Thorn by Tia Didmon

CHAPTER4

Ella followed Cole across the dense green undergrowth sprouting across the bed of rich soil. Their boots whispered across the soft ground as they traversed the mixture of lush bushes and rotting vegetation. A monkey dropped a partially eaten piece of fruit on the ground, squawking its irritation at their incursion. She glanced at the trees as a bright green snake looped around a branch, stretched out to lounge on a bamboo stock. Its slow movement was terrifyingly graceful.

This environment couldn't have been any scarier or different from her life at home. As she put her hand on Thorn's head, she felt a sense of safety despite her surroundings. Odd when she had barely left her apartment at home. How could this savage land bring about peace when danger lurked in every step?

Her admiration for the Amazon came to an abrupt halt when she stumbled on a mound of dirt. A swarm of army ants erupted from the destroyed clay volcano. They stretched out in a sea of glittering black and orange bodies. Scouring the earth for traces of the aggressor, threatening their nest.

Cole scooped her into his arms, despite Thorn's warning. The ants arced around an invisible circle created by the stone-faced Dragon.

Ella patted his chest, signifying for him to let her down. "I'm sorry. I walked right into that. I didn't see it."

Cole focused on the angry ant colony. "Someone put a glamour on it. A strong one if you didn't detect it."

"But you could see it?" she asked.

Cole nodded. "But I didn't detect any magic. Either he cast the glamour before we arrived or the spell caster is very good at disguising his presence."

"This just gets better and better." Thorn licked her hand, calming her.

They continued up the path after Cole encouraged the ants to allow their exit. They resumed their rebuild as soon as the party had passed.

Cole stopped so abruptly that Ella ran into his back. "What is it?"

He turned in a semicircle, gazing through the ropey vines that hung from tree branches or snaked down the trunks in suffocating loops. "The animals are angry."

Toads croaked, monkeys hooted and birds squawked their displeasure, but it wasn't until Cole pointed it out that she realized the angry chatter was aimed at them.

"We are entering their territory. They are warning us off, right?" Ella asked.

"It's more than that. Three pumas are stocking us," Cole said.

"I thought animals recognized a Dragon. Do they think they can gang up on you? That you will make a tasty snack."

"The animals are being coerced. Attacking us would be a death sentence. Someone is good at controlling the environment. The elements. The animals. All appear to do his bidding."

Growls echoed in the air.

"Don't hurt them. They are being provoked. It's not their fault," Ella whispered.

The tingle crawled across her chest. Familiar. Strong. Intimate. She had felt it before. When Roker had attacked her at her apartment and Thorn had used his magic to help her. She looked down at the wolf before he stumbled and lay on the ground.

"Thorn! Are you okay?" She didn't want to think about how crazy the world was as she talked to the wolf.

The wind rustled the dead leaves along the ground. A waterfall thundered in the distance, crashing on the rocks below, but all animal sounds ceased.

"What just happened?" Ella asked.

Draco knelt down, running his hand over Thorn's fur. "Thorn used his power to put all living things in this area to sleep. That is not the problem. Using magic has weakened him. There's something here I didn't notice before."

Ella scrunched her hand in Thorn's fur. "What do you mean?"

Draco shook his head. "I'm not sure. There's something foreign in Thorn's body. His soul. Not evil. I can explain it, but it's dying."

"If it's not supposed to be there, wouldn't it dying be a good thing?"

Draco closed his eyes, letting his magic infuse Thorn. "Not necessarily. If Thorn's soul is tied to this entity, then he will die when it does."

The gust of wind ripped through the trees, bending the bamboo stocks. Ella put her arm over her eyes to block the savage breeze.

Cole held up his hand, creating a shield that deflected the unruly wind. "We are getting close. The mountain is trying to stop us."

Ella glanced at the dormant volcano that rose from the greenery like a giant. "The mountain?"

"This area has powerful wards. The Druids who lived in the temple placed many of them here. Someone does not want us near the mountain."

Thorn stood on all fours. Then shook his coat as if he could remove the lethargic reaction to using his magic. He took the lead, bounding over shrubs and brush as if born to the land. The party followed him as he loped toward the mountain.

He appeared to know where he was headed. Weaving in between the trees and over the fallen branches as if he traversed the savage land daily. He stopped as he exited the dense forest, into a small clearing with a strange tree at its center.

Draco turned to Cole. "I don't believe it. How could it have survived and us not notice? We searched this area extensively after the Temple's destruction."

Cole approached the tree, putting his hand on the strange striations in the bark. "This tree takes hundreds of years to sprout. We were long gone when the seedling sprouted from the earth. A gift from the Druids.

Ella knelt beside the strange tree. "What is it?"

"This tree grows from a seed blessed by the lost temple. The herb you need is its root. Dig down a couple of feet from the tree and extract a piece."

Thorn moved away from the tree and began digging with his paws. He was less than a foot down when he exposed a thick black root.

Ella grabbed her Swiss Army knife and flipped open the blade. When she cut into the root, it bubbled with crimson liquid. "It looks like blood."

"It is. A Druid sacrificed her power to leave this gift within the earth. I will ward the tree when we leave. Legion will want to move it to the dragon caves when our task is complete. The tree is too powerful to be left in human hands.

Ella wiped the blood from the root. "Now, how do we use this to break the spell on Thorn? Where do we perform the incantation?"

Cole touched the trunk of the tree. "We must perform it here. Thorn will swallow the root and draw the magic from the tree to boost the spell. If we induce the transformation, Thorn can assist us in making the change permanent."

Ella held the tree root out to Thorn. The wolf gulped it down, then sat on his haunches. "Now what?"

Cole held his arms out to Ella and Draco. They clasped her hands in a circle surrounding Thorn. "You must repeat the words, Ella. Only a Druid can invoke the magic from the tree."

She nodded as Cole tipped his face to the sky. "I call to the ancients. Heed my call. Reverse the dark magic unleashed on this Dragon. My Dragon."

Ella repeated the words, glancing down when nothing appeared to be happening. "Did I say it wrong?"

Cole broke a branch from the tree as it withered and turned black.

"What happened to the tree?" Ella asked.

"Thorn has absorbed all its magic. It's dead except for this branch," Cole said.

Thorn howled. Skin rippled along his back as growls and grunts mixed and Thorn's body became an unrecognizable mass of genetic material. Green scales mixed with the gray fur before Thorn's limbs formed.

Muscle stretched as tissue bonded to the bone, building one layer at a time, until skin grew over the toned limbs. His black hair grew to his shoulders as he huddled on the ground in the fetal position.

Thorn's first breath was ragged and stunted as if he forgot how to use his human body. When his eyes opened, they locked with Ella's before he reached for her.