Bjorn Frostmantle's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Bjorn Frostmantle wanted the largest war-beast the northern clans had ever seen. Instead he held a spider that fit inside his palm. He fed it torn strips of hare from his fingers, the way you feed a sick pup. The spider chirped and swallowed. Its brass nasal helmet had grown loose on its small head. Bjorn had bragged for a whole winter about the beast he would raise. Now he crouched in the cold and hand-fed a runt. The problem was plain. His spider was too weak to hunt. Big prey fueled a hunter's growth, but big prey could kill a runt in one bite. So it stayed small, and Bjorn stayed its nursemaid. He could not grow the beast by feeding it scraps. It needed to fight. It needed something to shoot at that would not eat it back. He found the answer at the edge of his clearing. A heavy tracked machine sat there, armored and squat, its twin treads sunk in the frost. Sockets lined its hull, made for small crews. Bjorn had won it in a trade and never understood it. Now he did. It was a target-hunter. A safe hunt. He lifted his spider onto the hull. The runt slid into a crew socket that fit it exactly. Runes on the machine flared. A row of straw targets rose across the clearing, shaped like elk and boar. The hull hummed. A small cannon swiveled under the spider's legs. "Shoot," Bjorn said. "Earn your supper." The spider fired. The first shot missed. The second clipped a straw elk. By the tenth, it split a boar-shape clean through. Each hit fed something in the machine that fed back into the spider. Bjorn saw its legs thicken. Its abdomen swelled against the runic harness. The loose helmet grew snug, then tight. The runt was gone. In its place crouched a spider the size of a hound, then a pony, then larger. Its fangs gleamed like curved knives. Bjorn laughed and slapped the hull. His nursemaid days were over. He had his war-beast at last. Then the machine groaned. The spider had outgrown the crew socket. Its swollen body wrenched free and tore two hull plates loose. It dropped to the frost and did not chirp. It hissed. When Bjorn stepped close, it snapped at him. The gentle runt that ate from his hand was gone. Bjorn stood in the wreck of the machine, his hand still bleeding. He had gotten his giant. But it no longer knew his voice. Now he had to tame the beast he had made.