Chapter 47
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Ellery
I lost sight of the black dog when it vanished around a copse of trees. My heartbeat picked up as I poured on the speed.
When I came around the thick grouping of trees, the dog was standing on top of a log fifteen feet away. Its fleshless, black tail flicked before it turned and ran into the woods again.
I used my lightning to blast apart some thick brambles. They were still smoldering when I ran through them and on toward a stream meandering lazily through the woods.
Thankfully, my boots kept my feet dry as I splashed through the shallow, icy water and stumbled onto the rocky shore of the other side. I clambered up a small hill as the dog turned and ran away again.
“Ellery!” Scarlet shouted from behind me.
“Ellery!” Ianto boomed.
The distress in their voices told me they’d lost track of me. “Here!” I yelled but didn’t slow.
I didn’t have time to wait for them, but I couldn’t let them think I’d vanished. They could open a portal and return to the camp, but they wouldn’t if they feared something truly bad had happened to me.
Hopefully, they could follow my voice as I shouted out to them every few seconds. And I really hoped I wasn’t leading them toward a trap.
I scampered up another hill and slid down the other side. At the bottom of the knoll, I paused to pull an arrow from my quiver; I jammed it into the ground to help reassure them they were on the right path.
When I rounded another bend, I spotted the black dog fifty feet ahead. The creature stood in the center of an aisle created by the large, intertwined trees lining it.
Leaves and debris kicked out from under my feet when I skidded to a halt at the edge of the trees. My heart sank as I took them in; the creature hadn’t been leading me to Ryker. It was taking me to these trees.
It was strange to see the dog sitting beneath trees that, at one time, had come alive to kill some of its brethren.
At the time, the dogs were attacking me and Mouse, and the trees had other plans for us.
They’d fended off the black dogs before dragging us beneath the earth to the tunnels and gargoyles below.
The Revenant Woods had decided to hit me over the head with a sign that the forest was indeed a living, mystical creation all its own. And it wanted me here. But more than that, it wanted the gargoyles free.
However, we’d agreed to keep them imprisoned. I also didn’t have the time for this right now. Ryker was in jeopardy, and instead of taking me to him, the forest had lured me here.
And I’d stupidly gone against my instincts to trust the woods. What was I thinking?
My stupidity could have cost Ryker’s life, and it most certainly delayed me from helping him. He wouldn’t have made this mistake.
“No,” I moaned.
The black dog’s eyes blazed impossibly brighter in the unnatural gloom the intertwined trees created beneath them.
Even in the middle of the winter, with most of their leaves gone, the branches still blocked much of the sunlight as they hooked and curved around each other like friends interlocking legs and elbows.
The depth of their entanglement made it impossible for anything to grow beneath them. Their leaves had fallen with the changing light, but the wind, or quite possibly the trees’ roots, had swept them away to leave most of the land beneath them clean of debris.
The black dog continued to stare expectantly at me as it sat. I knew it was waiting for me to walk out there so the trees could drag me down to the gargoyles below.
These trees protected those creatures, and they were making it clear that they wanted the gargoyles to be free. Only Ryker or I, with our lightning ability, could do that.
While my guilt ate at me every day about keeping the gargoyles imprisoned below, we couldn’t risk them turning on us and killing us, especially since only lightning bearers could trap them.
They could help us against the nobles or make things far worse in Tempest, which was something I hadn’t believed possible until discovering the stone creatures beneath the earth.