Page 70 of Obsidian Prince

His eyes closed as his aura stretched down into the earth from the soles of his boots, and came back up a hundred-fold stronger. Deep green whorls of power circled his legs like a slow-motion tornado. It didn’t cling to him only. It spread to Siobhan and Nudd who still knelt in front of him, to Liliana beside him, and John a step back on his other side. The earth power even reached a smoky tendril to the one human among them, Detective Shonda Jackson, who sucked in a breath when the magic caressed and sunk into her skin. The flow of power continued to the two lines of Other men and women standing at the ready behind their commanding officer.

As the Green coursed through Liliana, the energy charged her body like electricity through a wire. She found her weight on her toes, feeling light and strong, as if she could leap twenty feet straight up to land on the high branches above her if she chose.

When all of Alexander’s allies were intertwined with the ghostly wisps of Green power, he spoke one word. His voice rumbled the soles of Liliana’s feet, the same voice she’d heard him use before to command obedience.

“AWAKEN.”

And the forest obeyed.

Chapter19

Living Green

Liliana watched,all eight eyes open. She saw the Green that swirled around her knees spread out from her prince’s boots, just beneath the surface of the ground like streams flowing from a spring.

The forest stirred. All around them, trees swayed on a day with no wind. Outcroppings of rock shifted and gained human shapes. In one spot the earth itself heaved into a mound that grew arms and a head and opened its eyes. The water of the creek flowed backward. It lifted into the graceful shape of a woman. A small fish swam down her leg from her midsection and vanished in the rest of the creek.

With her fourth eyes, Liliana saw the green man who had been sleeping in a small hickory grove a quarter mile away. His bushy-bearded face lit up with joy as the sapling whose roots he slept on stretched and yawned. The sapling became a little girl, perhaps eight or nine. Nearby another hickory creaked as it arched and shook its limbs into arms. Its many twigs took shape as a wild cloud of hair down to a lady’s barky knees. The green man shifted from human form to a thick old hickory demi-form to embrace the lady. The little girl climbed them both so she could sit on what must be her mother’s shoulder.

As the Green flow of power gushed further, a hillside moved, lifting a hoary head. It turned a face like a crude sculpture of stone and dirt with bushes in place of eyebrows. It didn’t stand, thank goodness. The boulders rolling off its shoulders might have crushed someone.

Some distance away a far larger hillside opened a single eye to regard them.

Liliana swallowed. That single eye was easily larger than her house. She glanced at Alexander, Detective Jackson, and John Runningwolf. They hadn’t noticed the giant eye. They were too busy nervously eying the closer creatures surrounding them; huge tree spirits, rock trolls, and some creatures she had no name for like the earth man.

Not all of them were as joyous as the Green man and his family. Many looked angry at being disturbed. They faced the little group with clenched fists of wood or stone.

The majestic ancient cypress growing beside the stream bared white spikes of teeth even as a face formed in the craggy bark above the fissure in the trunk. The treeman creaked as he painfully wrenched his knees up out of the mud. He shifted form, shrinking into a tall, muscular man with dusky-skin and untamed long black hair wearing only an old-fashioned pair of pants made of homespun cloth. A horrible inflamed, half-healed wound, still dripping blood down his flanks formed where the crack in the old cypress’ trunk had been. Mud covered his pants legs. His now human teeth were bared in a snarl as he faced the double line of Other soldiers with their modern rifles and their camouflage uniforms.

The man who had been the cypress lifted a hand. The trees surrounding the little group, the ones that had not awakened to more humanoid forms, bent their branches in hooks that reached toward them with sharp, grabbing branches. The man’s hand bent in tense claws as if he would rip them apart from several feet away.

Alexander’s polished black statue face showed no fear on the surface, but his aura changed to sickly green as the world came to life, and the life showed overwhelmingly hostile intentions.

Liliana knew that if Alexander couldn’t control this angry Fae mob, no one could. She had no doubt her own aura would be flashing with acid green if any of the many species of Fae had the right kind of vision to see it.

John’s voice rang out. “Rear rank, about FACE. SET squad, Ready ARMS.”

The back line of soldiers neatly turned in place so half the soldiers watched their backs. All the soldiers shifted their weapons from leaning casually on their shoulders to up in their hands, ready to be aimed.

The soldiers in the front line shifted to aim at the half-dressed wounded man who seemed to be turning the trees of the forest into weapons against them.

“Flash protection position.” Siobhan’s high voice pierced the angry rumbling and the waving rustle of leaves that wasn’t caused by wind.

Behind Liliana and beside her everyone clenched their eyes shut, faced the ground, and with weapons in the crooks of their elbows, plugged their ears with their fingers.

Siobhan primed her small machine gun like a pump shotgun, yelled, “Flash out,” and fired.

Liliana hastily copied everyone else, including Alexander. She closed all her eyes, plugged her ears and bent her head down just before Siobhan pulled the trigger. Around her, even Detective Jackson, who probably didn’t know why she was doing it, copied the action.

It surprised Liliana that this time the precautions were more effective. Apparently, the stun grenade had less of an impact in an open forest than a tile-floored restaurant.

She looked up right afterward to see what effect Siobhan’s weapon had on the dangerous cypress Fae.

The man with the nasty wounds screamed. The stun grenade probably went off right in front of him. He put his arms over his face, staggered, and fell to his knees.

Around them, the trees stopped trying to attack them. Some of the humanoid creatures shook their heads or put their hands over their ears, some fell off their feet, or roots, or whatever. The more sensitive the Fae’s ears and eyes, and the closer they were to the explosion, the more intense the effects. But many of the Fae, especially those in stone forms, just looked angrier. Rock trolls took grinding steps toward them with clenched fists.

The hill giant shook its great head, showering the surrounding area with dirt and stones.

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