Hounded

for me to try something else. I switched back to my human form and dug my toes into the ground. I concentrated on the soil underneath the circle of rocks and felt its substance through my bond to the earth. I heard the witches approaching on my six, but I couldn’t let that distract me. I spoke in Irish, the language used centuries ago in the ritual that bound me to the earth, and thus the language I use to work my magic on it: » Tabhair uaidh, « I breathed, sending the command down through my tattoos, and upon my word the soil caved in, spilling the rocks in all directions as the earth shifted, breaking the circle.
    A loud whump and a shock wave of compressed air announced the escape of Kaibab from the circle. The witches cursed in Russian and asked one another what happened. They looked back at the squirrel, and it appeared to be nothing but a normal, frightened rodent now.
    » No! « Coffee cried. » It got away! « While they were distracted, I moved slowly out from behind the tree so that I could see them well. Coppertone had recovered and joined them near the tumbled ring of stones.
    Pinky stamped her foot and balled her hands into fists. » How’d he break the circle? «
    //Kaibab thanks Druid / Freedom sweet / Binding unjust / Unbound now / Rage / Vengeance//
    » Make peace with your gods now, « I warned the witches as pine needles began to stir and whirl around them clockwise. » I don’t think Kaibab is going to give you a trial of your peers. «
    » Now, wait, « Coffee protested in my direction as she eyed the shifting ground, » we didn’t think it would go this far! We never expected to succeed! «
    » But you hoped you would, « I said, not buying her plea of innocence for a second. » You tried to bind a force of nature and take its power for yourselves. «
    Pinky turned back in my direction and snarled past a rising whorl of pine needles, » Spare us. If you’re a real Druid, then all you do is bind nature and use its power. «
    » No, that’s only part of what I do. As the earth is bound to me, so I am bound to it, and I must answer when it calls. Normally I’d sentence and punish you, too, because elementals aren’t supposed to touch humans, but there’s a self-defense clause in the rules of engagement, and I’m afraid you’ve triggered it. Kaibab can do whatever it wants to you now. «
    Pinky was so focused on me, she seemed unaware that she was standing in the center of a very strange vortex. She looked like she was going to hurl a choice curse or two my way, targeting my voice to see if the curse would stick, but at that moment the earth opened up beneath her feet and swallowed her whole, a swirling curtain of pine needles following her down before the crust collapsed shut, choking off her screams with finality.
    The other two witches’ eyes bugged and they took that as their cue to run, crying out for mercy as they fled the forest, heading for the meadow surrounding the lake—believing, perhaps, that it would be safer than staying underneath the trees.
    Coppertone never made it out. Branches from the surrounding ponderosas swung down, whipping and tearing at her bare skin, and she fought back with Romany curses, exploding branches and shattering trunks of trees. It only enraged Kaibab further, though, and eventually the tip of a well-aimed branch pierced Coppertone through one eye, silencing her curses forever.
    Coffee did make it out to the meadow, bloodied but in one piece. She quickly discovered, however, that she wasn’t any safer in open space. Kaibab sent the animals of the forest after her as she hurriedly tried to draw a circle of protection for herself near the lake.
    In those animated movies for kids, the beautiful heroine starts singing in the forest and the animals gradually gather around her and sing along until they’ve practically created a utopia with the power of their golden-throated warbling. This was sort of like watching what would happen if Edgar Allan Poe were in charge of those sequences. Birds got there first, pouring out of the surrounding forest from all directions: bluebirds, nuthatches, robins, crows, woodpeckers, even hummingbirds and a golden eagle. All of them harried her and pecked at her head, preventing her from completing her circle and giving the larger animals time to arrive and do some real damage. She destroyed a number of them, but there were too many to deal with and she got no respite. A coyote hurried into the meadow from the north,