Page 78 of The Shadow Path
Carys shouted at the ellyllon. “Naida!”
She was standing on the edge of the forest, her back to an ancient oak and her arms spread out, as if she could keep the trees safe from the marauding forest god. “What?”
“Dru said he woke up.”
Naida’s eyes were wide. “Obviously yes.”
“So can we put him back to sleep?”
Duncan looked up and glared. “What the fuck are you talking about? It’s not a baby!”
“Maybe.” Naida walked to the tumult of the clearing where the ground rippled and rolled and put her hands on the churning earth.
A bloody Godrik in wolf form was limping from the trees, his teeth bared at the forest god, snarling and howling.
In the distance, the faint echo of other howls came back. One, then two, then a dozen.
“The wolves are coming,” Duncan said. “This is going to get messy.”
“Nothing.” Laura gasped and looked at Carys. There were tears in her eyes. “The earth is so confused right now. I can’t connect at all.”
“It’s okay.” She could feel her heartbeat in her leg as it swelled. There was pain, but she had so much adrenaline coursing through her system she barely felt it. “If we can’t move the rocks, Duncan has his sword.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Duncan roared.
Dru paced back and forth in front of the massive creature for a few moments as the god shook his grassy head and looked around the landscape that surrounded them.
“He looks confused,” Carys said.
“Dru said he hadn’t seen his like in five hundred years.” Duncan was smashing the hilt of his sword against the rocks holding Carys’s leg, and his palm was bloody. “Can you imagine how bloody confused you’d feel after a five-century nap? Fuck!” He tossed his sword to the side and reached his massive hands down into the crevice, trying to move the stones with his bare hands.
“Duncan.” She put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay.”
He looked up and his eyes were red. “Not if you’re hurt.”
Dru shouted something at the forest god in a language Carys didn’t recognize, but it caught the creature’s attention, and the green face peered down to the ground to look at the fae prince.
“What is he doing?” Laura asked.
The giant leaned over, his head angled as he watched Dru like he would a bug.
Dru shouted again, and it wasn’t Cymric, Éiren, or Alban at all. This was some older tongue that had the god paying attention.
“Maybe they have their own language,” Carys said. “Maybe the gods have another language and Dru knows it because of his father.”
“Dru, tell him to let Carys go!” Duncan shouted.
“Shhhh,” Laura said. “Don’t distract him.”
The god, staring at Dru, opened his mouth, and a slow, deep roll of sound issued forth.
“Oh my God, that thing is speaking,” Duncan whispered. “Those are words.”
They were words spoken at the pace of a geological event, but sometime later, the forest god finished speaking and Dru said something else.
“What is he doing?” Carys asked.
“I have no idea.” Naida walked toward them. “But I can feel the animals coming back. Carys, what’s wrong?”
