Druids and the Wooden Heart

They reached Canterlot, they left it immediately again and walked to the forest in the north from the mountain where Canterlot stood.

They walked a bit in the forest. It was getting late so they started to built up their camp. As they had everything set up, Spirit began to make a clear soup.

He gave Darren a bowl and took one for himself and one for Bite. Bite drank his one in two seconds and laid down. As Spirit ate his own Bite suddenly raised his head and sniffed the air.

Spirit looked at him. "What is it?"

"Switch is in one of the trees. He is slowly getting closer to us." Bite laid his head down again and Spirit stood up.

He walked to their bags and grabbed another bowl he filled it with soup. He looked up to the trees and asked loudly. "Do you want some soup Switch?"

Instantly jumped Switch down and landed in front of him. "You got me. I knew I had forgot something. Bite smelled me, didn't he?"

Spirit nodded and just at this moment Leaf came out of the woods. "He even bet if he could surprise you."

Spirit smiled. "And on what did you bet?"

She smiled back. "You can guess." She reached in one of her saddlebags and levitate a small bag to Switch. "Here are your five bits."

Spirit chuckled. "Ouch. You could have at least just pretend that you were on my side."

Switch looked in the small sack and turned to Spirit. "I said that too." Switch put the sack in his bag and turned to them. "So what happened? What is our next job?"

Spirit gave them both a bowl of soup and Darren explained to them what happened and after that he added. "And now we will try, if the mage comes to get Bite, to capture him at that moment and question him."

They all nodded and Darren continued . "I would say at least one of us will keep watch on Bite. We will wait either till five days are over or till we are called somewhere else." Again everyone of them nodded.

Leaf turned to Spirit. "You said that Bite got a mark in the fight. Can I see the piece of wood please?"

Spirit nodded and grabbed in his saddlebag where he had put the piece. Leaf looked at it for a few moments. "This is a tracking rune but it seems different than the normal ones. Normally only the pony who placed the mark can follow it but in this case it seems that it is connected to a certain spell."

Darren nodded. "That means that our enemy probably knows where we are."

Switch drank his medicine before he also nodded. "I already wondered how he wants to find us. Now we can just sit back and wait and if he comes we will get him."

For the rest of the day they all waited and talked with each other. As they went to sleep was Darren the first who stayed awake for two hours longer then woke Switch up who kept then watch for the next two hour. After then he woke Spirit up and he woke Leaf after two hours.

They did this through the whole night and on the next day Darren turned to Leaf and Spirit. "I have considered what to do and one thing I would recommend would be to train a little bit. You two could fight a trainings fight."

Leaf shrugged with her shoulders. "Why not? What about you Spirit?"

Spirit looked at Bite as Darren interrupted him. "I would say you fight without Bite this time. You may be the best in a team but sometimes you can't choose if you will fight together."

Spirit nodded understanding and after a few minutes he and Leaf stood face to face a few feet away from each other. Spirit had his wooden claws on and was a bit lowered to be a smaller target while Leaf just simply stood there.

Switch, Darren and Bite sat at the side and Darren began to count down. "You two will fight till one of you is knocked out or gives up. Go in three, two, one!"

Spirit didn't wasted a second and jumped at Leaf who jumped a bit aside and shot at him. Spirit jumped back again and the magic bolt from Leaf let a small imprint. Leaf began to walked a bit sideways then waited.

As she stopped jumped Spirit again at her and she again dodged him and fired. They did this until Leaf had surrounded him once.

Spirit made himself ready to attack as Leaf stepped one step backwards. " Gotcha!"

Her horn began to glow and so did all the imprints Leaf had made as she fired at Spirit. Spirit now realized that there wasn't just imprints but runes. He quickly jumped towards Leaf but just before he could reach her he was stopped by a barrier.

Leaf looked triumphantly at Spirit. "Seems like I won."

Spirit thought for a moment then saw that Leaf horn was still glowing. He looked at her with a small smile on his face. "How did you got this idea?"

Leaf looked confused at him. "I won you can't fight me as long you are in there. You can't beat me."

Spirit sat down right in front of the barrier and began to meditate. "You win if I surrender or I am knocked out. Since both things are not the case it means that you didn't won."

She looked at Darren. "But..."

Darren shook his head. "He is right. He has to surrender or you knock him out somehow."

She looked back to Spirit and began to think. She looked around and already felt her magic weaken. After a few moments, she sighed. She stopped her spell and Spirit immediately opened his eyes, jumped at her.

Too exhausted from her spell, he was able to tackle her and held her down. She sighed again and surrendered. "Ok you win."

Spirit let go of her and helped her up. "Sorry for hitting you so hard."

She brushed of the dust from her mane and shook her head. "No problem. I really should have thought this more out." She smiled at him.

The others came to them and Darren nodded approving. "You both did very good but you also made mistakes you shouldn't do in a real fight."

He looked at Spirit. "Remember not to rely on such things. If there were two enemies you'd be dead." He turned to Leaf. "And you shouldn't use this rune if you are alone. It may be good to contain one enemy for a short time but if you are alone, it is way to shortsighted."

Switch nodded with a big smile. "But beside of that you both weren't that bad. Hey how about I and Darren doing a show fight?"

Darren nodded. "Good idea."

Spirit and Leaf nodded. They walked aside and sat down next to Bite. Switch and Darren stood face two face and Spirit began to count. "Three, two, one go!"

Darren grabbed his steel rod from his back and Switch hooves began to burn in bright green fire. Switch began by dashing at Darren, he aimed at Darrens chest and tried to hit him. Darren blocked the attack with the steel rod. Switch began to press against the rod and Darren hold against him. Switch horn began suddenly to glow and he wanted to fire a magical bolt.

Just as he shot the bolt started Darren to spin his weapon it blocked the bolt and also made Switch back off again. Darren didn't wasted any seconds and immediately jumped at Switch, he swung his steel rod and tried to hit Switch from above.

Switch jumped to the left to doge him, he flew up and tired to counter attack. Darren there while had hit the ground with his weapon but quickly turned to Switch and blocked his attack. Darren now also started to fly. Switch and Darren began to attack each other in the air but both were able to block every attack.

Suddenly in midair grabbed Darren Switch. With the steel rod he held him in place and stopped flapping with his wings, what caused them both to fall down again head first. Switch was a bit lower so he would hit the ground first but Switch began to cast a spell and his head began to cover in green flames.

As they hit the ground, a huge dust cloud formed and neither Spirit nor Bite were able to see anything. Leaf could, thanks to her magic vision see that both Darren and Switch where standing at their start positions again and waited till the dust cleared again.

As the dust was gone Darren began slowly to move towards Switch. Suddenly Switchs hooves stopped glowing and he coughed. He quickly walked to his bags and drank his medicine as he was finished he smiled at Darren. "I would say you win."

Darren nodded and put his rod back on his back. Switch turned to the others. "That's how you fight but you should left out the part I began to cough. That is not a good thing in a battle."

Darren also walked to them. "You should always be prepared to fight. Even though you won't fight very often. Now we all should rest some rest."

It was noon and they returned to their camping spot they ate something and began to relax bit. Spirit and Bite meditated for the rest of the day and as it was getting late started they a campfire.

After a few hours was the fire getting lower, Darren and Leaf were already asleep, turned Spirit to Switch. "I will go to get some wood for a fire." Switch nodded and laid back.

Spirit began to search for good wood as he heard a noise behind him. He jumped around but nothing was there. Suddenly heard he a voice behind him. "So predictable." He felt a hit in his back head and his whole mind went black.

After some time stood Switch up. He went to wake Darren up and pointed to the place where Spirit left. "Wait here I will check where Spirit is." Darren stood up and nodded.

Switch walked in the direction where Spirit went and after a few minutes he shouted to Darren. "Hey wake up the others. I think we have a problem."

Darren quickly woke them all up. They all rune to Switch who pointed and in imprint in the ground. In the imprint was a rune with glowed in a dark green color. Leaf immediately walked to the rune and looked at it for a second then gave a relived sigh.

She turned back to the others. "Ok it is just a marking rune."

Darren looked at Bite. "Do you smell something?"

Bite sniffed at the rune and at the imprint. He began to growl. Darren looked at him. "The dark mage?" Bite nodded.

Darren looked down to the imprint. "It seems that our enemy has tricked us. He wasn't after Bite. Leaf disable the rune we go back to the camp and make ourselves ready to leave."

Leaf stopped Darren. "But if I deactivate the rune he will immediately know!"

Darren shook his head. "Doesn't matter. Our enemy already proven that he had planned more ahead than we thought." Leaf nodded and shortly deactivated the rune.

Meanwhile Spirit slowly woke up again and shook his head. He tired to look around but realized that he had a blindfold over his eyes. He tired to move but felt that his hooves were hold with some kind of magic together, he began to roll around only to felt the walls of some kind of box. Spirit could hear the sound of a carriage driving on a dirt road.

Spirit heard a voice from outside. "I hear you are awake know. Just in time your friends have found the little rune I left for them."

Spirit turned his head in the direction where he assumed the pony. "Who are you?"

He heard the pony laughing. "Do you think that I am stupid enough to tell you my name? While I am doing this I can give you my address."

"Are you the pony behind the dying forests?"

"More or less. I was just testing a spell I am working on. That the forest couldn't handle the magic isn't my fault."

As Spirit heard that he got angry at the ignorance of the pony and replied. "The whole forest could die because of that! You say that like it wouldn't matter!"

He heard the voice from outside answering with the same amount of anger. "Because it doesn't. It just a forest. It can't think, it can't feel."

"If you don't think of the forest at least think of the defenseless animals. They need the forests to survive."

"They are just as worthless. They don't think they just act how their instinct tells them. They are replaceable."

Spirit realized that arguing with this pony nowhere leads so he decided to change the topic. "Where are you brining me?"

"To one of my hiding spots. That reminds me I think we can stop here for a moment." Spirit felt a sudden stop of movement. He heard a scratch of wood and felt the pressure of magic suddenly left. He wanted to remove the blindfold immediately but was stopped by a sudden surge of magic through his body.

He felt a hoof on his shoulder. "Do you really think I didn't prepared anything. Now step outside then I will remove your blindfold."

Spirit did as he was told and as he was outside he just sat down. His blindfold was just removed at this moment. He immediately looked around. he saw a small carriage with a box on it. He looked next to the carriage but couldn't find anything that could have pulled it.

He looked down on himself and saw that his necklace was gone and that he had instead a strange collar around his neck with at least a dozen of runes he never saw before. In front of him sat a pony with a tattered cloak. The only thing Spirit was able to see from the pony where his grey coat and grey horn.

The pony help his with his magic a piece of bread in front of him. "Eat this."

Spirit looked at the bread for a moment but then took and ate it. "Where is my necklace?"

"This piece of wood on a string? I have it but you have to wear this collar for now and don't even think of taking it off. That would hurt a lot more than just a normal shock from it. And if you try to run you also will be shocked even if you manage to overcome the pain I will be able to track you with it."

Spirit looked directly at the pony who still had his hood deep down his face. "What do you want from me?"

"From you nothing. As my so called student probably told you, I want your wooden friend and I will get him. Maybe I even get the chance to learn of the identities of the other druids."

Spirit shook his head. "One of the druids will find me and Bite will be far away from you!"

The pony chuckled. "Not as long we keep moving. Without the connection you and Bite have won't they be able to track me and thanks to your collar I will know when he comes anywhere close to us. When we reach the my place they won't be able to find us without him."

Spirit got an idea and closed his eyes but just got another magical surge. He looked at the pony with the cloak who shook his head. "Before you even think about calling him through your bond, one of my runes around your neck will prevent you from doing so."

Spirit looked at him closely and tried t find something recognizable. "Who are you and why do you do this all?"

"As I said I won't tell you my name. But I don't think it would hurt if I tell you about me. Once I was a high professor at the school for gifted unicorns. My subject area was experimental magic but one day my colleges found out that I use living creatures for my experiments. These idiots, what should I do? Test it on myself? Or on another pony? What did they do? They imprisoned me!"

Spirit began to grin. "Only with that information I will be able to find out your identity."

"You really think so? Tell me what do you think will happened if a teacher from a high class school gets imprisoned?"

Spirit looked surprised. "I don't know."

"Easy thing they deleted every evidence that I worked at this school. I was fried, my classes were told that I left and every rest data was destroyed to grantee the good reputation of the school."

Spirit almost smiled as he got an idea. 'Maybe the school won't tell but the archdruid may know about you.' "Then what do you do now?"

"Well since I had to change my subject, I began to study the old language. I began to search for new spells in the old books and one day I found a few of the black books. They contained many new and unknown spells. Some of them work some do not and a few are not finished. That is what I am doing now."

Spirit looked at him with wide open eyes. "But these book contain dark magic. They are evil."

The pony sighed. "They do and what does it change? I only want to finish these spells. Whether it is dark magic or not."

The pony stood up. "Enough talking go back inside. Don't even try to fight back." His horn began to glow with dark green magic.

He shot two bolts on the ground next to the carriage. First nothing happened but then something green began to go out of the grass. The two points slowly began to form two pony like creatures. As they stood there it seemed that the constantly changed shape, blurred and went clear again. They walked to the harness ready to pull them at command.

The pony nodded at them. "One of the unfinished spells. Still working on it."

Spirit looked at the ground where they were formed. The grass looked completely dried and dead. Spirit said coldly. "You hurt the natural magic just to perform a spell."

The unicorn pushed him to the box. "You druids are even worse than I read in the books." He threw Spirit the blindfold to his hooves. "Put that on." Spirit did and the pony pushed him in the box where he suddenly felt the grip of the magic form earlier again.

From outside he heard the unicorn saying. "You will see I have planned everything and with your wooden friends I will be able to finish my biggest project."

"Do you even know what will happen?"

He heard the pony laughing. "No I don't, I have my theories and if I don't try nopony will."