Chapter 12 - Part 10

“They’re about a quarter-mile that way,” Thomas said, slipping back to the area behind the wide tree where Chubat, Pienna, and Missy waited. Pienna saw Chubat grimace. Thomas moved so quietly that they hadn’t realized he was there until he was almost on top of them. “They are digging two positions, like so and like so,” he explained, making shapes with his hands. “Earthen wall and trenches, mostly, and they are clearing any approach towards their position.”

The dryad’s trick worked,” Chubat said. “She won’t be happy if they cut her tree down, though.”

“How close are they to one another?” Pienna asked.

“Each position is a series of walls and trenches some sixty feet square,” Thomas said. “The two squares are about thirty feet from one another, although they are digging connecting trenches. They are moving quickly.”

“Warforged don’t get tired,” Chubat said. Pienna could tell that he didn’t like discussing tactics with Thomas, but he was doing it anyway. “Picket forces?”

“None, except the ones clearing trees,” Thomas said. “What is our plan?”

Pienna gripped two scrolls. “I can turn a large area to deep mud with this scroll, and then back to rock again with this one. That should imprison almost half of them. I have a few other dangerous spells to follow up with, but they would still swarm over us.”

“You’re thinking conjuring some earth elementals,” Chubat said. He had fought with her for years, and he knew what she was thinking.

“Yes, some very big ones,” she said. “But they will not stay for much more than sixty seconds apiece, and they have to be cast within close range. I need a threat to get them to mass for a charge, then I will trap half of them in the ground, and then I can conjure the elementals, plus some other spells I have.”

“Do you want me to charge at them?” Thomas asked, hefting his axe.

“No,” she said, caressing the tall tree next to her. “I am going to attempt something that I have never done before.” She began crushing holly leaves, and whispering sounds of the forest.

“Pienna?” Chubat asked. “You really think you can…” His voice trailed off as the tree suddenly flexed. Its massive form rose up out of the ground, the roots forming into two legs, a semblance of a face wrinkling into the bark, and massively long and powerful fists flexing from the branches. The animated tree was almost twenty feet high.

“Yes,” Pienna breathed. “It is the first time that I tried a spell so powerful, but it worked. Come!”