Fladrif's Arc

Chapter 7 of 9

The last ground was awake, but the way out was shut. The stone-beast lay against the hollow ash tree, its flank pressed to the ring of pale light. Behind that light stood wet green forest, far off. Fladrif needed to send the new roots through the door to reach it. The beast blocked the door. He knelt in the wet soil and listened. The water still ran under the beast, but it pooled now. It could not pass. Bregalad crossed to the ash tree and set his red eyes on the beast. "It drank its fill," he said. "It drank its fill. Now it rests." He would not wait for it to wake and crush the young roots. He never waited anymore. Elmwood pressed his hand to the beast's stone hide. Last winter men cut his sapling while he slept. He had learned that resting cost him. "No more water to lead it," he said. "The seam is dry ahead. It has no reason to move." Raewyn came around the ash tree without a sound. She had guarded one stretch of forest for two long lifetimes. She had once traded her watch away and lost a young one for it. She would not trade this. "Then give it a reason," she said. "Wake the roots under it. Hard." "They'll break," Elmwood said. "Some will," Raewyn said. "Not all." Fladrif looked at the ancient ironwood that stood beyond the ash, its face carved into the twisted trunk, its old roots buried deep. He felt them run under the beast and past the glowing door. That tree could carry the pulse where his own strength could not. He pressed both palms to the soil and reached for it. "Help me wake the old one," Fladrif said. "Not soft this time. We shove the roots up beneath the beast and drive it through the door." They joined hands, root to root. Fladrif found the deep pulse and leaned hard. The ancient ironwood answered. Its buried roots surged. The ground under the stone-beast heaved. Young roots split and died, but the rest rose in a wall of green and forced the beast up off the seam. The beast heaved, stone grinding on stone. It stumbled forward, into the ash trunk, and through the ring of light. The beast passed the door. Its weight tore the split trunk wide as it went. The pale light flared, then guttered. Fladrif drove the freed roots after it, through the widening gap, into the wet green ground beyond. The last dead soil of Ironholt joined at last to the far forest. Then the ash trunk cracked and fell. The ring of light shrank to a thread and closed. The beast stood on the far side now, and so did half the new roots. The door was sealed, with Fladrif and his companions shut out from the ground they had just woken.