Nate Ironwood's Arc

Chapter 2 of 2

The stone thing swung a fist like a stump. Nate rolled clear. His axe bit into its arm and skidded off. The blade left a pale scratch and nothing more. He backed toward the great tree's roots, breathing hard. The creature's skin was bark and mossy rock, cracked into plates. Every plate held. Nate had one axe and no idea where the beast could bleed. It came again. Nate ducked under the blow and struck its knee. The impact rang up his arms and numbed his hands. The knee held. The creature grabbed him by the chest and lifted him off his feet. Its grip crushed the air from his lungs. Up close he saw the moss glowing faint green in the cracks. The light was strongest at its throat, where a seam split the bark. That seam was the only soft place on it. Nate hooked his arm around a thick branch overhead and heaved. He tore free of the grip and dropped behind the beast. It turned slow, hunting him. He needed height to reach the throat, and the tree gave it to him. He climbed the roots to a low limb near the fairy homes. Blossoms brushed his face. Half were brown and dying. The creature reached up and ripped a limb from the trunk. The whole tree groaned. Fairy homes cracked and fell. Nate saw then what the fight was costing. Each blow the beast landed on the tree killed it faster. He could not win by waiting. He had to end it now. He waited for the beast to roar. Its mouth opened, and the seam at its throat stretched wide. Nate jumped. He fell with both hands on the axe and drove the blade into the glowing crack. The axe sank deep. Green light burst out. The creature staggered and clawed at its own neck. Nate held on and dragged the blade sideways. Bark split. Stone cracked. The beast dropped to its knees, then fell. Nate rolled clear as it struck the roots and went still. He stood over it, chest heaving. The thing that ate the tree was dead. But the trunk was torn open where the limb had ripped away. Sap ran dark from the wound. The blossoms above him kept curling brown, faster now, as if the beast's death had loosed something worse inside the wood. A voice came from the branches. Sharp. Cold. Not the fairy's. "You killed it too late." Nate looked up. A young woman crouched on a limb above him. Black cat ears twitched atop her head. A black tail lashed behind her. Her purple eyes moved from the dead beast to the bleeding tree, then to him. "The queen sent me to see who was making all this noise," she said. "You saved nothing, big man. You just opened the door."