Farox bloodsnow's Arc

Chapter 1 of 4

Farox bloodsnow had drawn the trade road for three winters, and today the first step of it was blocked by teeth. He crouched behind a boulder at the mouth of the pass, the only gap out of the valley. Beyond it lay the long route to the coast, the road he dreamed would keep his village from starving alone each winter. But six monsters had claimed the pass. They were lean and gray, with long jaws and eyes that caught the morning light. One gnawed a bone that was too large for a deer. He counted them twice. Six. He had a rusty short sword and a heavy stone shield, both older than he was. His face bore the scar from the last pack he'd turned away from the homestead. He touched it out of habit. High above, his black owl circled. Her pale talons shone like ice. She dropped and landed on the boulder beside him. She stared at the pass, then at him, and gave a low click. "I know," Farox whispered. "Too many to charge." He studied the ground. A tall stoak tree leaned over the narrow throat of the pass. Its trunk was banded with bark hard as iron. Even an axe would only chip it. But the monsters stood packed beneath it, crowded by the stone walls. If the tree came down on them, the stone would do the killing. He could not cut it. He did not need to. The roots on the uphill side had already lifted the soil, loosened by old rain. One good shove, at the right place, might finish what the storms began. Farox set his shield on his back and climbed. He moved slow, keeping the trunk between himself and the pack. A squat little creature with a pig's snout scrambled out of the brush and squealed at his boots. The nearest monster lifted its head. No time now. Farox threw his weight against the leaning trunk and drove his legs. The stoak groaned. Roots tore from the wet earth. The monsters below looked up as the shadow swung over them. The tree fell. Its iron-banded crown crashed into the throat of the pass. Two monsters vanished under the trunk. The others scattered, pinned between stone and timber, and Farox came down the slope with the rusty sword already swinging. The stone shield caught a lunge and broke a jaw. He killed three in the narrow gap where they could not circle him. The last one fled into the valley. Farox stood among the wreck, breathing hard. The pass was open. But the fallen tree now choked it, a wall of iron bark no man could move alone. And the sixth monster had run back toward the homestead and the village behind it. The owl landed on the dead trunk and clicked once. Farox wiped his blade. He had cleared the pass and blocked it in the same stroke, and he had loosed a wounded hunter among his own people.