ShadowBound: The Need For Power

Every part of Sheila wanted to move immediately, but want was not command. She looked back at her group, taking in the injured, the frightened, and the barely steady. If she brought everyone, the hollow would become crowded and loud. If she went alone, she risked becoming another problem. If she ignored the trapped group, they might die or be extracted before reaching Veyrhold, and worse, her own group would know she had left classmates behind.

"Dorin," she said.

He straightened. "Yes?"

"You are temporary lead until I return."

His eyes widened. "Me?"

"Yes. You have been watching properly, and you listen before moving. That is what I need right now."

He swallowed and nodded, the surprise quickly becoming seriousness.

Sheila continued, "No one leaves this position. No shouting. No unnecessary insignia use. No following voices or movement unless Sera, Kel, or I return and verify with the call-and-response. Mark this location twice, tree and stone. Rolan, rear watch. Jared, right side. Marin, left. Toln, stay with Nima. Yvette, keep count of everyone here. If I am not back in fifteen minutes, you do not come after me unless there is a verified signal. You hold and wait."

Nima looked pained, and not only because of her ankle. "Princess, should we not all help?"

"No," Sheila said firmly. "A crowded rescue becomes a second rescue. You will help by keeping this group intact."

Nima lowered her gaze and nodded.

Sheila looked at Sera. "You are taking me back. Quietly. Jared, come with us."

Jared blinked and adjusted his grip on his weapon. "My shoulder—"

"Still usable?"

"Yes."

"Then you are my second set of hands, not my first attacker. You follow my timing exactly."

He nodded, more alert now.

Sheila turned once more to Dorin. "Repeat your orders."

Dorin drew a breath. "Hold position. No shouting. No moving alone. No unnecessary insignia use. Mark tree and stone. Watch all sides. Verify with call-and-response. If you are not back in fifteen minutes, we wait unless there is a verified signal."

"Good."

Then Sheila moved.

Sera led them through a narrow path between clustered trunks, stepping over roots and gesturing when the ground dipped or loosened. Jared followed behind Sheila, quieter than she expected despite his earlier injury. The closer they drew to the hollow, the more the forest changed.

The roots became thicker, rising through the soil in tangled ridges. Stones jutted out at odd angles, half-buried and slick. Ahead, the land dropped into what looked like an old collapsed road, its edges broken by time and swallowed by the forest. Kel crouched near the ridge, hidden behind a leaning trunk, and turned sharply when they approached.

"Eastern light," Sera whispered.

"Steady hands," Kel answered immediately.

Sheila crouched beside him. "Show me."

Kel pointed through the leaves.

Below, the hollow writhed.

The other group of second-years was trapped in the sunken roadbed, surrounded by exposed roots that twisted through the damp soil like thick veins. There were eight students, as Sera had guessed, scattered badly across the hollow. One girl lay near the center, her lower leg pinned by root-like tendrils that had tightened around her boot and calf. She was gripping the ground with both hands, teeth clenched against a cry.

Another student sat against a broken stone edge with blood staining the side of his uniform, one hand pressed hard against the wound. The others were trying to help, but fear had made them loud, heavy, and uncoordinated.

A boy with a hammer slammed it into the ground near the pinned girl.

The soil convulsed.

Something long and sinewy moved beneath the roots, not fully visible, but present in the way the ground swelled and tightened. A Vein Crawler burst partly upward through a gap between roots, its body slick and corded like living muscle wrapped in bark fibers, then vanished again beneath the damp earth. Another shape moved near the bleeding student, drawn by the repeated thuds of panicked footsteps.

The creatures were not ordinary demons.

They were adapted to the terrain so completely that the hollow itself seemed to belong to them. They moved like living veins under skin, traveling beneath roots and soil, striking through gaps to coil around ankles, wrists, and loose straps. Their bodies were long, narrow, and pale beneath layers of muddy fiber, with hooked ridges along their sides that gripped root systems as they moved. They did not charge. They tightened, pulled, waited for imbalance, then struck again.

One student blasted the ground with a pulse of raw Myst.

The soil erupted in a small burst.

Three separate root clusters moved toward him at once.

Sheila understood the pattern.

"They are reacting to vibration," she said quietly.

Kel looked at her. "The guide said they sense movement through roots."

"Not just movement. Impact. Heavy steps. Strikes. Myst force against the ground. Every time they panic, they announce exactly where they are."

Another blast hit the soil below, and the pinned girl cried out as the tendrils tightened.

Sheila stood.

Her voice cut down into the hollow, sharp and clear. "Stop striking the ground. You are telling them where every frightened foot is."

The students below froze.

Several looked up.

One boy shouted, "Princess?"

"Do not shout," Sheila ordered. "Lower your voices. Weapons still. Feet light. No one moves unless I tell you."

The boy with the hammer looked furious and terrified. "She is pinned!"

"And you are making it worse," Sheila said. "Move again like that, and they will take your ankles next."

That shut him down.

Sheila turned to the two with her. "Sera, light steps only. Stay on the stones along the right edge. Jared, you support the bleeding student when I give the word, but you do not enter the center. Kel, stay above and watch for movement from outside the hollow. If something comes from the trees, warn once, then fall back."

All three nodded.

Sheila drew Myst into herself, careful not to release it downward in force. Light gathered around her fingers, soft at first, then spreading in thin lines over the surface of the hollow. She did not blast. She illuminated. The controlled glow slid across exposed roots and damp soil, revealing slight movements beneath the surface: small pulses, tightening patterns, places where the earth bulged too smoothly to be natural.

"There," she said, pointing. "They are clustered along the left root line and center gap. Avoid those. Everyone in the hollow, shift weight slowly. If you are standing on bare soil, step to root tops or stone only when I call it. Do not stomp."

The pinned girl gasped, "It is tightening."

"I know," Sheila said. "Keep breathing. Do not pull yet."

She let water Myst gather next, drawing moisture from the damp soil and mist rather than forcing a large output from herself. A faint frost spread along two root gaps near the pinned girl, not enough to freeze the entire hollow, but enough to stiffen the damp earth and slow the movement beneath it. One of the Vein Crawlers twitched, its path restricted as the muddy channel hardened around it.

The pinned girl’s tendrils loosened slightly.

Sheila watched the rhythm.

The creatures tightened when heavy vibration struck. They shifted when Myst hit soil. But cold through moisture slowed them without calling them as violently, at least if controlled carefully.

"Good," she murmured.

Then louder, "Hammer boy."

The boy stiffened. "My name is Orlan."

"I do not need it yet. Put the hammer away."

He looked offended.

Sheila’s eyes sharpened. "Now."

He obeyed.

"Use your hands. Slowly. When I freeze the root gap again, you and the girl beside you pull the tendrils apart from the pinned student’s boot. Not her leg. The tendrils. If she screams, you do not panic. If the ground moves, you do not strike it. Understood?"

Orlan swallowed and nodded.

Sheila looked to Sera. "Move to the right edge. Help guide the standing students out one at a time. Quiet steps. Stones and roots only."

Sera moved, light-footed and careful. Sheila sent another thin pulse of light across the ground, mapping the movement again. The Vein Crawlers shifted toward Sera’s first step, but when she landed softly on stone, they lost the cue. One surfaced briefly, a pale sinewy body slipping through a root gap, and Sheila snapped a narrow line of ice across the opening. The creature recoiled, not injured badly, but blocked.

"Now," Sheila said.

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