Chapter 31 #2
The Dragon rumbled a laugh in the back of my head and I strode forward with a spring in my step as Hendrix muttered curses and jogged to catch up to me while the trees shifted back into place behind us.
Despite the forest making our journey much easier, it was still a long and tiresome trek to reach the glade where we suspected the Stag might have been lurking.
As we walked, I toyed with the amulet at my throat, rolling my thumb over the carved Dragon there.
“Of course you just ask nicely and the forest jumps to attention,” Hendrix muttered, almost to himself.
He’d been making a fair few of those comments ever since realising that the path the forest had gifted me refused to remain clear for him alone. He couldn’t wander ahead of me nor trail behind without roots tripping him and trees shifting into his path.
Better yet, he couldn’t get the forest to grant him the same favour as it had done me.
I’d greatly enjoyed watching him suck up his pride and say ‘please’ to the trees when asking them to create a pathway he could follow to a private spot where he might take a piss, only for them to do the opposite and plant more obstacles in his path instead.
I was definitely smug about it. And why not?
As a Fae, he had been granted every advantage in this place from the moment the Champions had entered the forest. He was faster, stronger, more powerful, older, supposedly wiser – though I drew the line at admitting to that – but he wasn’t favoured by the forest. And it was driving him mad to endure it.
I reached out to the Dragon as we walked, asking it nicely if it would like to leave the amulet. It obliged me instantly, swirling around us in a rush of wind before darting up towards the sky where it set the clouds roiling overhead.
Hendrix huffed.
“What?” I taunted.
“It’s just ridiculous. And you know it,” he grunted.
“The spirits I captured are well in hand. What’s to say your Dragon will be of any help when you need it to be?
If you are asking in place of demanding, then you’re open to the very real possibility that the answer you get will be ‘no’ when the time comes that you need it to be a ‘yes’ the most.”
“Green may be your colour, Hendrix, but jealousy doesn’t suit you,” I teased.
He looked ready to argue his case, but a flash of movement caught our attention further up the path, the kick of hooved feet a brief visage before they sank away into the trees.
“The Stag,” I gasped, breaking into a run, but Hendrix was faster, bounding ahead of me easily, drawing his sword from its sheath as he went.
I cursed him, my mind not going to my weapon but instead to all I knew of the Stag and what I might need to do to lure it to me.
The Stag’s domain was the moss, lichen, fungi and soil, all things which cloaked the forest floor and provided nutrients to the air and earth.
The spirit itself was said to be taller than two men, its antlers hung with draping moss, their span so wide the trees had to shift aside to allow it passage between them.
It valued nourishment and longevity, its job to maintain all plant life here and be certain that the trees thrived under its care.
I dropped to my knees, hauling my pack from my shoulders and scrambling to open the strap securing it.
Hendrix’s footsteps pounded away from me until they were lost in the depths of the forest, his pursuit of the Stag taking him from the path we’d been traversing. I could only hope he wouldn’t chase my spirit so far that it was unable to smell the gift I’d brought it.
I dumped the contents of my pack onto the ground, shoving clothes, books and food aside until I found the jar of brown sludge which I’d kept wrapped in the heart of my belongings.
I twisted the lid, the ripe scent from its contents filling my nostrils as I opened it at last and held it out before me as I stood.
The concoction was a mixture of seaweed, leaves and eggshells, my own personal recipe for some highly nutritious tree food which I’d sourced and fermented as part of my preparations for coming to the forest. It was basically a tree feast all wrapped up in a jar, and hopefully it was exactly the bribe I needed to woo the Stag.
“Come on,” I muttered, turning on the spot, my ears straining for any sound of the Stag as I hunted the spaces between the trees for a sign of my quarry.
My hope began to dwindle as I took off in the direction Hendrix had taken, but before I could leave the path the trees had created for me, there was a great crash of hooves and the huge Stag leapt between the trees.
I gasped as the beast almost trampled me, my jar spinning from my fingers and thumping down in the dirt.
The Stag snorted, lowering its antlers at me as it pawed the ground with its hoof, and my heart sank.
Though this creature was beautiful, it was no spirit. Its coat was a tawny brown, dappled along its flank and its horns, though impressive, were nothing more than the horns of a wild deer just like those which had stolen a taste of my mother’s roses whenever they got the chance.
Hendrix’s pounding footsteps rang out in pursuit of what he believed to be the spirit and the creature bolted, turning towards the path and fleeing on thundering hooves.
The Fae burst onto the trail a beat later, almost colliding with me and making me curse as he kicked my carefully prepared offering.
I scrambled to retrieve it, scooping the nutritious mix back inside where it had spilled and securing the lid with a sigh.
Hendrix made to take chase again but I caught his arm to halt him. “That’s no spirit,” I said.
“I see that,” he growled, irritation coating his words as he dropped his arm in frustration and we were left watching the stag as it raced away into the distance.