06 Trapped!

CHAPTER 6 TRAPPED! Long shadows fell on the friends as the mega beetles moved closer. Blaze stamped her feet. The ground shook and Tag noticed a small hole near Blaze's feet. "Look!" he said to Skyla. Blaze stamped her feet, harder this time, and more of the ground fell away beneath her.

"Blaze is making a new tunnel," Tag said. "It's a way out!" "Um, Tag," Skyla said, pointing. The two mega beetles were closing in on them. Fast. "Everyone, stamp your feet!" Tag ordered. They stamped as hard as they could, making loud, echoing sounds inside the tunnel. Suddenly, the ground gave way. The friends fell, down, down, down, sliding left and right, along the sides of the hidden tunnel.

"Wheeee!" Skyla called as they slid all the way through and out of the hill, landing with a thump on the soft grass outside. Tag brushed the dirt from his feathers and looked back at the huge hole in the side of the hill. "We made it out!" he hooted.

A few crag beetles had followed them out of the tunnel. The beetles stepped into the daylight, hissing. Then they scurried back inside. "The crag beetles don't like sunlight," Skyla said. "Just like Thorn's other spies, the tiger bats." "They know we're here though," Tag said. "They will tell Thorn where we are. We have to find the Ember Stone before he sends The Shadow!" "Oak!" Blaze peeped.

Tag and Skyla looked around. Everything was as dead on this side of the hill as it had been on the other side. A twisted, old oak tree stood in the center of a grey landscape. It was covered in odd shaped green-and-brown leaves that Tag had never seen before.

Skyla pointed at Tag's sack. "Check the stone!" she said. Tag looked inside, hoping to see a warm glow. But their piece of the Ember Stone was still cold. "Maybe we're not close enough?" Skyla said. The friends hurried down the hill to the Whispering Oak. They searched in and around the tree for the stone. Blaze looked inside knots and on the lower branches. Skyla searched the base of the tree, collecting fallen acorns as she went, while Tag flew around the higher branches. But there was no Sign of the Ember Stone. I must be missing something, Tag thought. But what?