Grok Strongarm swung his axe, and the third tree of the morning crashed down. He wanted the forest gone. Every tree of it. His companion lived in the pen at the forest's edge, and the pen needed oil and supplies that only cleared land could bring. So Grok would fell every tree until nothing stood between his friend and the open sky. He was big. He was strong. No trunk could stop him. He worked fast. Bark split under each blow. Sap ran down his arms. By noon he had dropped a dozen trees, and his pile of logs reached his chest. He grinned and wiped his face. "More," he said. "Grok cut more." Then he reached the heart of the forest and stopped. A tree stood there wider than ten men. But it was not the tree that froze him. A chair sat against the trunk. Gold covered every inch of it. Carved leaves curled up the arms, and red jewels glowed in the wood. Grok had never seen gold. He touched one arm. It was warm. Something moved behind the chair. A creature stepped out. It was small, no taller than Grok's waist. Its body was gray like an elephant's, but a tiger's striped head turned to face him. Wings folded on its back. It walked on horse feet, and its tail wagged like a dog's. Two small human hands hung at its sides. It looked at Grok's pile of fallen logs, then at his axe. Grok raised the axe. "You go," he said. "Grok needs this tree." The creature did not run. It climbed onto the gold chair and sat. Its little hands gripped the arms. It stared at him, calm, as if the seat belonged to it and always had. "Move," Grok said. He stepped closer. The creature opened its tiger mouth. It did not roar. It spoke, in a voice small and clear. "Cut this tree," it said, "and the pen falls with it." Grok stopped. "You lie." The creature pointed one hand up. High in the branches, ropes ran out from the trunk and vanished over the treetops toward the pen. Grok followed them with his eyes. His stomach went cold. The whole pen hung from this one tree. Cut it, and everything his companion owned would drop. Grok lowered his axe. His arms shook. He had come to fell every tree, and now the biggest tree of all was the one he could not touch. The creature settled deeper into the gold chair. "So," it said. "We talk." Grok looked at the ropes, then at the small creature on the throne. His plan was broken. He could not cut this tree. But he could not leave it standing either. He set his axe down in the dirt and sat across from the creature. For the first time, Grok Strongarm did not know what to do next.

Grok sat across from the small creature on the gold chair. The ropes hung above them. He could not cut the great tree without dropping his companion's pen. He had come to fell the whole forest. Now he could not swing his axe at all. He rubbed his head and stared at the dirt. Then the ground shook. Grok jumped up and grabbed his axe. A shape rose between the trees. It stood taller than Grok, and its body was made of wood. Bark covered its arms. Green leaves grew at its shoulders. A robe of green hung over its trunk. Two eyes glowed white in a face of carved wood. Roots dragged behind it as it walked. This was the king of the trees. Grok had felled dozens of his subjects. Now the king had come for the man who dropped them. The creature on the gold chair went still. It gripped the arms with its little hands and did not speak. The tree king stopped in front of Grok. His branches creaked. "You cut my trees," he said. "Twelve today. Many before." "Grok needs the land," Grok said. "My friend needs oil. Needs supplies." "Your need is not my problem." The king raised one wooden hand. "You cut. So we fight. This is war." Roots burst from the ground around Grok's feet. They wrapped his legs and pulled. Grok roared and swung the axe. The blade bit into a root and split it. Sap sprayed his chest. More roots came. One caught his wrist and squeezed until his fingers loosened. Grok twisted free and charged. He drove his shoulder into the king's trunk. The king staggered back into the great tree. The ropes above them jerked. The pen swung far overhead. Grok looked up and froze. If he broke the king against that tree, the pen would fall. The king saw him look. He understood. "Ah," he said. "You fear the ropes too." Grok lowered the axe. His arms burned. He would not risk his friend to win. He stepped back and set the blade in the dirt. "Grok stops," he said. "Grok will not fight here." The king held still. His white eyes studied the man. Then his roots pulled back into the ground. "You spared the great tree," he said. "So I spare you. Today." He turned and walked into the forest. His last words came back through the trees. "But the war is not done. Cut one more, and I bring the whole forest down on you." Then he was gone. Grok stood alone with the small creature and the empty gold chair. His plan lay broken at his feet. He could not fell the forest now, not with the king watching every trunk. He picked up his axe and stared at the trees around him. To help his friend, he would have to face the king again. And next time, the whole forest would come.

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.

The smoke still hung over the ruined grove when Grok and the tree king began their search. They needed a way to stop the winged beast. It had burned trees and a golden house, and it would come back. Grok knelt by a fallen trunk and pushed the ash aside with his hands. His boar dug beside him, snout in the dirt. The tree king raised his roots and turned the black soil over. "Look for anything strange," the king said. "The beast fears something. Find it." Grok's boar squealed and clawed at the ground. Grok dug where it pointed. His fingers struck something smooth and round. He lifted it free. It was an orb of pale glass, warm in his palm. Light moved inside it like slow fire. The tree king leaned close. His white eyes glowed brighter. "That is old," he said. "Older than my forest. Put it in the beast's mouth. It will drink the beast's power." Grok closed his hand around the orb. "How do we get near its mouth?" "We do not chase it," the king said. "We wait. It hunts here. It will return." They did not wait long. A roar came from the sky. The beast dropped through the smoke, wings spread wide, its tiger head snarling. Fire dripped from its jaws. Its horse feet slammed the ground and split the earth. Grok ran at it with the orb held high. The beast turned and breathed flame. Grok dove behind a fallen trunk. Heat rolled over his back. The tree king thrust his roots up from the soil. They wrapped the beast's legs and pinned it in place. It thrashed and screeched, but the roots held. "Now," the king said. "The mouth." Grok climbed the trunk and leaped onto the beast's striped neck. It bucked under him. He gripped a horn with one hand. With the other he jammed the orb between its teeth. The beast bit down. The glass cracked. Light poured out. It flowed from the beast into the orb, bright and fast. The fire in its jaws died. Its wings sagged. Its roar shrank to a low whine. The beast dropped to the ground, small and quiet, no bigger than the boar. Its flames were gone. Grok slid off and stood over it, breathing hard. The powerless creature blinked up at him. It did not burn. It did not fight. The tree king pulled his roots back into the soil. "The beast is beaten," he said. "You kept your word. You fought it with no axe." Grok looked at his empty hands, then at the shrunken beast. The threat was gone. But so was the fire that had cleared his trees faster than any blade. He still had a forest to fell for his friend's pen, and no tool to fell it with. And now the tree king watched him, the shared enemy dead, the truce with nothing left to hold it together.