One was only feet away, reaching out with its long arms, when a hard arm jerked her about the middle and lifted her into the air. High, higher. She realized that it wasn’t an arm at all, but the limb of the great half-dead oak tree. She thrashed and kicked, desperate to break its grip.
When it tucked her against its trunk as if it were holding a doll, the eeriest sense of euphoria and calm overcame her. It filled her every vein and every cell, a warmth and knowledge of incomparable strength.
I am this tree or this tree is me. She gasped and seized as memories filled her mind. Memories of the night with Cam in this forest, memories of a life before the one she knew. As a Dryad. Part of her soul was trapped in this tree. It was protecting her from the Pechs who clamored below. And it was probably the reason she had a second chance at a physical body. She was still attached to the earth through this tree.
“Free us,” it whispered in her mind. It filled her with a rage and desire to chop down every tree. For she wasn’t just fighting on behalf of Cam and the gods, but for her brothers and sisters whose souls were trapped in these oaks. The spell must work.
She whipped her head around to find the witches, but their faces were just as desperate and strained as before. The spell still wasn’t working. Cold terror spread across her skin.
What she caught sight of next made her stomach drop to the roots of the tree. Druantia was striding through the forest, visible only to Ana from her vantage point in the oak. An unholy light surrounded her as her features twisted with rage.
“Cam!” Ana screamed, pointing toward Druantia.
But he couldn’t hear her. No one could hear her over the din of the Caoineag that still swooped around the trees, reaching for her friends with outstretched claws.
Cam continued to hold off the Pechs, desperately trying to buy time for the witches. His back was to Druantia. She would sneak up on him. Ana clawed at the tree limb and screamed his name. No matter how wonderful it felt to be so close to the other half of her soul, she had to get to Cam.
But the tree wouldn’t budge, as if it knew something great and terrible were about to occur, and her cries were lost in the din. She strained to see Druantia. The priestess neared the group, only a dozen feet from Cam, and raised her hands as if to perform a spell. Just as she opened her mouth, Logan swept out from a tree behind her and snatched her up by the waist.
Ana struggled harder to escape the oak, kicking and punching and screaming, but never taking her eyes off Logan and Druantia.
Logan carried Druantia’s thrashing form toward Cam and yelled, “Hey, Camulos. I don’t know what the hell is going on here, but I think you want this one.”
Cam turned and cursed. Druantia shrieked and waved her arms. Tree limbs followed her motion, whipping out to knock Cam off his feet. Another swooped and yanked Logan off his. Druantia surged free and waved her arms, sending the oak limbs into a whipping frenzy that targeted Ana’s friends.
“Is that the witch who enchanted this forest?” Cora yelled as she ducked beneath a branch.
“Yes!” shouted Cam as he rose to his feet and sighted an arrow at Druantia. He shot, but she didn’t fall, just laughed maniacally with the arrow protruding from her chest.
“You can’t kill me,” she screamed, a wild, feral look in her eyes. “These trees feed me from the power and emotion trapped inside them. Your power!”
Cora stopped chanting to yell, “Make her bleed! Into the ground! Her blood is needed to seal our spell.”
Of course. Blood sacrifice had been needed to create these trees. It was required to end them as well. Druantia screeched and waved her arms once again, directing a hail of flailing tree limbs that struck Cadan and Esha off their feet, as well as several Pechs. It was chaos below, yet Ana was trapped up here.
“Please,” she whispered to the tree. “Please release me. I’ll free you. I’ll free you all.”
She felt the tree’s resistance and begged again. It shuddered and dropped her, and she had a feeling that it was the strength of her desire to be freed that had done the trick, not her plea. With hard ground finally beneath her feet, she yanked out three arrows and cut down the three Pechs closing in on her. She ran toward Cam, who fought off whipping tree limbs as he tried to get another clean shot on Druantia.
“Cam!” Ana screamed at him. “Use your sword. I’ll cover you.”
He had to be the one to take Druantia’s blood, and an arrow would never be enough. Cam plucked the short sword from the scabbard at his waist. Ana ran up behind him, shooting at the tree limbs to make them snap back temporarily. Cam advanced on Druantia, who still waved her arms frantically to direct the trees. But with Ana as cover, the tree limbs couldn’t land a decent hit.
When Cam neared Druantia, a tree limb swiped him across the back, opening a great wound that poured blood. Druantia laughed and sent another limb at him. He dodged, but not before it sliced his arm.
Finally, he reached her. Cam kicked Druantia to the ground and stabbed her through the chest so that the sword pinned her to the ground, her blood soaking into the dirt. She shrieked and writhed, but wouldn’t die.
But the tree limbs stopped fighting, and Ana felt their relief like a physical thing. The witches chanted louder, faster, as Druantia’s blood soaked into the earth. The Pechs stopped fighting, but the tree trunks didn’t snap as they were supposed to.
Free us. Ana heard it again and turned toward her tree. The magic just needed a boost.
She ran toward her tree, pulling her borrowed short sword from the scabbard at her hip. She took a great swing at the trunk as if the sword were an ax. It sank an inch into the wood, and Druantia howled louder. But a reverberation flowed through the forest, stretching outward toward all the trees.
The Caoineag finally stopped screeching, and with the silence, the witches’ chants carried through the forest. Suddenly, the sound of cracking wood punctuated the chants. The trees began to topple.
Ana darted toward the witches and Cam to get out of the way of falling trees, hoping that they wouldn’t topple toward the witches creating the magic. It worked. The warriors stood in a cluster as the great oaks crashed to the ground around them.
Ana looked down at Druantia. She lay still now, with hatred gleaming in her eyes. When she caught sight of Ana looking at her, she gritted her teeth and swung her arm in an arc. So quick that she barely saw it coming, the branch of an oak swung toward her, whipping around until it pierced her through the chest.