Chapter 32 Forest Walkers
When I make it back to camp everything has been set up and is ready for us to have dinner and enjoy a nice night around the fire.
I sit next to Aylin and feel peaceful just being in this moment.
Jurgen made a stew for dinner and passed everyone out a bowl.
It had the most amazing aroma. I could see chunks of dark meat, carrots, celery, potatoes, and beans.
It tasted just as good as it smelled. Everything was so tender and the meat was soft and delicious.
I raised my spoon to my mouth for my last bite when a crash came from behind our camp area.
Aylin, Archer, andJurgen jumped up and stood in front of me.
“Hello, who is out there?” Aylin called into the darkness. “Show yourself!”
I was looking around and noticed there were five sets of eyes looking at us, “Aylin, there's more than one, I see at least five!”
“Prepare yourselves for an ambush,” Archer calls out and they grab their weapons. Loud grunts and heavy steps came from all sides as the trees came alive and started toward us.
“Stay behind us Luna, we can’t have anything happen to you!” “Celest please get in the wagon and let us take care of this,” Aylin calls out, “I only just found you and I am not ready to lose you!”
I have never been in a battle like this before, when Bloodmoon attacked I knew the enemy, wolves, but I had no idea how to fight the trees.
The kunai training I have been receiving will not be of any use against these creatures.
“Please be careful, I sense a dark aura radiating from them, it’s similar to the one I felt around the Bloodmoon pack,” I call out as I run and jump into the wagon.
“Get ready men, here they come,” I hear Aylin call out.
I can’t help but to watch the battle from the somewhat safety of the wagon, but it is hard to watch.
Aylin, Archer andJurgen are surrounded. I have to blink a few times, because moving towards them there appears to be five gnarly tree trunks, some seem to have what looks like moss on them while some appear to look like petrified wood.
Their branches are swinging and whipping through the air moving close to my men.
I have to close my eyes for a second or two every time I hear the whipping sound, as I cower in my own memories, I can feel the pain from the whip across my back.
I take a deep breath and I peek again out the side of the wagon and see Archer get snared by a long branch that slams him into the ground, pinning him underneath.
He shifts into his wolf while he is pinned and tries to bite and claw his way out, but whatever these beings are they seem to be extremely resilient.
“Aylin, help me, please!” Jurgen calls out as a branch from a different creature has him suspended upside down in the air.
Aylin shifts and throws his head back and howls so loud that I swear I can see the sound waves come off of him.
Luckily it stuns the trees momentarily. Jurgen falls to the ground and Archer is able to get free.
The three of them stand together growling and snapping at the trees.
The trees seem to be communicating and they all attack at once, their branches dart toward the three wolves and Aylin yells “Now,” and all three of them jump into the air and the branches collide and tangle with one another.
The wolves run over the tree branches and slash the trees with their long claws, but nothing seems to be working.
Archer jumps from the tree and transforms back into a human, he is completely naked, I blush but I can’t look away as he raises his left hand up and a book appears and flips open to a glowing golden page, He reads from the book, “Ad naturam redi, et tenebras energias expelle,
lucem in tenebris invenias,” as three large metal looking ax heads appear in front of him and glide through the air hitting three of the trees and slicing into two of them.
Splinters fly everywhere and the two trees quit moving as they seem to return to nature, the dark aura fading from them.
From his left side a branch whips through the air hitting Archer's book from his hand, followed by a second larger branch slamming him to the ground.
The branch begins to glow a light green and the moss on its limb begins to climb down, sealing Archer in and pinning him to the ground.
Jurgen runs to his battle ax and shifts back to human, standing there naked he yells “I will not let you take my pack mates or my Luna!”
He raises his ax above his head as it begins to glow a faint orange and he slashes it down into the tree closest to him.
When he yanks the ax out it looks like the tree has been singed and the smell of burnt wood is in the air.
The dark aura that filled the tree seeps out into the atmosphere and dissipates.
“I will save you Archer, and protect my Luna!”
Jurgen yells. He turns around and begins to run in the direction of Archer when two giant gnarly branches collide with him, the bark looks like it is boiling and bubbling and it surrounds him, “Aylin, it’s up to you now, protect our Luna,” he yells as the bark bubbles up and covers his head.
Aylin looks at me worried and bows to me.
I hear him whisper, "Anything for my Luna,” he runs full speed into one of the last trees and his large body splinters the tree.
I hear cracks and whimpers as he slowly falls to the ground, his body full of wooden shards.
I look back at the tree and it slowly pulls the spikes back into itself.
“No Sterling! Do something Celest!” Capella screams in my mind.
I don't know what to do, I can feel the tears running down my face, and I hug my knees. I can hearJurgen and Archer struggling to free themselves and Aylin whimpering. “Please stop this Goddess, please!”
“My Queen, look up to me,” I hear Olly’s voice.
“Please take this as a sign we mean peace, and that we want to live as one people.”
I look up and see floating in front of me, a translucent woman, it’s clearly Olly, the witch from the inn.
She holds out her hands and a green orb floats down and into my body.
“You can do this my Queen, become one of the people and save the ones you love, you are more powerful then you believe, this is not your fate,” she says and disappears into a spinning green vortex.
My body begins to act on its own. I can feel my power building as I stand and climb out of the wagon as the two remaining trees turn and look at me, as a sixth tree, even larger than before, comes out of the forest.
Each step its root feet take shakes the ground.
“I will not fail my people!” I call into the night.
I raise my arms into the air and begin to glow a light green.
Vines of green and sparkling leaves fill the air around me as I yell “Nature bends to the witches’ call, follow the right of Harmony!”
I thrust my arms forward to the trees and the vines and leaves fly through the air in a flash and sink into all six trees.
I shift into my wolf, ripping my clothes to shreds and howl louder than I ever have.
I can hear it echo through the forest as a green ripple of mist pulses from my body and follows the sound wave as far as I can see.
The dark aura fades from the remaining trees.
Everything begins to fade from vision as I collapse, shifting back into a human.
I see Archer running for me “Luna, I’m coming Luna”, andJurgen running to Aylin, “No Alpha Aylin no!” , and then everything goes black.