Wind Rider (Return of the Dragons 2)

The tree shuddered again, and the leaves turned brown and fell.

For a moment I forgot the battle and felt only the tree, dying next to me. I reached out and felt her strength, gave her mine and felt all those around me, all the tree people, doing the same thing. We would all live or die together now… Still I felt weaker, and the pain was overwhelming, like my blood itself burned in my veins.

Dragons! The tree mother needs our help! Reach her through me!

Tremendous energy from the dragons channeled through and almost consumed me, but I let it through. I had no choice. I couldn’t let Woltan die, let all of us die now with him. I opened my mind further to the tree mother and the dragons. I felt the poison inside her, saw her concentrating it together, as she absorbed all the energy we sent her.

Then there was a retching sound, and a great mouth opened from the trunk of the great tree, and the tree spat out the poison on the enemy.

I watched it go. There where it hit, was a troll. But only for a moment. Then there was great crater there. The troll, and the kobolds around it, were gone.

The tree slowly began to heal itself. I could feel green life returning to its branches, see it sprouting new leaves all around me.

Then the trunk opened again, and Woltan slumped onto the landing. His skin was no longer hot to the touch. He coughed once, and then he was breathing. His eyes were closed.

I touched his arm. Woltan.

I am… weary. But I survived, didn’t I? I’m alive, somehow. What happened? I thought the art of conjuring demons such as that one had been lost long ago.

Open your eyes and come back to us.

Woltan opened his eyes. “Thank you.”

“Thank the tree mother,” I said. “Without her, you would have died.”

You and your friends, human, tree and dragon, have saved me twice, now. I have saved you once. I remain in your debt.

Woltan shook his head. And Gustaf?

I could almost see the tree mother smile. I saved him too, but he is one of mine.

One of ours, now, too, though.

Let it be a half-debt then.

Around the tree the dragons circled, burning and blasting the last of the enemy. Before we could go down and help, it was all over. Where once young trees and tender saplings had stood around the mother tree, now were dead bodies, broken and scorched wood.

I feel your despair, Anders, and the pain is mine. But once you and your friends leave, the land around me will grow again, and the bodies will sink into the ground, food for the worms and the plants and the trees.

Still, so much blood.

And so much sap and heartwood. They must have cut down more than a hundred of my kin before they found me. They were not all very smart, my kin, but some of them had intelligence. I will hear their screams ringing in my ears for a long time.

The dragons landed then. They had barely enough space among the fallen trees and bodies.

Woltan stood up. “We must be going

. This time, our trip will be much faster.”

I noticed Gustaf standing behind him, with his twin. Are you alright?

Gustaf nodded, and then he did a strange thing, in such an evil time. He smiled. I never thought I would think in such a way, but I am fit to fly.

XII

In the end it was stuffed with food, covered with the warmest clothes of the tree people, our faces and hands covered with protective sap, and after a mandatory twenty minute nap that we found ourselves in the air again, high above the forest, approaching the Stone Mountain. I squeezed Yesenia’s neck and although her scales were cold and stony, the warmth of her consciousness flowed into me.

Approaching the Stone Mountain, I wondered about Kara. Had she reached her people, and delivered the Book of Id? Had she rallied them to the aid of the old city? Had Cullen the smith reforged the broken sword of the Kriek king?