Grok Strongarm's Arc

Chapter 3 of 4

Grok knelt by his boar and rubbed its bristled back. His axe was gone. He had left it in the truce and could not take it back. His friend still needed oil and supplies, and Grok had no tool to gather them. He stared at his empty hands. The boar grunted and pushed its snout against his leg. Deep in the forest, the tree king marched home. His roots dragged over stone. He reached a grove of his tallest subjects and stopped. "The man dropped my trees," he said. "Now the forest answers." Branches bent toward him. Roots rose from the ground. "Gather. We march on the caveman. We finish him." But he was too late. A roar shook the trees. Something huge crashed through the grove. It had the body of an elephant and the striped head of a tiger. Wings of dragon skin spread from its back. Its horse feet crushed the soil. Fire poured from its jaws and swept the trees. The tree king raised his wooden arms. "Stop," he commanded. The beast did not stop. Flames climbed his subjects. Bark blackened. Trunks split and fell. The king staggered back as his forest burned around him. Grok heard the roar and ran toward the smoke. He climbed a rise and saw the beast turn from the trees toward a great house of gold. Its windows gleamed. The winged creature struck the wall and fire raced across the golden stone. The mansion cracked and glowed. Grok's hand went to his belt. No axe. He had nothing to swing. But the boar charged past him, tusks low. It slammed into the beast's back leg. The creature stumbled. Grok saw his chance. He grabbed a burning branch from a fallen trunk and drove the flaming end into the beast's flank. The creature screeched. It beat its wings and lifted off the ground. Fire dripped from its jaws as it climbed above the burning trees. Then it flew off over the forest and was gone. Grok dropped the branch and gasped. The gold mansion still burned. Trees fell all around him. Through the smoke, the tree king stood among his ruined subjects. His white eyes found Grok. "This was not your axe," the king said. His voice had lost its anger. "This beast burns what I rule. It burns your golden house too." Grok looked at the flames eating the mansion of gold. He had come to fell these trees. Now something worse than any axe was killing them faster than he ever could. And it hunted the same forest where his friend's pen hung. "Grok has no axe," he said. "But Grok will fight that thing." The king was silent. Then he lowered his branches. "Then we do not fight each other," he said. "Not while it flies." The two enemies stood together in the smoke. The beast had a new war. And now Grok had no tool, no truce he understood, and a bigger monster loose in his forest.