me.

  Be silent. Hold on. This will admittedly NOT be my best landing.

  Pravara tucked her wings and rocketed through the tiny opening in the forest canopy. The tiny glade afforded her the opportunity to snap her wings out to no more than half of their potential, which resulted in only marginally slowing her descent. She extended her talons and slammed into the forest floor so hard it snapped several trees off at the base. One evergreen in particular began crashing towards them as the tree didn’t have anywhere to fall to except the small clearing, which was now filled by Pravara’s massive body.

  The huge dark green dragon caught the tree as it fell towards them and easily snapped it in half so that she could place the broken tree on the ground next to them. Pravara bent her neck around to see for herself that her two human riders were uninjured.

  We’re good, Mikal told her. He cleared his throat a few times and switched to his normal speaking voice. “Well, that was unpleasant.”

  “That was scary,” Lissa agreed. “I don’t like dropping from the sky like that.”

  “It was necessary,” Pravara reminded them. “Now, let us see where this boy has gone.” The dragon fell silent and slowly scanned the surrounding trees. Mikal frowned as their dragon companion completed a 360° sweep of the area.

  Mikal sighed. “Let me guess. You don’t see him anywhere.”

  “I don’t,” Pravara agreed. “Could he have disguised himself?”

  “Entirely possible. Gareth! Are you listening? We know who you are and we know you’re out there. Tell us where you are so we can talk to you.”

  A cicada began buzzing loudly from a nearby tree. Then they heard a kyte start chirping. Then another. Then the rest of their flock joined in. The sounds and activity of the forest gradually returned to normal.

  “Gareth, we just want to talk to you!” Lissa announced, raising her voice as much as possible without coming across as shouting. “Will you come out and talk to us?”

  “I still see no other humans present,” Pravara announced, causing both Mikal and Lissa to frown. “Is it possible that he…?”

  The dragon trailed off as she detected movement coming from where she had originally spotted the boy. The huge boulder he had been crouched behind began scraping across the ground, as though an unknown force was pushing it towards their location. A second boulder, nearly as large as the first, also began moving towards them. Within moments a veritable slow moving landside of huge boulders were closing in on them.

  “I do not trust this,” Pravara informed them. “You had best return to my back.”

  Mikal and Lissa hastily climbed back up into place on the dragon’s back just as one of the larger boulders rolled up onto its neighbor. Then another boulder did the same thing. More boulders began rolling up the stack of other rocks until a crude shape began to form. Mikal swallowed nervously. The crude outline was in the shape of a man. The huge rock creature took a thundering step forward.

  “An earth elemental,” Lissa whispered. She was both awed and cowed at the same time.

  Mikal nervously eyed his friends.

  “I don’t see Gareth anywhere. I think that little jerk just walked us into a trap.”

  Chapter 6 – Earth, Wind, & Fire

  “Stay down!” the huge green dragon instructed as she charged forward, pushing through groves of trees so thick that she ended up snapping most of them off at the trunk. Pravara cast a worried glance behind her. The earth elemental was lumbering after her, crushing everything in its path as it slowly built up speed. Five minutes ago she had been easily able to stay out in front of the rock monster, but as time progressed she was shocked to see that something as large and unwieldy as the elemental was becoming more agile and nimble by the second.

  “We’re fine back here, Pravara!” Mikal shouted up at her after he saw that she had just glanced back for the third time in as many minutes to see that they were safe. After their wyverian glanced back at them for the fourth time Mikal turned to point at the gaining rock creature. “We won’t be if that thing catches up to us. Now move! Get us out of here!”

  Pravara doubled her efforts. They were now crashing through the trees so fast that Mikal was afraid to even poke his head up to look around. Chunks of wood and debris were whipping by them at an alarming rate. The last thing any of them needed was to have a piece of wood thicker than their arms become lodged anywhere it didn’t belong.

  Pravara lurched to the left and dove through a small opening in a wall of nearly a dozen trees. For a brief moment Mikal thought all had been lost as it felt like Pravara had become wedged in between the trees. He hurriedly glanced behind them and saw that the rock monster was almost upon them.

  Pravara twisted to the left and then to the right, almost dislodging her two riders in the process. Mikal gripped the scale he was sitting on as tightly as he could, instructing Lissa to hold on as best as she could. They both heard Pravara roar with frustration. She was stuck! Of all the infernal luck!

  Pravara’s long neck whipped around and bit the tree, felling it with a single bite. She spit out a mouthful of wood and repeated the process for the tree on the right. Once she was free she grabbed the second tree she had bitten and jammed one end of the broken tree deep into the soft earth. She then levered the tree into place and waited for the elemental to arrive.

  She didn’t have long to wait.

  The earth elemental rushed forward, intending to destroy them as quickly as possible. Just before it could make contact Pravara thrust the other end of the tree right at the elemental’s head. The impact was so great that the tree practically exploded, becoming hundreds of thousands of tiny little wooden missiles. Mikal and Lissa, already crouching as low as they could on her back, were protected by the sudden onslaught of wooden projectiles. Pravara felt the splinters slam into her heavily armored body, but they had no more effect on her than a gentle buffeting wind.

  The elemental’s head was knocked clean off its body. The boulder that constituted its head, easily as large both Lissa and Mikal combined, thunked to the ground and rolled a fe
w feet before coming to a stop at the base of one of the recently bitten tree stumps. The elemental finally ceased its relentless push forward as it came to a grinding stop. It thrust its arms out in a blind attempt to locate its missing head.

  Pravara growled with irritation. From the way the monster was stumbling away from them it would most certainly find its head. In fact, if it… She growled again. It just bumped into the stump that had stopped the head when it had threatened to roll away after it had been knocked loose. The creature lifted the head high into the air and set it back onto its stone neck. After a few moments they all watched the stone head pivot in place until it was apparently facing in the right direction.

  “That thing doesn’t even have eyes,” Mikal complained. “Look at it! There are no eyes anywhere on that rock. How does it even know when it’s facing forward?”

  “Would you like me to ask?” Pravara dryly asked them.

  Mikal shook his head. “Absolutely not. Get going! It’s started heading toward us again!”

  Pravara continued her streak through the woods, hesitating only long enough to confirm that Mikal and Lissa were still on her back. Pravara glanced skyward, as if wistfully dreaming she could punch her way through the dense forest canopy and return to the open air.

  “Hang in there, Pravara,” Mikal tried to reassure her. “We have to be getting close.”

  “We are close,” Pravara confirmed. “Rhamalli and the other riders are outside the forest, waiting for us to reach the valley. Once we do they will attack our sedimentary friend.”

  “That thing is almost as big as you are,” Mikal reminded her. “It’s made of solid stone. Do you think you and the others will be able to defeat it?”

  Pravara snaked around a massive tree that even she wouldn’t have been able to bite through.

  “Of course.”

  “And if you can’t?” Mikal pressed. “What then?”

  “Then the call will be issued for even more dragons,” Pravara told them. For the first time Mikal thought she sounded like she was out of breath and tiring.

  “Hang on,” Pravara told them. “I will have to leap in order to gain enough velocity to punch through that line of trees. Are you ready?”

  Mikal and Lissa clung tightly to each other. Peanut, sensing an exposed neck, twisted around in the sack and began licking Lissa’s throat, which caused her to squeal out loud.

  “Peanut! Stop! Don’t do that! It tickles!”

  Pravara bunched her muscles and after waiting half a moment, blasted forward. Four trees were instantly uprooted while two others were snapped in half as though they were no more than mere twigs. Bright sunshine blinded them. They had made it back to the valley!

  Rhamalli was standing before them. He instantly adopted an aggressive stance and roared a challenge. Selendran moved to Rhamalli’s right flank and also issued his own challenge. Malth, being much smaller than either of other three dragons, backed away from the dark opening in the forest Pravara had just emerged from and crouched low, ready to attack whatever was about to come through.

  They heard the massive footfalls. They felt the earth tremble. Something was coming toward them and whatever that something was, it was huge. More trees were snapped off as the elemental arrived at the edge of the valley. It didn’t hesitate for a second as it instantly moved out onto the open grassland and once more advanced on its prey. As for the other three dragons in the area, it ignored them.

  Selendran fired first. The enormous brown dragon lurched forward and belched a steady stream of fire at the elemental. The rocks and stones comprising the elemental’s torso began to glow red as its abdomen took the full brunt of the dragon’s blast. Selendran finished his initial attack and began gulping air in an attempt to stoke his internal furnace to as hot a temperature as he could manage.

  Rhamalli was next. He dug in his talons and snapped his wings together, causing a huge thunderclap to echo noisily across the valley floor. The resulting blast of wind flattened over two dozen trees. The elemental, however, being much more massive than the trees would ever become, was unaffected and, unfortunately, still upright and walking. It ignored Rhamalli and continued its advance on Pravara.

  Malth waited for the elemental to be at least twenty steps away from the forest before he made his move. He slinked out from his hiding place to begin his attack while Rhamalli gulped air to fuel his next blast. With his rider, Darius, suggesting possible targets, Malth darted between the elemental’s boulder-legs and targeted the junction where the two legs met. He belched out a blast of fire that could have melted armor.

  When it became apparent that Malth’s attack had been just as ineffective as his companions, the long, sinewy dragon retreated to the safety of Rhamalli’s side.

  Pheron eyed the lieutenant from his place on Rhamalli’s back.

  “Really? You thought you could hit it where it hurts the most?”

  Darius shrugged. “Hey, you never know until you try. At least now we know.”

  “It’s made of solid rock,” Pheron pointed out. “I doubt very much that it has genitals, lieutenant.”

  “We need to slow that thing down!” Mikal called out in a loud voice. “It was created by Gareth, the wizard we’ve been searching for. I’ll bet you he’s nearby.”

  “Earth elementals don’t need their creators to be nearby in order to function,” Pheron argued. “That boy could be anywhere by now.”

  “I strongly doubt it,” Mikal disagreed. “I’ll bet you he’s watching. He’s angry at Lissa and me for figuring out who he is. Now he wants payback.”

  Lissa tapped him on the shoulder. “Did you see that?”

  Mikal twisted in place to look at her from over his shoulder.

  “Did I see what?”

  “There’s something on the back side of that monster’s leg. I just saw it. There’s something metallic on the surface of the elemental’s left foot.”

  “Pravara, do you think you could take a look at the back of that rock and tell us what you see?”

  Pravara’s neck twisted to the left and then the right as she inspected the surrounding area.

  “Malth,” Pravara called. “You are in a position to see the creature’s left leg. Do you see any marks on the backside of where its foot should be?”

  They didn’t hear a response but they did see the thin yellow and green dragon circle behind the elemental and crouch low to the ground. Malth practically slithered forward until it was looking straight at the huge boulder that made up the creature’s foot.

  “Aye. There is a metallic rune set upon the boulder’s surface. Is that significant?”

  Mikal turned to look at his girlfriend after she gave a triumphant shout.

  “It’s a sigil,” Lissa explained to the three riders that were staring uncomprehendingly at her. “A mark of enchantment. It means it isn’t a true elemental.”

  “Then Gareth was there,” Mikal exclaimed. He was surprised, impressed, annoyed, and somewhat jealous of the fact that the boy wizard had been able create a 25 foot golem in the time it takes most people to put on their shoes.

  He patted Pravara’s side and slid down her heavily scaled abdomen. He waited a few moments for Lissa to join him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked him as she fearfully looked around the valley. The elemental had been finally forced to deal with the presence of the other three dragons and was now actively engaging them by throwing whatever it could grab at them, and that included bits of itself.

  Mikal pointed at two oddly shaped trees. Their trunks lacked the thick bark prevalent on most of the evergreens found in that section of the forest. The branches were twisted and gnarled, giving both trees an ethereal quality that stood out like a sore thumb in the midst of all the other evergreens.

  “Do you see those? They are pydagos trees.”

  Lissa shaded her eyes and studied the two misshapen trees.

  “I’ve seen them before. They don’t have any medicinal uses that I’m familiar with. What ab
out them?”

  “They’re one of only a handful of trees that will actively try and protect itself if it senses danger. What that means is if you take a swing at it with an ax then you might see a branch move in an effort to swat it away. It’s more geared towards slapping away unwanted insects.”

  “Again, how does this help us?”

  Mikal hurried over to the trunk of the closest pydagos tree.

  “Watch this.”

  He placed his hands on either side of the tree’s trunk and concentrated. After a few moments he released the trunk and moved to the second tree to repeat the procedure. Ten seconds later Mikal sprinted back to Lissa’s side and pointed at the two trees that were now whipping their branches wildly through the air.

  “I’ve enhanced them,” Mikal told her. “I think I’ve persuaded them to actively dislike any humungous rock creatures.”

  One of the trees dropped a branch down to the ground and wrapped it around a stone the size of Mikal’s head. The tree snapped its branch forward, hurling the stone like it had been launched from a sling. The stone whistled through the air and collided with the elemental’s head.

  The large stone that made up the rock monster’s head slid forward, threatening to fall of its neck. A quick poke by one of its bulky arms pushed the head back into place. It slowly turned around to address the newest threat.

  “Now what do we do?” Lissa fearfully asked as the elemental focused its attention on the two trees. “I think they only made it mad!”

  Mikal leapt up and caught Pravara’s attention.

  Now’s your chance! The thing has its back to you. Hit that sigil! Destroy it and you should destroy the creature!

  We melt that metal symbol and it’ll destroy the creature?

  Aye! Hurry!

  Pravara relayed the instructions to the other three dragons. In a matter of seconds four sets of wyverian eyes had locked on to the tiny metal mark on the elemental’s leg. Rhamalli fired first. The huge red dragon let loose a barrage of fireballs, watching with satisfaction as most of them slammed into the elemental’s left leg. Cracks appeared on the huge boulder but remained intact. Unfortunately, so did the sigil.