Sephi froze in place as she rounded a trunk big around as a cottage. “We may have other obstacles prior to that.” She drew her saber, pointing the tip toward a lindworm, a draconic predator currently munching the carcass of a spine swine.
I drew my dagger, a pathetically small weapon, but better than nothing. “How convenient that it chose this exact spot to feast on its kill.”
“Indeed. Though it does not seem especially concerned with our presence at the moment. Perhaps we could get around it?”
I nodded.
We sidestepped around the creature, treated to the crunching of bone, the tearing of flesh and tendon, and wet gulps as the lindworm feasted. They were semi-intelligent predators who would back off from a confrontation with a sufficiently formidable foe.
Which, at the moment, we were not.
A good sixty meters to the wreck. And I wasn’t sure the tree was even climbable.
It glanced our way, licked a toothy maw.
We froze in place.
Don’t show fear. Predators sense fear.
Neither my heart nor the fist clenching my dagger paid heed to this advice.
Forty meters. It may as well have been four thousand.
I’d seen lindworms before. They werethemajor threat in my hometown. The sort of thing you could take on with a group of a dozen well-armed and armored adventurers.
Who had life-insurance policies up-to-date.
A sickening crack rang through the trees as the creature shattered some bone of the carcass.
It had no reason to come after us as long as meat remained on the carcass.
So why did it keep staring at us.
I glanced at the immediate terrain for anything that could offer shelter, like the chambers that sometimes formed under certain tree roots.
Roots.
Roots channel magic.
I glanced at my feet, whispering, “I may be able to distract it. But I’ll need you to keep an eye on it while I do.”
“What do you plan on… ohhh.”
Tree limbs above the lindworm began to sparkle in pink and magenta.
“Is it working?” I shut my eyes to fully concentrate on the magical flow. The further we stepped from the tree’s roots, the harder it was to influence the flow.
“The creature appears most captivated by your display.”
“Guide me back, slowly.”
She clasped hands around my hips and pulled.
I stepped back.
Feel the flow. The breathing of a living tree. Guide the flow, change its form just a little.
More steps back.
