08 The Bears

CHAPTER 8 THE BEARS Tag, Skyla, and Blaze slowly backed away from the grumblebees. Why are they so angry? Tag wondered. "What do we do now?" Skyla whispered, as the bees continued to surround them. Tag tried to think of a way to ask the bees about the Ember Stone without making them angrier.

Blaze dipped her beak into Tag's sack and pulled out the Ember Stone. She held it high in the air so that the bees could see it. The buzzing stopped. Tag smiled at Blaze. "We're searching for a stone that looks like this," Tag told the bees. "Have you seen it?" One of the bees flew closer, examining the stone. Then it returned to the swarm. The bees buzzed and buzzed. Finally, the small bee flew back to hover in front of Tag. "Where did you find that?" the grumblebee asked.

"Blaze found the first piece on Fire Island," Tag said. "She's the last firehawk." The bees buzzed loudly when they heard this. "We found the second piece in the Crystal Caverns," Skyla added. "And then our two pieces joined together." "What do you want with the Ember Stone?" the grumblebee asked. "We want to use it to stop Thorn and The Shadow from destroying Perodia," Tag said. "But we need all of the pieces of the Ember Stone so that it is powerful enough to defeat Thorn." "We used to have a piece of it," the grumblebee told Tag. "But we don't anymore."

Tag looked around sadly. If we don't find all the pieces, he thought, we'll never stop Thorn and we'll never save Perodia. "Our home was once a beautiful land filled with color and light," the bee said. "We were guarding the stone." "Then Thorn sent The Shadow and everything turned to dust," the bee went on. "We only survived because the light of the Ember Stone scared The Shadow away." Skyla gasped. "But if your stone scared Thorn away, when did he steal it?" she asked.

The grumblebees shook their heads. "He didn't." Tag let out a sigh of relief. "So where is it now?" he asked. The grumblebees started to buzz angrily again. "The bears stole it!" they said.