Huld made his way through the undergrowth of the Farrian jungle, pushing a particularly big, leafy branch out of the way and taking care not to snap it.

He held it back for the foreigners to allow them to get past and continue further along the trail, which also gave him an opportunity to count them off in his head as they walked by.

He was having trouble remembering their names. There was the red-haired fireboy, who didn’t say much. Huld liked that, though he was highly cautious of the boy’s fire projection powers. One.

There was the golden-haired girl who talked too much. It was her fault that this whole mission was happening, really. He wasn’t sure what he thought about her, though he guessed her intentions were probably noble, and he thought she was probably harmless. She hadn’t shown if she really had any ‘powers’ yet. Two.

Then there was the boy with the silly coat and the ponytail. He talked far too much, and didn’t know when to hold his tongue. Huld was sure that this one’s intentions were not noble. This was definitely one to keep an eye on. He smiled at him as he walked past. “Stop grinning at me like that,” said ponytail boy as he went by. “You’re giving me the creeps.” Three.

Next there was the boy with the short purple hair. No, wait, she was a girl, he had now established. Actually, he still wasn’t entirely sure, to be honest. She was nice enough, and had been quite friendly to him so far. She seemed as though she was simply going along with the rest of the group to serve and help them. Huld could understand that. Four.

Then there was the old man with the beard. The only one with any sense in the whole group, as far as Huld could tell. He spoke carefully, thoughtfully, and did not rush into things. Very sensible. Five.

And lastly, bringing up the rear, was the ex-Imperial Shadowfinger, dressed all in black. Huld was deeply suspicious of this one, and highly wary. He could sense a fearsome strength coiled up in the man’s posture, and his tense poise and the way he carried himself deliberately as he walked showed that he knew how to use it. This was the one to really watch. Six.

And I make seven. All present and accounted for. Huld allowed the big branch to swing back to its original place and followed after the group.

Really, this whole mission was a bad idea. It was a bad idea for anyone to be trying to interfere with where the Earth Emerald had been placed, let alone a collection of foreigners. It had caused enough trouble the last time it had been in possession of the Republic. The previous Governor, Lord Restra, had been very sensible to have it sealed away in the Shrine to Eto, the Earth Temple. Where it should stay.

But Huld lived to serve, and his life was service. If he wasn’t loyal to the Republic of Farr and to his Lord Governor, then what was he? Nothing at all.

So he had received his orders cheerfully with a smile on his face, as usual, and set out obeying them cheerfully with a smile on his face, as usual.

The Governor’s instructions had been very clear:

“Make use of the foreigners’ skills in order to retrieve the Earth Emerald from the Shrine, and then take it and return it to me”

“How much further to this place anyway, baldy?” called ponytail from up ahead in the line of walkers, bringing Huld back to the present.

“Not much further,” the monk called back. The boy was rude, but Huld didn’t mind the insulting term of address, really. His head had been shaved to show his devotion to Eto. Better a ‘baldy’ than having that stupid long hair tied together like a woman. “Just keep to the trail,” he said pleasantly, “it will not be long from here.”

They hadn’t been able to land any closer to the Shrine in the party’s airship due to the dense jungle they were now making their way through, of which they had had to land at the border. Still, Huld was glad to be off the airship sooner rather than later. He hated the things. They were unnatural.

He much preferred being here, on solid earth. He much preferred being here, hiking through the undergrowth, feeling the grassy ground through his bare feet and with the base of his straight wooden staff, surrounded by a panoply of green, listening to the noises of buzzing insects and croaking frogs and chirping birds, breathing in the thick, warm air, smelling the fragrance of recent rain, keeping his attention on one step at a time, because that was all you could do. This was his home. This was where he belonged.

He bumped into the Shadowfinger in front of him.

The man sprang round in an instant, putting his hand to the hilt of his blade which was sheathed on his back. When he saw that it was only Huld, he relaxed again.

“Look where you are going,” said the Shadowfinger cooly.

“My apologies, Master Vish,” said Huld, bowing his head slightly. He had remembered this one’s name. It was possibly the only one he had. “It was a careless accident.”

It turned out the Shadowfinger had stopped because the rest of the group had too; Huld just hadn’t been paying attention.

The obscure flattened grass trail through the trees that they had been walking on had come to an abrupt end, and all of a sudden the tall, densely packed trees opened up into a massive clearing.

And there, looming up in the middle of the clearing, was the Shrine to Eto.

The Earth Temple.

“Well, that’s something, I suppose,” said ponytail.

Ignorant foreigner, thought Huld. It’s more than ‘something’. It’s one of the great wonders of the world.

The shrine was enormous, built of bricks of brown, baked earth arranged in layers one on top of another which got progressively less wide, narrowing with height, much like the way that Shun Pei had been built. Only, unlike Shun-Pei, the layers here were square, not rounded, and there were no peaks or points--instead each layer was flat, creating the effect of a series of steps on four sides that climbed to reach a single cubic summit with a flat top. Though ‘steps’ was probably not the right word. You would have to be a giant to walk up these steps. It wasn’t so much that the Shrine reached up to the sky, but that it reached down from its peak into the earth, widening out and fusing with it, and yet also made of it and already part of it. It was a vast, monolithic monument to earth. Huld approved.

“Where’s the entrance?” asked the fire boy.

“We have approached from the east,” Huld said. “I believe that the entrance is on the western side.” He had never actually visited the Shrine before, only heard stories about it. The stories were surpassed by the real thing. Excitement fluttered in his chest as the prospect of actually going inside, though he just wished that he wasn’t visiting it for the first time under these circumstances.

They walked round to the western side of the Shrine, which took them a good ten minutes, such was its size.

“Ah, here we are,” said golden-girl.

In the middle of the wall of the base layer of the Shrine on this side were two gigantic doors, each twice the height of Huld, which was saying something. They were made out of the same baked brown earth, the colour of fertile soil, as the rest of the Shrine, but you could tell that they were doors because they were cut slightly differently from the rest of the wall, three vertical lines presumably hiding hinges and the space where the doors met, and had two huge circular bronze handles hanging from halfway up each of them. These handles had to just be for show though, because they were so big, and impossible to reach.

“How are we gonna open those?” said the engineer girl.

The foreigners all looked at Huld.

“I am not sure…” he said after a moment. He hadn’t been briefed by the Governor about this. He genuinely didn’t know what to do.

He walked up to a door and placed a hand on its surface. The earth it was made from was strangely warm to the touch, like it was fed by some inner energy.

Huld pushed, but the door didn’t budge one inch.

The old man appeared at his side. “Perhaps there is some sort of password?”

“Perhaps,” granted Huld. “Though I have never heard of such a thing.” They had never had anything like that at any of the shrines or temples where he had trained. Normally doors just...opened. Like they were supposed to.

“Are there any particular words or phrases that you would associate with this place? Or with the worship of Eto?”

Huld thought about it. “I suppose there are.”

“Perhaps you could try saying some of them out loud?”

“Alright then…” Huld felt foolish, but he tried saying some of the phrases out loud anyway in his most confident, clear voice.

“Hail Eto, Lord of Earth!”

Nothing.

“Strength in numbers! Freedom in service!”

Nothing.

“When we strike as one we will move mountains!”

Nothing. The massive door just stood there still, unmoving as the earth.

“Open Sesame!” someone shouted behind him.

Huld looked round and raised an eyebrow at the purple-haired engineer girl.

She shrugged. “What? I heard it in a story somewhere. It was worth a try.”

Huld sighed.

“Well this is going well,” said ponytail.

“There must be some way in,” said goldengirl.

“Perhaps a physical technique, instead?” the old man suggested.

“Hmmm,” rumbled Huld. “Yes.” This was more his language.

He laid his staff on the grass and searched in his mind for a technique.

Of course. Why did I not think of it before?

He dropped into the horse stance, spreading his legs just over shoulder-width apart, bending his knees, keeping his back straight, and also bending his arms but turning his palms upwards like he was holding two eggs in line with his hips.

“What are you doing?” said fireboy.

“Shhh, if you please,” said Huld. “A fighting technique. It is called ‘Moving the Earth.’”

He focused on his breathing. In. Out. In. Out. He gathered the energy inside himself on his next breath in, willed it to transfer from his chest, down his arms, and into his hands, then drew his elbows back, and as he breathed out--

“HA!”

Huld thrust his hands forward, twisting them round as he did so, slamming his open palms into the earthen door, putting all the energy and strength of his muscles behind them.

His palms stung at once from the impact as they met the door’s resistance. They made a dull slapping noise as they connected. Huld fancied he felt the door tremor, ever so slightly.

He took a step back and looked up.

Nothing had moved.

Someone screamed behind him.

Huld span round and out of his horse stance.

On the grass in front of the entrance to the Shrine, multiple figures were sprouting from the ground, composed of it, literally climbing out of it. Figures of soil and stone with bits of grass and tree bark and foliage on them.

Figures of earth.