Page 103 of The Dryad Storm

Living Forest.Spread out before and over the mountains like a violet carpet.

Vogel hasn’t killed it all, I register with a light-headed swoop of elation.

Acracksounds, jerking my gaze backward. Vang Troi’s surviving forces stream out of the sky portal and draw up a formidable amount of attacking power as they cast large, sapphire portal-destruction runes around the sky passage, the soldiers we shoved through the portal before us doubling back to join them.

A largerCRACKconnects with earsplitting force, the portal-destruction runes flashing into gray as Vogel’s Void tree knifes through my mind.

Before I can call a warning, Shadow soldiers on broken multi-eyed dragons pour from the sky portal. A battle commences, the Vu Trin attempting to slay the Shadow-shielded forces to no avail before they launch into a hasty retreat eastward, Vogel’s forces now hot on the tail of both us and the retreating Vu Trin. I sense Marcus Vogel in his forces’ center, his aura a silver gray wildfire blaze.

“Vogel’s there!”I both cry out and send through my horde bond.

Yvan and my allies throw more power into our shielding as the Eastern forces draw in to flank our left, and I sense the brutal truth as I read our collective power—we’re all too depleted to fight off Vogel’s Shadow forcesandbattle each other.

Yvan, Raz’zor, and the rest of my allies accelerate, and the instinctual, blazing sense builds through my rootlines that we have to reach that living Forest before Vogel’s forces get to it ifanyof us are going to survive.

We will get you a branch, Dryad Witch!Raz’zor blazes out to me through our bond.

It won’t be enough!I counter, Raz’zor’s powerful alabaster wings beating down on either side of me.I’m not directly linked to a Forest, I mentally cry out to him.And mypower is depleted. And I don’t know the words to any Dryad spells!

Raz’zor sears a vision of crimson fire consuming Marcus Vogel through my mind, his rebellion rising to tempestuous levels.You will regain your power, Elloren the Unbroken!he mentally hisses.And rise to strike the Mage fiend down!

Just get us to the Forest!I send out to Raz’zor in a pleading snarl.Get us to the living trees!

Raz’zor growls, speeding us toward the line of living purple, my emotions on fire along with Yvan’s as he and Ariel keep pace beside us along with her small raven.

I glance over my shoulder once more just as our shield is hit by a lash of Shadow power. It gutters gray, the image of a branching Shadow network slithering through my mind as my power-empath senses are filled with the impression of Vogel’s forces parasitically siphoning energy from both our shield and every newly destroyed tree.

Urgency grips me as I look ahead toward the expanse of living purple Forest.Vogel’s going to kill this Forest, too, I think to Raz’zor, anger rising.

Then we fight!Raz’zor thinks back in a roar.We battle to the death for Erthia!

I can sense Raz’zor’s determination doubling down as Thierren Stone’s full wind power suddenly swoops in behind us and to our sides in a potent gust, so strong I sense his lines collapsing, the roaring force of his magic exponentially increasing both our speed and the speed of the Eastern forces beside us as we spear forward in a blur, a gap suddenly yawning between us and Vogel’s forces.

Thierren slumps forward on his giant eagle as we blast over the edge of the living Forest’s purple canopy and soar toward the Dyoi Mountain Range’s western-facing ridge. We touch down on an expansively long shelf of stone near the ridge’s top, the ledge jutting out from a flat section of Forest, the surviving Vu Trin, Amaz, and Lasair forces landing on the ledge to our north.

“We need to protect this Forest!” I call to everyone as Vogel’s swarm wings toward us in the distance. “Vogel is siphoning elemental energy from the destroyed trees and turning it into Shadow power!” I meet my brother Trystan’s gaze.

Urgency writ on his face, Trystan turns toward Vang Troi and her Eastern Realm forces.“We need a combined shield!”he booms out in Noi as Vogel’s forces release power and a wall of Shadow storm blasts into being, churning toward us.

In answer, Vang Troi levels her runic sword not toward Vogel’s forces, but towardme.

In a blur, a barrage of Vu Trin and Amaz weapons fire, bolts of runic power andarrows releasing, all of it hurtling in my direction.

Yvan leaps in front of me, along with Naga and my entire horde, all of them blasting out a wall of flame before us, every incoming Vu Trin weapon and bolt of power incinerated or deflected as Vogel’s Shadow storm reaches the purple edge of the surviving Dyoi wilds.

The Dyoi Forest’s westernmost edge explodes into steely flame, the trees’ screams slashing through my heart, birds screeching and animals crying out in terror as they flee toward us.

“Stop wasting your power!”Hazel shrieks, his Death Fae voice seeming to come from everywhere at once. He leaps in front of Yvan and my horde mates, striding right up to the edge of our Wyvernfire shield, dark limbs extended from his back, the whole world momentarily strobing with his Dark aura and our shielding rendered translucent as he points an emphatic finger toward the incoming Shadow chaos.“SHIELD THE FOREST!”

I can sense the split-second equivocation shivering through Vang Troi’s aura, the energy of resolve descending.

“Deploy a combined shield!”Vang Troi thunders.

Her forces fan out across the huge ledge to the north as my allies fan out to the south. Vang Troi’s forces thrust their weapons up, swiftly conjuring a translucent emerald-and-sapphire wall of shielding. My allies join our blazing, storming energy to it—one solid wall of power streaking up from the ledge’s center to curve over us, along with the mountainous sea of purple trees behind us and the sprawling Eastern Dyoi Forest beyond, lightning repeatedly bolting up from the length of the dome-shield’s pinnacle to prevent Vogel’s forces from flying over it.

Vogel’s storm slams into the western-facing side of our shield with Erthia-shattering force, the mountain’s stony shelf shuddering beneath us, my heart in my throat. But our shield holds.

Sweet Holy Ancient One, it holds.

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