Finn Dayle's mule was gone, and the tracks led straight into the forbidden woods. The old logging animal had slipped its rope again and wandered where nobody sane went. Finn swore and grabbed his axe. He'd chased that stubborn mule up hills and through creeks before. He would drag it home this time, forbidden trees or not. The path ended at a wall of thorns. Twisted branches knotted together, thick as his arm, bristling with hooked spikes. Behind them, the mule's tracks vanished into the dark. Finn spat in his palms and swung. The axe bit, then bounced. He looked at the blade. The chip in it was worse now, folded over like soft tin. He hacked again. A single vine snapped, and the blade skipped sideways, nearly taking his knee. The thorns held. This axe couldn't clear kindling anymore, let alone this. Finn dropped to a crouch, breathing hard. A fox kit watched him from a rotting stump. It cocked its head, bright-eyed, then darted a few steps toward the thorns and stopped, waiting. Finn had no time for animals. He raised the axe for one last swing. He never landed it. The ground shook. A shape rose from the tangle itself, and Finn realized the thorn wall wasn't only thorns. Bark peeled into a shoulder. Moss slid off an arm thick as a tree trunk. A troll stood up out of the barrier, skin grooved like split logs, one eye glowing orange in a wooden face. "You cut my hedge," it said. Its voice cracked like a falling branch. Finn's mouth went dry. He held up the ruined axe, as if that explained anything. "My mule. It went through. I just need to get it back." The troll leaned close. Its breath smelled of wet earth and rot. "The gray beast? It ate my ferns." One huge hand pointed at a patch of silver plants, half trampled, their fronds still glowing faintly in the shade. "Now it's mine. Payment." Finn's stomach dropped. "It's not yours. It's my father's mule." "Then trade." The troll's grin showed a broken tusk. It snatched the axe from Finn's hands before he could pull back. Wood groaned. The troll snapped the handle like a twig and let both halves fall. "You bring me a blade that can cut my hedge clean. Then we talk about your beast." It sank back into the thorns and went still. Bark again. Moss again. Just a wall. Finn stared at the broken axe in the dirt. His only tool, gone. His mule, trapped past a barrier he couldn't touch. The fox kit trotted up, sniffed the splintered handle, and looked at him like it knew a secret. Finn picked up the two pieces of his axe. He needed a new blade, a real one, and he had no idea where to find such a thing. But he wasn't leaving that mule.