Chapter Ten

I lost my balance as the ground shook with the force of an earthquake.

Alder caught me easily, wrapping his arm around my waist, his gaze concentrated on the buck in front of us. “Welcome to the source of all the seismic activity in South Appalachia, Brye.”

“Otherwise known as the earth gate,” Raysh said, moving around my calves.

“That’s…incredible,” I breathed, reeling over the fact that the Eastern Tennessee Seismic Zone was all the work of a single nature spirit. As much as I was dying to find out more about that, the monstrous buck was a tad more pressing. “Please don’t tell me we have to beat this guy to get this so-called key you mentioned?” Now it really felt like a video game. A big boss battle to claim the key to escaping the dungeon.

The buck reared and slammed its hooves onto the ground, causing a larger, angrier tremor to run under our feet. This time, the force was enough to cause leaves to shower down on us, and I reflexively squeezed Alder’s arm around my waist. How could he be so unaffected? He was like a tree, standing solid and strong.

Well, he was a nature spirit. I was still getting used to that fact.

“The key is part of the guardian itself and that of its element. Something that can be removed. Stolen.”

“Part of the…” I scanned the great buck, from his powerful onyx hooves to the sharp prongs of his wood-antlers, realizing it could only be one thing. “Oh, no freaking way. I have to take its freaking antler?”

“Technically it’s a branch.”

“How in the three-planes-of-existence am I supposed to take an antler?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Raysh replied. “Unless you don’t.”

Great, this fox was both sarcastic and condescending.

“Yeah? Well, right now I’m thinking you’d make a nice fur coat,” I snapped.

“They see us,” Alder murmured by my ear, voice tense but still calm.

With a chill, I lifted my gaze to the large nature spirit in the middle of the meadow. Sure enough, the buck was glaring right at us, and its breath came out in angry puffs through its wet black nose. But the breath wasn’t just air—it looked like clouds of shimmering energy, blowing out like a snorting bull in a cartoon.

I needed to figure out a way to get the key, but my mind was drawing a blank. Should we have waited till it slept? Did guardians sleep? I could loop around through the forest and find a way to come up behind it. Or climb a tree and somehow jump onto its back.

Before I could really think through either one of these plans, the buck charged.

Alder set me aside, stepping forward then crouching to place his hands on the ground. “Go!”

From his hands a shimmery mist rushed out like water from a faucet, pouring mana into the earth. The trees and flowers vibrated with a different kind of energy—Alder’s energy.

Raysh nipped at my ankles, and I snapped out of my trance. Heart pounding, I backed into the nearest tree, my hands scrabbling to find purchase against the bark.

“What’s the worst that thing could do? It’s just a really large deer,” I muttered to myself.

“You’re right. It’s completely harmless with its earth-shaking hooves and sharpened wooden stakes attached to its head.”

And those wooden stakes were racing right toward Alder at an unnatural speed.

The instinct to run to him propelled my legs forward, but Raysh tugged on my shorts with his teeth, stopping me. “Don’t you dare,” he growled.

I was about to swat the fox away when Alder’s mana rippled throughout the meadow like a wave swelling across an ocean.

And like an ocean, a tsunami followed.

The ground moved under Alder’s command. Not just a tremor like an earthquake, but an entire layer of earth shifted and rose upward, as if being pushed by some sort of creature underneath. The churning mound of dirt, grass, roots, rocks, and all rushed toward the guardian, but it didn’t stop its charge. Didn’t even blink. It rammed head-on into the mound of earth.

For a split second, I was worried the attack might’ve harmed the stag, but the next second the ground exploded from the collision of the buck’s branches and the pack of hard earth. Dirt, pebbles, flecks of grass, and even the wildflowers on top flew apart like bomb fragments. And it felt like a bomb explosion. A blast of force—magical or physical—seemed to shake the trees and rumble the meadow. It even made my ears ring. But the guardian merely shook its head in irritation, a few flowers, leaves, and twigs falling from its branches.

The moment the twig-antlers fell to the earth, grass grew, flowers sprouted, tree saplings broke through the ground.

Chills raced through me. The stag’s antlers held mana, probably specific to the earth gate, and whenever it made contact with its element—in this case, the meadow—there was growth. That couldn’t be normal—even in the spirit world.

Raysh was right. It really was the key. But… I had to wonder: if a single twig could hold that much power then maybe that was all I needed.

My gaze darted from the new growth to the buck snorting and blinking in confusion, huffing great puffs of iridescent mana. It stamped its hooves in irritation, sending more tremors. I wobbled but managed to stay upright.

Alder, on the other hand, was on his hands and knees, his head bent down and his shoulders rising and falling with exertion. Just how much energy had that little stunt cost him?

“You said I needed a branch, right?” I asked Raysh. “But you never said how big.”

“If you’re thinking what I think you are, it won’t work. As soon as a piece of the antler touches the ground, it is transformed into growth. Absorbed into the earth gate. You must get it from the guardian directly.”

“Or right before it falls.”

The buck trotted back, green eyes narrowing at Alder, and a spike of fear surged through me.

Alder was still hunched over, breathing hard, and I knew he wasn’t going to get up in time, let alone send another magical spirit attack toward the buck.

It wasn’t like I had been relying on Alder to stop the deer with his nature powers, but he had limits just like anyone else. I’d never forgive myself if he got hurt because of my quest.

I was the only one who could get this key, and I had to do something, and fast.

The stag lowered its antlers, readying for another charge.

If I’d had more time, I could’ve figured out a better plan. A plan that would get me that key and save Alder in the process. But I didn’t have time for both. I chose to save him.

Without thinking further, I ran forward, out of the tree line and to the meadow’s edge. Immediately the power of the earth gate hit me like a physical punch to the gut. I staggered backward as a rush of sensations overtook me.

The smell of grass. The dankness of a cavern. The hard-packed dirt underfoot. The rough, sunbaked stone of the mountainside.

Instead of resisting their pull, I took it all in. The mana empowered me, making me feel stronger, sturdier. I waved my arms, yelling, “Hey! Bambi’s dad! Over here!”

The buck’s head jerked in my direction, the leaves and flowers quivering with the sudden movement.

Alder raised his head, still heaving, one eye open and the other closed. “Brye—get back!”

His words came to me from a great distance, like I was in some kind of tunnel and he was at the very end of it, calling to me. All I saw, or heard, was the giant spirit guardian before me.

About to charge.

Swallowing, I took a step back.

The buck lowered its branches and charged like a bull. This time there was no advancing mound of rubble to stop it.

Dimly, I heard Alder call my name again.

I turned and sprinted back into the trees, ducking behind a large poplar.

With a rush of hooves that sounded like rocks tumbling over one another, the buck leaped to the side of the tree, digging its hooves into the earth to stop its powerful momentum. I flinched at the wave of wind and mana that came with its arrival.

Up close, the nature spirit was gorgeous. Soft caramel fur, big eyes, black nose, powerful muscles, and deadly hooves.

For a brief moment, the spirit stared back at me. Distrustful, confused, but not exactly…angry.

“I suppose I couldn’t have one of your branches, could I?” I asked.

This was the wrong thing to say, because the buck reared back and thrust its antlers at me. I screamed and dropped down as the branches stabbed into the tree trunk behind me.

Twigs snapped off, leaves fluttered, petals rained down, but I was so scared I didn’t snatch up a single one of them. Cursing myself, I tried to crawl around the trunk on my hands and knees.

Just as I thought one of the hooves was going to bash my skull in, Alder appeared, wrapping two fists around the base of the deer’s antler-branches and pushing it back.

“Get…out…of…here…” Alder grunted, wrestling with the great buck’s antlers. The muscles in his back and shoulders tightened and flexed as he poured all his strength into keeping the rageful creature at bay.

There was no way we could beat the earth guardian in a battle of brawn. Alder would wear out long before it did, and I couldn’t do much more than run the hell away.

Oh… Run. An idea formed in my mind. One that was hopefully clever enough to escape with the key in hand and our bodies unbroken.

“I’ve got an idea,” I wheezed. “Come with me to the meadow.”

“The meadow is the central location of the gate itself. The guardian is more powerful there.” Raysh was up in a nearby tree, out of danger, content to watch us struggle.

“The fox is right,” Alder said through a grunt.

“I know. Will you trust me?” I knew I was asking a lot, but there was hardly time to explain my plan.

“Yes.” Alder wrenched the antlers back, giving it one more big shove, and twisted away to grab my hand.

As we ran into the meadow, my head reeled at how easily he followed. How could he do that? He may have known me as a kid, but that was over six years ago. I was different now. For all he knew, I was reckless. Impulsive. Not thinking anything through.

He didn’t even know what my idea was.

But he trusted me anyway?

In the middle of the meadow, Alder and I turned around, hand in hand. Alder let his mana flow through me, filling me with all the sights, sounds, and tastes of the Smokies. And this time, I could feel him, too. The rough calluses of his fingers and the smoothness of his palm.

The guardian emerged from the forest seconds later and stamped the ground. An earthquake rumbled, its effects surely recorded by the seismograph in the Tuckaleechee Caverns.

I grabbed Alder’s arm, steadying myself, and moved closer to him, feeding him instructions.

Alder’s jaw clenched, but he nodded, raising his hand that was covered in mana. Green mist swirled around his wrist and between his fingers.

The buck reared back and charged for a third time.

I squeezed Alder’s arm, whispering, “Wait…”

Alder’s hand trembled, the bracelet I’d made him quivering.

It got closer and closer.

“Now?” Alder breathed.

“Wait.”

The hooves thundered toward us, and when I saw the green of its eyes, I screamed, “Now!”

Alder jerked his hand in an upward motion and a fully grown tree burst forth from the ground, climbing skyward like Jack’s beanstalk.

The buck barely had time to leap around the growing tree, and its antlers scraped against bark. I lunged for a twig and snatched it as it fell, right before it touched the blades of the meadow grass.

Alder grabbed my arm above the elbow, hoisting me up as I felt the twig’s mana ripple through me like an electrical current, sending shivers and spikes of energy through my entire body. Together, we ran through the meadow, Alder casting his arm out behind him, and three more trees shot up out of the ground in a zig-zag pattern, forcing the buck to slow down and dodge and weave through them.

We headed for the tree line, still running—running and running until I could no longer feel the earthquakes underfoot.