The Executioner burned from the inside out. Fire poured from seams that had not been seams a moment ago, orange-white and vicious, licking out from under riveted plates and around the joints. The metal began to glow. The thing shuddered in a mechanical seizure, as if whatever spell gave it movement had just been yanked the wrong way and snapped.

  It took another step anyway.

  The platform it had smashed through was half gone, living wood splintered, roots torn and exposed like ribs. Elves screamed above the pit in voices that turned thin and high, panic burning through their calm. Someone cried a name, sharp and pleading, and then the cry broke into a sob as more of the stand collapsed.

  The boy lay on his side in the dirt where the plague toad’s tongue had dragged him. The barbs still hugged his chest under the arms, slime burning cold against his skin. He breathed in and tasted dust and bile and something sharp that smelled like hot iron.

  He pushed his hands against the ground and got his knees under him.

  The Executioner jerked again. The fire inside it flared brighter, the glow washing the underside of the stands and painting pale faces in fiery light. A few elves near the edge fell back from it, stumbling over each other, leaf-cloaks tangling.

  Princess Imrahil was gone. The staff-elf was gone. There was only broken railing and splashes of gold on the living wood.

  Good.

  He got his hand on the tongue and hauled it away from his chest. The barbs bit harder for a moment. His teeth clenched. He shoved past the pain and reached for the toad through the link that sat inside him like a hooked cord.

  Release.

  The plague toad’s lidless eye rolled toward him from across the pit. Its throat flexed, and the tongue snapped loose, slapping wetly back into its mouth. The barbs left angry welts under the boy’s arms. His shirt smoked where bile had touched it.

  He rose to his feet.

  The pit was open now. The blue dome was gone. The air above the arena felt wide and alive, and the elves in the stands suddenly looked like what they were.

  Prey.

  The boy turned his head, fast, reading motion. Elf warriors were already shifting. Some were drawing bows. Some were lifting those leaf-shaped shields to form a wall between themselves and the burning Executioner, as if wood grown into a shield could block a furnace.

  A few of them looked down at the boy.

  There was fear in their eyes.

  Accursed Hollow. Devourer.

  They had tried to make entertainment of him. Now their entertainment had turned its head and found their throats.

  The boy’s fingers tightened around his spear.

  He could run right now. He could sprint for the trees and leave this place behind him while they were still screaming. He could vanish into the forest’s green and pray his luck held.

  And he saw, beyond the rim of the arena, the tops of living roofs and the curve of root-built walls. He saw the forest beyond that. He saw the path he’d been dragged down, the lane that led to the armory, the prison where they kept the people penned.

  He remembered the child being carried away like a sack and the elf woman outside the roots smiling and talking about eating man flesh. He remembered Tsen’s face inside the dome, flat and hard, and the promise in his eyes when they dragged the boy out.

  Live.

  The boy reached inward.

  [Bestiary].

  Dire Wolf.

  Reaper Lizard.

  Bison latifrons.

  Giant Spider.

  He grabbed each name and yanked them all out.

  The air in the pit tore open.

  The wolf came first, a rush of black fur and breath like winter, paws hitting dirt with a thump that kicked dust. Its head swung up, ears sharp, eyes locked on the stands. Its lips peeled back from teeth that looked too long to fit in any sane mouth.

  The Reaper Lizard slammed in next, low and fast, scales dark as river stones. Its brightly-colored feathers shimmered in the sunlight. Its claws dug into the earth, tongue flicking, saliva dripping from its maw.

  The spider arrived with a wet scrape of legs and hair, pony-sized bulk settling and then rising, eyes reflecting firelight in a hundred tiny points. Its fangs clicked as it tasted the air, and it turned immediately toward the nearest wall like it had been born knowing how to climb.

  Then the bison.

  The air groaned when it appeared, as if the world resented having to make room. Its shoulders were a hill of muscle and shaggy hair, horns sweeping out wide enough to catch five men at once. It blew once, a violent huff that sent dust rolling, and the sound of it carried up into the stands.

  A wave of elves recoiled.

  Last, the plague toad shifted its weight and croaked. Green bile dripped from its mouth in lazy strings, hissing where it hit the dirt.

  The boy lifted his spear.

  “Kill,” he said. “Kill every elf you see. Do not stop until they’re dead or you are.”

  The dire wolf launched itself forward.

  It hit the pit wall at a run and climbed it like a thing that didn’t understand gravity had opinions. It found purchase in roots and seams, claws biting. In three bounds it was at the rim, and then it was out, a black blur racing along the broken stand.

  The Reaper Lizard followed in a different line, taking the wall at an angle, using its claws to hook and pull. It disappeared over the edge and was gone.

  The spider went straight up, legs gripping living wood, body hugging the wall as it climbed. A line of web snapped from its spinnerets, pale and glistening. It anchored it. Another line followed. It was building a ladder of silk and hate.

  The bison charged.

  It lowered its head and hit the pit wall where the roots formed ribs. The impact boomed. Living wood cracked. Green light flared along veins in the roots like pain. The wall shuddered, and then a section gave way, roots snapping under sheer force. The bison surged through, hooves tearing chunks of earth loose, and it burst out onto the outer ring of the arena with a roar of breath and muscle.

  Elves screamed and scattered.

  The plague toad hopped once, heavy as a wagon dropped from a height. It landed near the base of the stands and spat a fan of caustic bile. Green liquid arced up and splattered leaf-shields and railing. Wood smoked. A shield blackened and sagged. An elf shrieked as bile kissed a boot, then another shriek as the leather and whatever lay under it began to bubble.

  The crowd finally broke.

  They had been spectators a heartbeat ago. They had been safe, seated behind rules and a dome. Now the rules were gone and the dome was gone and their princess was dead under their own Executioner.

  Elf bodies surged away from the edge in a panicked press.

  The boy watched the movement, watched the flow, found the gap.

  He sprinted toward the breach the bison had made, boots sliding in churned dirt, spear in one hand. He took the broken lip of root and earth in two strides and hauled himself out, forearms burning. The boy hit the outer ground, dirt underfoot turning to a packed root path.

  He reached for his [Inventory] without thinking.

  The mental space opened.

  His stomach twisted with relief and rage at once.

  So it had been that staff-wielding elf. All that choking, all that helplessness, all that time with his guns locked away in a place he could not reach.

  He tasted blood between his teeth and smiled without humor.

  “Of course it was,” he muttered.

  Colt. Rifle. Powder. Food. Tools. The spear was still in his hand, his class weapon outside of that space.

  He kept running.

  Elf warriors were moving now, trying to turn panic into a line. A few had snapped into discipline, shields up, spears forward, bows rising. Their eyes were wide, but some of them still had discipline.

  One of them pointed at the boy, shouted something in their own tongue, and two others began angling toward him with nets made of braided vine.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Take him alive. That had been the order before. It felt like it still was.

  The boy did not slow. He flicked the Colt out into his hand.

  Cold steel. Familiar grip. The weight of it settled his breathing.

  He raised the Colt one-handed and fired.

  The shot cracked through the green hush of the forest, popping an elf’s head apart in a golden splatter. One elf jerked back from the thunderous boom, and then stumbled, shock on its smooth face, then collapsed as the dire wolf hit it from the side like a falling rock. It went for the throat and tore until the elf’s head was ripped from its shoulders.

  A pale ribbon of mist snapped free from the dying elf and twitched toward the boy.

  [The Hollow] pulled.

  Soul consumed!

  +2 Strength.

  +2 Dexterity.

  +2 Vitality.

  +2 Magic.

  He did not stop to savor it.

  A second elf rushed him with a spear.

  The boy slid sideways, close enough to smell sap and iron on the elf’s armor, and slammed the butt of his spear into the elf’s wrist. Bones popped. The spear fell. The boy drove the spearhead into the elf’s gut and ripped it out.

  Gold sprayed.

  The elf screamed, high and raw, then the Reaper Lizard was there. It hit low, a dark blur, jaws clamping on the elf’s thigh, before twisting. The leg went the wrong way. The elf fell, and the lizard’s claws opened the rest.

  The boy ran past them.

  The bison barreled through a cluster of elf archers trying to form up on a path. One horn lifted an elf clean off the ground. Hooves hit another and turned leaf-armor into broken bark and pulp, flesh and bones into mince.

  Elf children were screaming now from between buildings, thin voices swallowed by leaves. Adults shouted at them in sharp words, dragging them back behind trunks. Some of those adults glanced at the boy and flinched as if his shadow touched them.

  The boy’s lungs burned. His ribs ached where the Executioner had clipped him. The welts under his arms stung where the toad’s barbs had scraped. His Vitality kept the pain from becoming a wall. It still existed. It just stayed behind him instead of in front.

  He followed the path he remembered from when they dragged him, turning hard left around a root-built house that wrapped around a living tree. He nearly collided with an elf warrior coming the other direction, shield up, spear ready.

  The elf froze when it saw him.

  Not because of the boy. Because of what was behind him.

  The giant spider dropped from above, silent except for the faint rasp of legs. It landed on the warrior’s shield, weight pinning it. Web shot out in thick, glistening strands and wrapped around the helm and arms. The elf made a muffled scream as the web glued its mouth and nose. The spider’s fangs clicked once, curious.

  The boy pushed forward.

  The armory smell hit before he saw it.

  The armory building was grown like the others, but the doorway was wider, reinforced with thicker ribs of living wood. Inside, racks of elf spears and shields still lined the walls. On the central tables were the things the elves had been studying.

  Guns.

  Rifles, muskets, revolvers. Brass percussion caps in a shallow dish. Lead balls in a cloth sack. Powder poured into leaf-plates like black sand.

  An elf at one of the tables looked up as the boy burst in. Its hands were stained with oil. It held a percussion cap between finger and thumb like a jewel. Its eyes widened.

  It reached for something at its belt.

  The boy aimed the Colt and fired.

  The elf’s head burst open and it fel, collapsing over the table. Gold splashed across the leaf-plate, bright and wrong.

  He swept his hand over the table and dumped everything into his [Inventory].

  Rifles. Caps. Powder horns. Bags of lead. The revolver pieces. A tin of caps. A pouch of bullets. Anything that looked like it belonged to a human or could be made to work like a human weapon.

  A rack by the wall held more. He yanked a whole row of caplock rifles down and fed them into the void. The smell of oil clung to his hands. The wood was slick and familiar. American walnut. Iron cold under his palm.

  One of the tables held his things.

  He knew by sight before he reached them.

  His hat, battered and too big. His coat, torn and filthy. His belt, pouches and horn and knife sheath still hanging where the elves had cut them free.

  And the eagle-feather necklace.

  His chest tightened hard enough to steal a breath.

  Peta Nocona had put that around his neck like it meant something. Like it was a promise.

  The boy snatched it up.

  For half a second he considered putting it on right there. Time screamed at him. He shoved it into [Inventory] instead, safe.

  He grabbed his belt and threw it around his waist as he ran, hands moving without thought. Buckle. Pull. Tight. Knife in sheath. Powder horn thumping his hip.

  Another shout came from outside. More elves.

  They had realized the armory was being robbed.

  Good.

  The boy scooped the last dish of caps, then ran back out.

  He did not go the way he had come. He cut through a side lane between two root-grown buildings, ducking low branches. A flight of elf warriors spilled into the lane ahead, leaf-shields up, bows drawn, faces tight with fear and fury.

  A net of vine mesh was already in one of their hands.

  The boy skidded to a stop, then pivoted and sprinted sideways.

  The bison hit them from behind.

  It came through the lane like thunder given horns. An elf turned just in time to see a wall of shaggy hair and bone and hate, and then it was gone under hooves. The shield wall folded like paper. Spears snapped. An arrow fired wild and buried itself in a living wall.

  The boy ran past the wreckage without slowing.

  He could hear the arena behind him in pieces, screams and cracks and the roar of beasts.

  Smoke was rising now. He had no idea where it was coming from.

  He followed the memory. Down the slope. Past a cluster of homes. Around a thick tree with a trunk like a courthouse pillar. Then the clearing where the prison dome sat.

  The dome was still there.

  A woven ball of roots fused together, hard as rock. It looked peaceful from a distance, almost like a hill that had grown ribs. Up close it was a cage.

  Elves stood guard around it, fewer than before. Some had run toward the arena. Some were dead in the lanes. These remaining ones were trying to keep their faces calm, but their hands were tight on their spears.

  They saw the boy coming and their eyes narrowed.

  Two moved to intercept him. One lifted a net. Another raised a staff, fingers already flexing like plucking strings.

  The boy pulled the rifle from his [Inventory] and took aim.

  He fired.

  The bullet hit the staff-elf in the chest and knocked it back hard. It crashed into the root wall and slid down, gold already leaking between its fingers.

  The second elf threw the net.

  The dire wolf hit the net in midair.

  It snapped its jaws on the braided vine and yanked, dragging the net and the elf holding it forward. The elf screamed as it lost its footing. The wolf hit it, teeth in throat, and shook until the scream stopped.

  The boy reached the dome.

  The boy lifted his spear.

  He set the tip against the roots and shoved.

  The Beastmaster’s Spear bit.

  Pale sparks flickered along the spearhead. The living wood resisted, not like dead timber, but like muscle. It flexed. It tried to close around the tip.

  The boy snarled and drove harder.

  The spear cut a line through bark and into the braided thickness beneath. Green light flared along veins. He gritted his teeth and kept pushing.

  He saw a slit open. Then another cut. He worked fast, carving a rough rectangle, forcing the spear through and levering it as if he were breaking a lock.

  The roots cracked.

  A section gave way.

  Light spilled in from outside, and faces inside the dome turned toward it like flowers toward sun.

  The boy saw Tsen first.

  The Kiowa was already on his feet, eyes wide, braid loose over one shoulder, blood dried on his arm. He stared at the boy, then at the dead elf outside, then at the wolf standing over a corpse with its muzzle wet.

  Then Tsen’s gaze snapped to the boy’s hands.

  To the rifle.

  To the spear.

  “You live,” Tsen said, voice flat with disbelief. “Badger Boy indeed.”

  “Move,” the boy said. “Get everyone out.”

  He yanked his [Inventory] open and started pulling weapons out as fast as his hands could move. Rifles first. Then powder horns. Then bags of lead. Then tins and pouches of caps.

  He shoved them through the hole into waiting hands.

  The Cheyenne already knew how to handle these weapons, most of which probably belonged to them in the first place. Hands moved with memory. Rojas appeared at the edge of the hole, eyes bloodshot, face tight with anger. He grabbed a rifle and a powder bag in one motion.

  “About damn time,” he spat.

  Nantan came next, one arm wrapped around Kanii’s shoulders. Kanii looked bruised, but his eyes were alive and sharp. Nantan’s gaze flicked to the dead staff-elf and the wolf and the bison in the distance, and his mouth curled into something that might have been a grin.

  “You make big trouble,” Nantan said.

  “Help,” the boy said, and shoved another rifle into his hands.

  Tavo limped into view, hand pressed to his bandaged side. His eyes went to the spear cuts in the roots, then to the boy.

  “You bring whole stampede,” Tavo said, voice tight with something like pride.

  The boy did not answer. He kept handing out guns.

  The first wave of captives surged toward the hole. Women with children. Old men. Young boys with knives in their hands and hate in their eyes. He threw a rifle to a Cheyenne youth who caught it clumsily. The boy met his eyes, held them for a breath, then shoved a pouch of caps and bullets and a bag of black powder into his hands too.

  “Don’t waste ‘em,” the boy said.

  The youth nodded hard, jaw clenched.

  Elves were shouting now from the trees, closer. Feet pounding on root paths. The sound of arrows flying. A horn call somewhere deeper in the forest, low and urgent.

  The boy turned his head and saw them coming.

  A line of elf warriors pushing through brush, shields up, bows rising behind them. Their faces were tight. Their eyes flicked to the hole in the dome. To the people spilling out. To the guns.

  The boy yanked two more rifles out and shoved them into Cheyenne hands. He pointed, sharp.

  “Shoot ‘em,” he said. “Kill ‘em all.”

  The Cheyenne leader, the tall man with flint eyes, lifted his rifle, set it to his shoulder, and took a breath as he tasted freedom.

  He fired.

  The shot cracked and the nearest elf behind a shield jerked as the ball punched into the grown wood and kept going. The elf stumbled back, surprise on its perfect face, then fell.

  A murmur rolled through the freed people.

  Hope.

  Anger.

  The boy felt it catch like fire through dry grass.

  Another rifle fired. Then another. Caps snapped. Smoke puffed, gray and familiar in the green forest. The smell of black powder cut through sap and rot and made the boy’s lungs feel like home for half a second.

  The elves faltered. Their armors and shields could do little against bullets.

  Behind the shield line, an elf lifted a staff and pointed.

  Roots on the ground twitched, vines stirring as if to lash up and bind ankles.

  The boy saw it start and reacted before anyone else could.

  He yanked his Colt up and shot the staff-elf through the throat.

  The elf dropped the staff. The vines went limp.

  “We can’t stay here,” Rojas said. “They outnumber us.”

  The boy nodded. “Someone other than me is gonna have to organize the retreat.”