Corrupted grounds elemen.., p.17
Corrupted Grounds (Elemental Seekers Book 4), page 17
The king and queen would decide what needed to happen with all of them later, once the earth elementals recovered. The earth elementals that weren’t with the healers were going through the tunnels and city, starting to clean up the damage done by the dryads.
The princess told us the earth elementals didn’t ever live in these tunnels. They had small cities spread all across the realm. They preferred to live in the forests surrounded by nature until the dryads turned the trees against them. They would go back to living that way and caring for the earth now that they were free.
We followed an earth elemental to a room in the tunnels where we could rest and get something to eat. It didn’t take long for everyone to fall asleep. I tossed and turned, and finally got up. I couldn’t get my mind off of my parents. They needed me. Something was wrong back in our realm. I needed to get to them quickly.
I shook Abby awake, telling her how worried I was.
“Me too,” she said. “I have the same feeling. We need to go.” We woke everyone else up and headed to the main area. Geoff was waiting for us.
“Thank you. I knew you could do it,” he told us.
“You saved us in the end,” I said. “We couldn’t beat your dad without you.”
“Yes, but he captured me.”
“By the way, how did you get free?”
“One of the dryads, Therrin, found the key that Richard dropped when my father threw him. Therrin slipped the key into my hand as he was passing me so my father wouldn’t see.”
“Why did he help you?”
“Therrin was a friend of mine a long time ago. When he started to follow my father and became an elite guard, we stopped talking. I wouldn’t join him. He believed all the lies my father told, and it didn’t take long for him to turn against me. The past few years, he has been conflicted and even came to see me a few times in my prison cell. He was starting to question my father and his methods. He didn’t believe we should be working with humans or with Helerium. During the fight, I think he realized just how crazy my dad had become and decided to switch sides.”
“Will you be able to trust him?”
“Not for a long time, but it gives me hope that more dryads were starting to realize the truth about my dad. Maybe they won’t all have to be imprisoned.”
“That would be good. I would start with the women, they had the most to complain about with your father as the leader. I bet there are a lot of them that will be happy your father is no longer in charge. Will you lead them now?”
“I’m not sure. I don’t want too, but I don’t trust anyone else to lead them right now.”
“I think you will make a great leader,” Cecilia said.
“Thank you.” He didn’t look happy with the idea, but I was sure he would do it. He wanted the dryads and the earth elementals to be peaceful again.
“We need to leave,” I told him. “We have to check on the human realm.”
“And our families,” Abby said.
“I understand,” Geoff said. “I’m sure the king and queen will want to see you before you leave. Follow me, and I will take you to them. They set up an office to figure out what their next step should be. I’m sure they are there now.”
We followed Geoff through a few tunnels until we came out into a clearing. I hadn’t seen it before, but we didn’t explore all the tunnels when we were trying to help the earth elementals. There were probably a lot of entrances into the tunnel system.
“Sally and her friends need to leave to go to the human realm,” Geoff told the queen, coming to stand next to her.
“Thank you for everything you did for us,” she said. “I don’t think we can ever repay you.”
“The only thing I need is for you to come fight by my side when we fight Helerium.”
“We will be there,” the queen said. “I will make sure we are ready to support you when you call.” She placed her hand on my arm and I felt a thread of magic connect us. “Now I will be able to hear you no matter where you are when you need me.”
“Thank you,” I told her. We said goodbye, and Geoff showed us the way back to the portal. On the way, many earth elementals stopped to thank us. By the time we reached the portal, we were all smiling. It felt great helping free the earth elementals.
“Be careful out there,” Geoff said. “The human realm is a dangerous place with Helerium moving closer.”
“We will try,” Abby told him.
I looked at the portal. We could see the outside world. People were standing below the trees in the clearing. I watched them for a few minutes.
“They must be Pulhu. None of them are dryads,” I said.
“How will we get past them?” Adam asked.
“We will have to become invisible and float down to the ground. There is no way we can climb down the tree,” I said.
“Will you be able to do that?”
“If we all combine power, we will be able to do it, but we will need to find a safe place to hide in the forest of giants. I won’t be able to get us all the way out of the forest before we use all of our energy.”
“I will glamor the portal so the Pulhu don’t see it opening,” Geoff said.
“It’s risky,” Richard answered.
“I know, but what else can we do?” I turned to Geoff. “Do you have another portal out of this realm?”
“None that we can access. They were all sealed when the dryads took over. They didn’t want anyone escaping.”
I sighed. “Let’s do it,” I said, grabbing Richard’s hand. Everyone else grabbed hands, and I put an invisibility shield around us as the portal shimmered. We stepped out onto a large branch. It was easy for us all to stand on it. The branch was the size of a large tree trunk. I had an idea.
“Wait,” I said when my friends moved to the edge of the branch. I knelt down and placed my hand on the tree, sending magic coursing through it. The giant tree awoke slowly.
“You have saved us all,” it replied sleepily. “Now, we can rest.”
“Before you rest, is there any way you can help us get out of here? The people below want to hurt us.”
“We could step on them,” the tree groaned in my head.
“No, I don’t want to hurt them. We just need to get away.”
The tree sighed, and the leaves rattled as if a breeze went through them. I looked down, but the Pulhu didn’t seem to notice.
“We will hide you,” the tree said. “Climb to the top and follow the branches.”
I looked at the trunk and saw steps appearing in the bark. They went around the tree, moving farther up the trunk. We climbed slowly, being careful not to fall. The steps were only big enough for one person at a time, so I had to stretch my invisibility shield a long distance to keep us from being seen.
Near the top, the steps stopped, and I looked out across the forest of giants. I could see the path the tree told me about. Each tree had large branches raised up to create platforms to walk across. There were a few spots where the branches seemed a little small, but overall it looked like an easy walk.
I looked down and couldn’t see the ground anymore. We were too high up in the tree, and the leaves kept us hidden from the watchful eyes of the Pulhu. We made our way across the tops of the trees slowly, being careful not to drop anything or fall off of the smaller branches. The trees started to thin out, and not many branches were left for us to climb on.
It was getting more dangerous for us to stay so high in the trees. I sighed in relief when I saw stairs winding down the trunk of the last giant tree. We made our way to the ground and stepped out of the forest of giants. We still had a lot of forest to get through, but at least we were away from the Pulhu.
I was sure they would still be looking for us, so we kept the invisibility shield up as we searched for a place to rest.
“I want to try something,” I told my friends when we reached a small stream. “I don’t think it’s safe for us to become visible, so I want to try anchoring the invisibility spell to the trees while we rest.”
“That’s not a good idea,” Richard said. “Remember what the dragons told us. If the Pulhu find the magic, they can use it and change it. What if they find it while we are sleeping. They could change it into a trap, and we would be stuck here.”
“I’m too tired to keep going, Richard,” I said. “We need a break.”
“Then we need to do something else. Can we make a small cave underground like before? This time we could make it so it doesn’t raise the ground. We could make the ground push down to let us in.”
“No, that would cause the dirt to compress around all the roots of the trees and plants. It could hurt them. We could lift the ground, but if the Pulhu find it, we will be caught too.”
“I have an idea,” Abby yelled, and we all hushed her. She blushed. “We can make these brambles grow taller, and we can hide inside them,” she said, pointing to a large patch of thorny vines. “They are already pretty big, so if we make them grow another foot or two, they won’t look out of place, and no one would think to check inside a bramble patch. We can even have them create a covering over us, so if any of the Pulhu have the power to fly, they will only see brambles.”
“We could still be discovered,” Richard started to say, but I cut him off.
“I need to rest, and so does everyone else. This is the best idea any of us have had, so let’s do it. We can get a few hours of sleep, and we can still take shifts to make sure the Pulhu don’t get close.” Richard finally relented when he saw how much we needed to rest. Abby put her hand against one of the brambles, and I did the same.
“Come on, Cecilia, this will be good for you to learn.” Cecilia looked nervous, but she came over to us and put her hand on the brambles.
“Now, let’s ask it to make a path and a small clearing for us to sleep in,” I told Cecilia. “We only need to use a small amount of magic.” I let my magic flow into the brambles, and they responded immediately. I saw my friend’s magic working into the brambles too. Cecilia’s magic was slow, but it was working. The magic joined, and the brambles folded back on themselves, creating our path. We lifted our hands and walked through, the guys following us.
When we were settled in the clearing, we reached back out and using our magic asked the brambles to close the path and make a barrier above us. We were lying down so the brambles wouldn’t be too high off the ground. There was enough room to sit up in a few spots, but most of the brambles were low enough that we would have to stay lying down.
Tider took the first watch, and we got some rest. Abby shook me awake gently. When I opened my eyes, I could see the faintest light in the sky. I slept all evening and through the night. The sun was starting to come up.
“Someone is outside the brambles,” Abby said quietly.
I connected our minds so we could talk without anyone hearing us. “Where?” I asked.
“That way,” Abby said, pointing. She was lying on her belly next to me. I rolled over and looked the way she was pointing. We army crawled as far as the brambles would allow. I didn’t hear anything, and I looked at Abby questioningly.
“The brambles told me,” she said.
“Why can’t we hear them?” I asked.
“I don’t know. They must be using some sort of spell.”
“We need to wake everyone,” I said. I put an invisibility shield and a silence bubble around everyone to be safe. As Abby woke them, I explained what was going on. I placed my hand on the brambles and asked them what was out there. I didn’t get an answer in words. Instead, I saw images of something kicking at the brambles again and again.
The brambles couldn’t tell me any more, so I let them go.
“We don’t know what is out there or who. We need to sneak out of here without them seeing us.”
“How?” Richard asked. “We can’t see them. We could come out right where they are standing.”
“I can make a clone of one of us behind the trees across from the brambles. If I concentrate really hard, I can look through its eyes to see what we are dealing with,” Cecilia said.
“Are you sure you can do it?” I asked. She had done it before, but it was very hard, and even with all the sleep, we were exhausted.
“Yes,” Cecilia said.
“Can you create a clone of an animal? That way, if they see it, they won’t realize we are close?”
“I think so, but the picture will be distorted.”
“That’s ok. We only need to know where they are.”
She closed her eyes, creating a clone of a squirrel. It was common enough that it shouldn’t attract any attention.
Sweat began forming on Cecilia’s face, and her breathing grew more labored. I moved closer to her and laid my hand on her arm, giving her a small jolt of my magic. Her breathing calmed down, and I took my hand off. A few minutes later, she opened her eyes.
“It’s the same Pulhu who were at the stream after you rescued me. The weird men who don’t make any noise.”
“Where are they at?”
“They are on this side of the clearing, and I could see their mouths moving, but I didn’t hear anything. I think they know we are in here or at least that we passed this way. The one guy keeps coming back to the spot where the path opened for us. They were kicking at it and trying to brush the brambles aside.”
“Let’s sneak out the other side. We can make a new path and stay invisible while we leave. Can you glamor the path, making it look like brambles are covering it still?” Abby asked Richard.
“Yeah, but if anyone touches it or kicks at it, they will know it’s a glamor when they don’t feel the brambles.”
“That’s ok. If we have to fight them, we will, but I would rather we sneak away. If we get in a fight, they will know we made it into the earth elemental realm,” I said.
“I’m sure they already know since all the dryads disappeared.”
Richard was right. I hadn’t thought of that.
“Well, we don’t need them to know that I’m not in the earth elemental realm any more. Maybe we can make it back to the facility and help our parents while they think we are in another realm.”
“Maybe,” Richard said.
“All right, let’s go,” Adam said. Abby and Cecilia asked the brambles to move this time. I was conserving my energy in case we needed it to fight. I didn’t think we had to worry about the two guys. We were pretty strong and good at fighting with magic after all the fights we had been in.
The only thing that concerned me were the spells that they might carry. I didn’t know a lot about spells, but I was pretty sure there were a lot more spells that could hurt a person then I would ever know about. I didn’t really want to know about them either.
As soon as the path opened we snuck out of the brambles, and Abby and Cecilia allowed them to close back up. Richard took the glamor down, and we started walking away from the men.
We weren’t far away when I realized our mistake, we were leaving footprints. There weren’t many since the woods were covered in leaves and branches, but a few crushed leaves and broken sticks would be enough for any good human tracker to follow. If these Pulhu after us were using some sort of magic, they would easily be able to find our trail.
I tried to tell Richard, but it was too late. The men rounded a tree, pointing at the ground.
“Let’s go,” I said to everyone. “We need to get to a stream. Now. They are following our tracks.”
We hurried through the woods, the men gaining on us every time we slipped on the leaves. We were almost to the stream when something hit my shield. Liquid dripped down the shield, hissing and smoking. It didn’t destroy my shield, but it did let the men know we were directly in front of them.
They immediately threw magic at us. Icicles slammed into the shield, breaking into pieces when they hit and falling to the ground. The other man released a stream of fire at the shield, trying to destroy it. When that didn’t work, he took out his phone and held it to his ear.
I still couldn’t hear him, but I saw his lips moving and made out Mitchel. He was calling Mr. Mitchel. I didn’t want to face him again. He couldn’t beat me, even with his magicus, but it would take a lot of energy to win, and then the rest of the Pulhu would be able to pick us off.
“We need to fight so we can get away before Mr. Mitchel gets here,” I said. I dropped the shield and watched the rest of the liquid fall to the ground. Wherever it touched, the leaves and ground blackened.
I warned my friends to watch out for any other potions they threw at us. Tider, Adam, and Richard started to fight one man while I fought another. Abby and Cecilia both joined me. Cecilia made small vines come down from the trees.
She was doing good with her earth magic. It wasn’t enough to stop the man, but it distracted him long enough that Abby was able to make the roots in the ground trap his feet. I threw a giant bubble of water around the man, leaving enough room for him to breathe and turned to the guys. Their man lay unconscious at their feet.
Tider walked over to the man trapped in the water and grabbed a rock. He knocked the man unconscious, and I let my magic go, sending the water back to the stream.
Chapter Eighteen
We took off quickly through the woods. I put another invisibility shield up, hoping the Pulhu wouldn’t find us. We didn’t have time to keep fighting. I wanted to get to the facility and check on my parents. Without being able to contact Jordan or Mrs. Sullivan, we had to find our own way.
First, we needed to get out of the forest and lose the Pulhu. We ran through the woods, following Richard’s directions. He had his compass and knew what direction would take us close to a town.
Towns would be dangerous, but we needed supplies and to find a way back to the facility. Transporters were probably out since we didn’t know how to contact any of them, and even if we could, we didn’t know who to trust. We also didn’t know the exact location of the facility. I knew it was in South America somewhere, but that was it.
None of the adults ever talked about where it was located, and when we transported in, it was directly into the basement level. There weren’t any clues as to its whereabouts. Since the Pulhu knew where it was, we were going to have to find a way to follow them without them knowing.
