Nate Ironwood's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Nate Ironwood came to Heartwood to marry a queen he had never met. He was two meters tall, with a grizzled beard and a battle axe slung across his back. In the last tavern before the forest, a drunk had laughed at him. The woodland queen, the man said, had turned away every suitor for ten years. Kings. Warlords. A prince with a fleet of ships. Nate paid for the man's ale and left. He liked long odds. He walked into the forest at dawn and found trouble by noon. The trees here grew wrong. Bark split and blackened. Whole branches sagged with rot. Nate had heard the rumors that drew him this far: something was killing the elves' forest, and the queen could not stop it. A sharp voice cut the quiet. "You'll want to put that axe down." He looked up. A tiny fairy hovered near his face. She had butterfly wings and a small crown of confidence. She looked him over the way a merchant weighs a coin. "Big man," she said. "Big axe. Small brain, probably." She flicked her hair. "Lucky for you, I'm the most beautiful guide in this whole forest. Also the only one who'll talk to you." "I'm looking for the queen," Nate said. The fairy laughed. "Everyone is. She eats men like you for breakfast." She darted toward a massive tree ahead. Its trunk was wide as a house. Flowers of every color crowded its crown. Small wooden homes nestled in the branches. But half the blossoms had gone brown and curled. "This tree is dying," the fairy said, and for once she sounded serious. "When it dies, we all leave. The queen loves this tree more than any suitor." She spun to face him. "So if you want her heart, warrior, you won't win it with that axe." Nate studied the sick tree. He set his hand against the trunk. The bark felt cold and damp, like meat gone bad. Then he heard it. Deep inside the wood, something scraped and shifted. Something large. The fairy's wings stopped. "That," she whispered, "is why no one comes here anymore." A crack ran up the trunk. Chunks of bark fell away. From the hollow root pushed a shape of stone and moss, tall as Nate and twice as wide. It had a face like split rock. Its fists were the size of stumps. The thing that was eating the tree had made itself a body. Nate pulled his axe free. He came for a queen. He found her forest instead, and the enemy killing it. "Go warn them," he told the fairy. "Tell the queen a warrior is buying her time." The fairy shot up into the branches. Nate set his feet in the roots. The stone creature turned its rock face toward him and roared.