The Cheyenne did not let the boy stay awake in one place long enough to feel safe.

  He came up out of the dust and pain, drank from a canteen until his stomach clenched, and then hands were already shoving him toward a horse. A small one. Hard-muscled. Narrow-chested. More pony than cavalry mount. Its coat was the color of dried grass and its mane was hacked short. It stood with its head low and its ears half back, watching the world like it expected the world to bite. The Cheyenne, he was told, had recovered their horses a day after they crossed the river.

  The boy’s bandages pulled when he swung up. His ribs lit hot for a moment. His shoulder complained. He clenched his jaw and made himself settle into the saddle anyway.

  Rojas rode on his left, jaw set, eyes raw-red like he hadn’t slept in a week. The Cheyenne leader rode ahead—tall, long-haired, face painted in dull stripes that had been bright once. He kept looking back over his shoulder at the horizon.

  Comancheria spread out wide and bare beneath a high sky. Low grass bent in the wind. Mesquite and prickly pear dotted the land in scattered clumps. Far off, heat shimmered and blurred the line where earth ended and air began.

  Nothing about it looked like the wet green forest the elves had built.

  But the boy had already learned the land could lie.

  A Cheyenne rider came up on the right, leaned low over his horse’s neck, and pointed behind them.

  Dust.

  Not one plume. Many.

  The Cheyenne leader lifted a hand and the column tightened without him saying a word. Horses pressed closer. Women leaned forward over children and murmured to them. Men shifted their rifles and bows to where their hands could reach.

  Rojas looked over his shoulder once and spat into the dirt as his horse kept moving.

  “Here we go,” he said.

  The boy twisted in the saddle and squinted into the heat haze.

  At first he saw nothing but dust and shimmer.

  Then the shapes resolved.

  Elk. Not anything that belonged on these plains. These were tall, lean, long-legged things built for running, their hides a smoke-gray that drank the sun. Their antlers curved forward like hooks, thick and sharp, and their eyes were too bright in their skulls.

  Elves rode them.

  Leaf-armor. Pale helms. Long bows held low against their thighs. They moved as one line, not breaking, not wavering. The elk ate ground without seeming to tire. And above them—higher, where the air was clear—a shadow circled.

  It cut across the sun like a knife.

  Wings.

  The shadow dipped and the boy saw gold and gray fur, a long tail, and a head like a lion’s.

  A winged lion.

  A rider sat astride it like he’d been born there. Silver armor covered him from throat to heel, plates polished bright enough to flash, metal worked into clean lines that didn’t belong in a world of roots and vines.

  The boy felt the System stir in his skull like a cold finger.

  [High Elf]

  [?? Silver Warden]

  [Winged Lion]

  His stomach went tight.

  Rojas saw the look on his face.

  “Don’t tell me that thing flies,” Rojas muttered.

  The winged lion folded its wings for a heartbeat and dropped like a stone, then snapped them open again and leveled out, gliding above the elk line like a hawk watching rabbits.

  “It flies,” the boy said.

  Rojas made a sound in his throat and leaned forward, digging his heels into his horse.

  “Ride,” he barked to the Cheyenne in rough English. “Ride like hell’s after you.”

  The Cheyenne didn’t need the translation.

  The column surged.

  Horses stretched out. Hooves hammered the hard ground. Dust billowed up in a choking tail behind them.

  The boy kept looking back.

  The elk line did not fall behind.

  Elk moved different than horses. Their strides were longer, smoother, built for distance. They didn’t bob and pound the way horseflesh did. They flowed, steady and relentless, antlers rocking in rhythm like scythes.

  The silver rider above raised one hand.

  His winged lion screamed.

  The sound punched straight through the boy’s ribs, not loud so much as sharp, like a hook snagging the inside of his chest. Horses in the Cheyenne column shied and snorted. A child began to cry and was hushed hard.

  The elf line answered the scream with motion.

  Bows came up.

  The first volley arced out of them like a flock of black birds.

  Arrows hissed over the prairie, the sound thin and fast in the wind.

  One struck a Cheyenne horse in the rump. The animal screamed and kicked, stumbled, and went down hard. The rider rolled free, came up with a knife in one hand and a child in the other—he shoved the child toward a woman, then turned back to drag the horse’s reins out of the tangle so it wouldn’t break its neck.

  Another arrow hit a man behind him in the shoulder. He jerked and nearly fell off his saddle. Two hands caught his belt and hauled him back upright.

  The boy reached into his head.

  [Inventory].

  He pulled the elf bow out. He nocked an arrow from a quiver that’d been given to him by a Cheyenne woman and drew while his horse ran. The bow wanted his back more than his arm. It pulled at his shoulder blades like it was trying to peel him open. He let it. He aimed for an elk’s chest and loosed.

  The arrow flew low and straight.

  It struck between the animal’s ribs and sank deep. The elk staggered, legs throwing dust, then kept running—until it took a second step and its front legs folded and it went down. The elf on its back flew, hit the ground, rolled, and came up with a knife in his hand.

  Then a Cheyenne rifle cracked behind the boy and the elf’s head snapped back and he went flat.

  The boy’s breath hitched.

  A pale ribbon of mist peeled loose from the dead elf and snapped toward him.

  [The Hollow] opened.

  Soul Consumed!

  +2 Strength

  +2 Dexterity

  +2 Vitality

  +2 Magic

  He drew again.

  More arrows came from the elf line. A second volley. A third. They weren’t firing wild. They weren’t trying to kill the whole column. They were picking.

  They hit a horse’s neck and it dropped like the earth had yanked it down. They hit a man’s thigh and he slid sideways out of the saddle, caught by his brother’s hand, dragged along until he could find his feet again. They hit straps. Reins. Packs. Anything that slowed.

  The silver rider above watched. His winged lion glided in slow circles, wings barely moving, as if the air was eager to hold it up. Rojas fired his rifle over his shoulder without looking. The shot boomed. Smoke drifted back into the boy’s face and stung his eyes.

  An elk rider jerked as the ball punched through his leaf-armor and he toppled backward off the mount, gold misting the air.

  “Don’t stop,” Rojas said. “We can’t let them close.”

  The Cheyenne leader flicked his hand and two riders peeled off to the left, angling toward a shallow draw where the prairie dipped. They began to weave through mesquite and scrub, trying to pull some of the elk line with them.

  The elf riders split without hesitation.

  Half followed. They moved like water.

  The boy kept shooting.

  He wasn’t counting arrows. His fingers moved and his eyes found gaps and his body did the rest. He put one shaft into an elf’s throat where the helm didn’t cover. Another into a wrist as a bowstring drew. Another into an elk’s eye.

  The elk screamed and went down, legs folding, antlers digging up dirt.

  The elf on its back hit hard and rolled, and for a heartbeat the boy saw that perfect face—smooth skin, bright eyes, mouth pulled into something like disgust.

  Then another elk rider leapt over the fallen body and the moment was gone.

  The silver rider shifted in his saddle.

  He leaned forward and patted his winged lion’s neck like it was a horse.

  The beast banked, wings tilting. It dropped lower. A long lance lay across the rider’s thigh, the head shaped like a thin spear of pale steel. The elf’s helm had no ornament. Just a smooth faceplate with narrow eye slits, and behind those slits something bright watched the boy.

  The winged lion’s eyes locked on him.

  Its mouth opened.

  It screamed again.

  The sound hit the boy’s horse like a whip. The animal stumbled, ears flattening, and the boy had to lean low and grab mane to keep from being thrown.

  He felt the urge, sudden and sick, to vomit. His stomach clenched against nothing. He swallowed it down and forced his horse forward.

  Rojas looked back, saw the winged lion dropping.

  “Shoot it,” he snarled.

  The boy raised the elf bow and loosed at the winged lion’s chest.

  The arrow struck fur and sank in a handspan.

  The winged lion didn’t even flinch.

  It snapped its head toward the boy, wings beating once—hard—and the gust slammed into the Cheyenne column like a shove.

  Dust exploded. Horses reared. A woman screamed as she nearly fell off and a man grabbed her by the wrist and hauled her back into the saddle. The boy’s pony fought the wind, hooves skittering.

  The winged lion banked away, then came back in a low pass. The silver rider lifted his lance.

  The boy’s pulse jumped.

  The lance dipped toward the rear of the column—toward a pair of riders carrying a child between them.

  The boy drew and aimed at the silver rider’s faceplate. He loosed. The arrow hit the helm dead center and shattered into splinters, sparks flickering pale green along the impact point.

  The silver rider didn’t move.

  He didn’t even turn his head.

  The lance went on.

  It punched down like a stake.

  One of the Cheyenne riders jerked as the point took him through the shoulder and pinned him to his saddle for a breath. The boy saw gold, saw red—human blood, not elf—and then the rider slid off and hit the ground, dragged by his horse for a moment until the reins snapped free.

  The child screamed. The other rider wheeled, trying to scoop the child up alone. The winged lion passed again, claws out, and raked across the horse’s flank. Meat opened. The horse screamed and went down, rolling, crushing the rider beneath it. The child tumbled free into the grass.

  The boy’s vision narrowed.

  He leaned low and kicked his pony harder. Rojas shouted something in Spanish that sounded like a curse and an order all at once. He spurred his horse, turning back toward the fallen child. The boy reached inward.

  The Colt sat in his [Inventory], heavy and familiar.

  He pulled it out into his hand.

  The weight steadied him and he loaded as fast as his hands could maneuver.

  The silver rider saw it.

  Even through the narrow eye slits, the boy caught the shift—a sharp stillness, like a man flinching without moving. The winged lion’s wings beat once, hard, lifting it higher.

  The elf didn’t want to be under thunder.

  Good.

  The boy raised the Colt and fired at the winged lion as it climbed. The shot cracked across the prairie. Smoke stung his eyes again. The ball struck the beast’s chest and disappeared into fur and muscle. The winged lion jerked midair. Its scream turned ugly.

  It still climbed.

  The silver rider leveled his lance toward the boy now.

  Rojas reached the child first.

  He leaned low out of his saddle and snatched the screaming thing up by the shirt, hauling it against his chest like a sack, and turned his horse back toward the column. An elf arrow hissed in and struck the child’s shoulder. The child shrieked and went limp. Rojas’ jaw went tight. He didn’t slow. He just tucked the child tighter and kept riding.

  The boy’s fingers tightened on the Colt until the grip bit into his palm.

  He fired again, aiming not at the winged lion now but at the rider’s throat.

  The ball hit the silver plate and sparked. The silver rider did not die. The boy’s eyes widened.

  That… was a first.

  He lifted his lance, and the winged lion folded its wings and dropped.

  The boy saw the angle.

  Saw where it was going.

  Not at him.

  At the column’s center, where the women rode. Rojas was still turning back in. The Cheyenne leader shouted something in his own tongue, sharp and raw.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Men spread out. Rifles came up.

  The boy shoved the Colt back into [Inventory] and yanked his rifle out instead.

  Cap. Aim. Fire.

  The shot punched into the winged lion’s shoulder as it dropped.

  The beast’s flight wobbled. It hit the ground hard, skidding in the grass, wings flaring.

  The silver rider stayed on.

  He rolled off in a clean motion, feet hitting earth, lance still in his hands.

  The winged lion rose, shaking itself, blood darkening its fur where the rifle ball had hit.

  It did not look hurt enough.

  The silver rider turned his helm toward the boy. He lifted one hand—not the lance hand—and pointed. His voice carried across the prairie, clear as if he stood beside the boy.

  “Bring me the Hollow.”

  The elk line surged. They stopped firing in scattered volleys and began to close, riders pushing hard, bows lowered. The Cheyenne leader snapped his hand down.

  A small group of Cheyenne riders wheeled and fired as they ran, keeping the elk line from swallowing them outright. Smoke puffed and drifted. Rifle balls cracked into elk bodies and elf armor. An elk went down and rolled. Its rider hit the ground and was trampled by the mounts behind him. The elves did not slow. They rode over their own dead like it meant nothing.

  The boy’s pony stumbled in a prairie dog hole and nearly threw him. He caught himself, teeth clenched, and forced it back into a run.

  The world ahead dipped again.

  A dry creek bed cut through the land like a scar, banks steep and pale with exposed limestone. The Cheyenne leader drove his horse toward it without hesitation.

  The first horses slid down the bank and splashed through dust at the bottom, hooves scraping stone. The boy followed, pony scrambling, bandages pulling hard across his ribs. He tasted bile. Above, the winged lion spread its wings again and rose, circling. How is that thing still flyin’?

  The silver rider climbed back onto its shoulders in one motion and pointed down at the creek bed. A staff-elf rode up behind him on an elk, lifted a hand, and traced something in the air.

  The boy saw the gesture and his skin prickled.

  The air above the creek bed shimmered. Blue light flickered between the banks like lightning caught in a net. The boy’s eyes widened.

  A wall began to form across the creek bed ahead of the Cheyenne—thin at first, then thicker, humming as it stretched from bank to bank. A trap. Rojas saw it. He shouted, “Left!”

  The Cheyenne leader jerked his horse sideways, turning hard along the creek bed instead of straight through. The column followed, chaos and near-collisions and shouted words in Cheyenne. Horses slipped on stone. A woman nearly fell. A man grabbed her belt and hauled her along.

  The blue wall finished forming behind them, sealing the creek bed like a gate.

  The elk riders reached it and didn’t slow. They hit it—and bounced. The elk screamed, eyes rolling. One slammed into the blue and recoiled, stumbling back with foam on its mouth. An elf rider pitched forward over antlers and hit the blue barrier face-first.

  The blue burned him. He screamed and fell back, skin blistering, eyes white. The boy watched the elf’s hands claw at the ground.

  The smell of burned meat hit him. His stomach turned.

  The silver rider did not react like the others. He did not let his elk riders pile up against the barrier. He lifted his hand again and pointed farther out on the prairie.

  A new sound rolled in.

  A deep roar.

  Not from the winged lion.

  From the sky.

  The boy looked up.

  At first he saw only clouds.

  Then something slid out of them.

  Blue.

  Wings spread wide enough to blot out the sun.

  A dragon.

  “Dear lord….”

  It came down in a slow, deliberate glide, as if it had all the time in the world. Its scales caught light in cold flashes. Its head was long and angular, horns swept back, eyes bright as coins.

  The System whispered again, colder than before.

  [Blue Dragon] – Rank ???

  [??]

  The boy’s throat tightened.

  The dragon opened its mouth. Blue fire spilled out. It struck the prairie ahead of the Cheyenne column and the grass went up in a rush, flaring as if the land had been soaked in oil.

  Heat slammed into the creek bed. The air turned sharp. Smoke rolled low and fast, biting at eyes and throat.

  Horses screamed.

  Children cried.

  Rojas coughed once, eyes watering, and spat.

  “Move!” he barked, voice turning hoarse. “Move, move!”

  The Cheyenne leader drove his horse along the creek bed, then angled up the bank at a place where the slope was less steep.

  The boy followed, pony scrambling, hooves tearing loose stone and dirt.

  They burst out of the creek bed into a world of fire.

  Grass burned in long lines where the dragon’s breath had touched, flames running with the wind. Smoke blew sideways across the prairie and turned the sun into a pale coin.

  The Cheyenne column split without meaning to.

  Some rode right through low flames, horses leaping, hooves landing on blackened ground. Some veered left toward patches not yet burning. Some hesitated and were shoved forward by bodies behind them.

  An elk rider burst through smoke on the far right, antlers cutting the air.

  The boy raised his rifle and fired. The ball took the elf under the jaw. Gold sprayed and vanished into smoke. The elk kept running, riderless, eyes rolling wild.

  The dragon banked overhead and breathed again.

  Blue fire swept across the ground and turned a stand of mesquite into a torch. Leaves shriveled. Bark cracked. The smell of burning sap hit like a slap.

  The boy’s pony stumbled as smoke filled its nostrils.

  The boy leaned low, grabbed mane, and forced it on. He saw the winged lion again—above the smoke, still circling. The silver rider sat straight in the saddle like he owned the sky.

  Below him, elk riders began to pour around the creek bed trap, finding ways across.

  They weren’t slowed for long.

  They didn’t need long.

  They just needed the Cheyenne to break.

  And they were breaking.

  A woman screamed as her horse caught a burning patch and reared, throwing her. She hit the ground and rolled, hair catching sparks. A Cheyenne man jumped down off his horse to grab her, dragging her toward a patch of bare earth. His sleeve caught fire. He slapped it out with his hand and kept dragging.

  An elk rider came out of smoke, bow already drawn.

  The boy saw it and raised his rifle—

  The dragon’s shadow slid over them.

  Blue fire hit the elk rider instead.

  The elk screamed and collapsed, hide burning in a clean, horrible sheet. The elf rider fell off and rolled in the grass, trying to smother flame that didn’t smoke.

  The boy’s breath caught.

  The dragon wasn’t just burning land.

  It was burning anything.

  It did not care what it hit.

  The silver rider above lifted his lance toward the dragon, as if guiding it.

  The boy’s teeth clenched.

  The Cheyenne leader shouted again, pointing toward a low line of rocks in the distance—crags jutting up out of the prairie like broken teeth.

  Cover.

  If they could reach it.

  Rojas leaned close to the boy as they rode, voice tight.

  “Keep your head down,” he said. “They’re fixing to end this.”

  The boy didn’t answer.

  He could taste smoke. His eyes watered. His ribs hurt every time his horse’s gait jolted him.

  He kept riding.

  Then the prairie ahead exploded.

  Dust.

  A wall of dust rose up out of the ground like the land had been punched from below.

  Something huge slammed into the grass and tore it up, running straight at the elf line.

  The boy blinked hard against smoke and squinted.

  Boars.

  Gigantic boars.

  Bigger than horses, shoulders like boulders, tusks long and curved like scythes. Their hides were dark and bristled, and their eyes were small and mean. They ran low, fast, tearing up earth.

  Greenskins rode them. Big. Broad. Green hides like bruised grass. Tusks jutting from their lower jaws. Their armor was scrap and bone and hammered metal. They held axes and spears and crude bows, and they screamed as they charged—raw voices full of hunger and hate. They hit the elk riders like a storm.

  Boar tusks ripped through elk bellies. Elk screamed and went down. Orks leapt from saddles onto elf riders and hacked until gold sprayed.

  The elf line buckled.

  The silver rider’s winged lion banked hard, wings beating, and climbed higher as if the air below had turned poisonous.

  The boy stared.

  Where the hell had they come from?

  Then a sound rolled across the prairie that made even the dragon pause.

  A roar.

  Deeper than the blue dragon’s.

  Thicker.

  Like a mountain clearing its throat.

  The boy looked up through smoke.

  Something green slid out of the clouds.

  Bigger.

  Wings wider.

  A dragon the color of swamp water and fresh bruises, scales dull and thick, horns sweeping back like broken branches. Its head was broader than the blue dragon’s, jaw heavy with teeth that looked built for crushing.

  A greenskin sat on its back. He was massive even from a distance, shoulders like a bear’s, arms thick as tree trunks. His armor was a patchwork of plates and bone and something that looked like scales. He held a weapon like a two-handed cleaver, blade wide as a shovel. He lifted it and roared.

  The green dragon answered with a blast of breath that wasn’t fire.

  A foul stream that hit an elk rider and melted leaf-armor and flesh into a smoking heap.

  The blue dragon screamed, banking away.

  The green dragon turned toward it.

  For a heartbeat the sky was full of wings.

  Blue and green.

  The winged lion circled above them like a vulture waiting to pick at whatever fell.

  Below, boars and elk tore each other apart. Greenskins hacked at elves. Elves stabbed back with leaf-spears, fast and clean. Gold sprayed. Dark blood sprayed. Smoke mixed with dust until the world looked like a war painting.

  The silver rider pointed down and the winged lion dove.

  It hit a boar from above, claws sinking into bristle and muscle, and ripped its head sideways. The boar squealed and went down, legs scrabbling.

  The silver rider’s lance punched down into a Greenskin’s chest and pinned it to its saddle. The beast twitched, then went limp.

  A Greenskin beside it swung an axe up at the winged lion’s leg. The axe bit. Fur and blood flew. The winged lion screamed and kicked, crushing the ork’s head into the dirt.

  The boy’s pony shied at the noise. The Cheyenne around him stared too, faces tight, eyes wide.

  Two dragons.

  A war between monsters.

  The boy saw the gap.

  Smoke. Dust. Screaming.

  The elf line was no longer a straight pursuit.

  It was chaos.

  Rojas saw it too.

  He leaned forward and shouted in English, voice harsh enough to cut through the noise.

  “Go! Now!”

  The Cheyenne leader didn’t hesitate.

  He drove his horse toward the line of rocks, angling away from the dragon fire and away from the battle.

  The column followed—ragged, stretched out, horses lathered, some riders doubled up, some on foot being dragged by hands on their belts.

  The boy looked back once.

  The blue dragon swooped low and breathed, blue fire cutting across boars and elk alike. Orks burned. Elves burned. The grass burned again, lines of flame racing with the wind. The green dragon slammed into the blue dragon midair.

  Wings collided. The sky shook.

  They tumbled through smoke in a knot of teeth and scales. They hit the ground hard enough to throw dust up in a ring. The winged lion screamed and climbed, banking away from the impact.

  Below, the apparent leader of the Greenskins raised his cleaver and roared again, pointing at the elves.

  Boars surged.

  Elk reared.

  Bodies vanished under hooves.

  The boy forced himself to turn forward.

  They ran.

  They hit the rocks and cut between them, slipping into a shallow ravine where the wind couldn’t push smoke as hard. Horses stumbled on stone and dirt. Men cursed. Women hissed prayers. Children sobbed in thin, exhausted sounds.

  The boy’s lungs burned.

  He tasted ash.

  Behind them, the battle roared on. But the chase wasn’t over.

  It found them again on the far side of the ravine.

  A handful of elk riders broke away from the chaos, slipping through smoke like ghosts.

  And behind them—boar riders too.

  Elves and Greenskins both.

  Both hungry.

  Both pointing toward the fleeing humans as if the humans were a prize they didn’t want the other to steal.

  The boy’s mouth went dry.

  Rojas glanced back and his face tightened.

  “Of course,” he muttered. “Of course they didn’t kill each other enough.”

  An elf rider loosed an arrow. It hissed past the boy’s ear and punched into the rump of the Cheyenne leader’s horse. The horse screamed and stumbled. The leader slapped its neck hard and kept it running.

  A greenskin rider on a boar threw a crude spear. It tumbled end over end and struck a Cheyenne man in the back, pinning him forward against his saddle. The man made a sound like a cough and slid off, hitting the ground hard.

  The boar rider screamed and charged toward the fallen body. An elf rider cut across and drove a leaf-spear into the boar’s flank. The boar squealed and turned, tusks snapping, and the elf rider nearly fell as the elk under him skittered.

  The greenskin swung his axe at the elf. The elf ducked and the axe caught the elk’s neck. The elk went down. The boy watched the two of them hit the ground together, tangle, stab, hack. Gold and dark blood sprayed.

  The silver rider was nowhere in sight now—lost in the dragon war and boar stampede behind.

  A boar rider gained on the rear of the column, tusks cutting the air, mouth foaming.

  The boy aimed his rifle and fired into its eye.

  The bullet blasted apart its left leg, instead. The boar screamed and fell, slamming into a mesquite clump hard enough to snap branches. The greenskin on its back flew, hit the ground, and rolled to his feet with an axe raised. An elk rider slid in from the side and put an arrow into the beast’s throat.

  The greenskin gurgled and fell. The elk rider turned his bright eyes toward the boy.

  The elf raised his bow toward the boy. Then a second Greenskin barreled in on a boar and smashed into the elk’s flank.The elk screamed, legs folding, and the elf rider went down under hooves.

  The boy kept riding.

  The pursuit behind them tore itself apart while it chased.

  An elf rider loosed at the Cheyenne and hit a greenskin instead, the arrow punching into green shoulder. The greenskin roared and hurled a spear into the elf’s chest. The elf slid off his elk like a puppet with strings cut.

  A boar rider tried to cut through the Cheyenne column and got a rifle ball through the cheek. His head snapped sideways and he fell, dragged a few yards by his boar before he let go.

  The boy did not savor any of it.

  He just kept reloading and then shooting when targets lined up.

  He saw an elf rider angling in with a net—braided vine mesh, thrown low. The boy put a bullet through the elf’s wrist. The net dropped. The elf screamed and nearly fell off his elk. A boar rider surged up beside him and hacked him out of the saddle. Gold sprayed.

  The boy swallowed hard and forced his eyes forward again.

  The land opened into a long, shallow basin of grass and scattered scrub. The sky above was clear here, wind pushing smoke away, leaving the sunlight harsh and honest.

  Far ahead, on the horizon, a dust line rose.

  Ahead.

  A moving wall.

  The Cheyenne leader saw it first.

  He lifted his hand and shouted something in Cheyenne that made the column tighten again, fear turning into a sharp, desperate hope.

  Rojas squinted, then his mouth opened.

  “Cavalry,” he rasped.

  The boy’s throat tightened. He couldn’t see details yet, just the line of movement—horses, many, coming fast.

  The elk riders behind them saw it too.

  They pushed harder.

  A greenskin rider screamed and drove his boar into a sprint, tusks lowered.

  The boy’s horse stumbled from fatigue and nearly went down. The boy slapped its neck and leaned forward, whispering something useless into its ear.

  The dust line ahead grew.

  Shapes resolved.

  Riders.

  Not Cheyenne.

  Different hair. Different paint. Different weapons. Some carried lances. Some carried bows. Some carried rifles held across their saddles. Feathers flashed in the sun. Shields of hide and wood. Faces hard with intent.

  Kiowa.

  Comanche.

  Lipan Apache.

  A whole wave of them, thundering across the prairie.

  The boy felt something in his chest loosen, just a fraction.

  Not relief.

  Not yet.

  The pursuers were still close enough that their arrows hissed past the Cheyenne rear. One arrow struck a Cheyenne woman in the back. She jerked, made a small sound, and slumped forward over her horse’s neck. The child in front of her screamed.

  The boy’s vision narrowed again.

  He aimed and shot at the elf who’d shot.

  The bullet took the elf through the throat. Gold sprayed.

  The elf fell. The elk behind him stumbled over the body and went down, rolling. The boy’s horse kept running.

  The cavalry ahead broke into a gallop. They were close enough now that the boy could see faces.

  And he saw him.

  Peta Nocona.

  He rode at the front edge of the Comanche line, straight-backed, hair braided, eyes hard as flint. One leg still looked stiff in the saddle—something strapped under his trousers, a brace or a splint—but he rode like he didn’t care what it cost.

  A lance lay across his thigh, point forward.

  He saw the boy.

  The boy knew it because Peta’s head turned, and the hard line of his face shifted.

  Not soft.

  Not gentle.

  But something warm enough to cut through the boy’s exhaustion. The pursuers hit the edge of the Cheyenne line at the same time the cavalry hit them. It became a collision.

  Kiowa arrows flew in a black sheet and cut down elk riders. Lipan rifles cracked, balls punching through leaf-armor and knocking elves off mounts. Comanche lances hit boars and greenskins like stakes, punching deep, lifting bodies out of saddles.

  The boy found himself swallowed by moving horses and screaming men, dust and sweat and blood.

  A greenskin rider burst through the chaos straight at him, axe raised.

  The boy tried to lift his rifle. His arms felt slow. The greenskin’s axe came down—

  A lance struck the greenskin from the side and tore him out of his saddle.

  Peta’s lance.

  The beast flew, hit the ground, and didn’t get back up.

  Peta wheeled his horse in close, reached down, and grabbed the boy’s bridle for a heartbeat, steadying him in the churn.

  His eyes locked on the boy’s face.

  He grinned—quick and fierce, like a man who’d just found something he thought the world had taken.

  “Haa’e-sootsu-puhi,” Peta said, voice warm as fire in the wind. “You still breathe. Not that I ever doubted you.”

  Badger Boy.

  Runt-who-kills-good.

  The boy’s throat tightened and for a moment he couldn’t answer.

  He swallowed dust and nodded once, hard. “I might’ve died and just kept walking anyway.”

  Peta’s grin widened.

  “Good,” he said. “Stay behind me.”

  Then he kicked his horse forward and slammed back into the fight, lance point down, riding straight at the remaining elves and greenskins like he meant to shove them off the prairie.

  The boy watched him go, then turned his horse toward the line of Cheyenne survivors and the wall of allied riders forming around them.

  Hooves thundered.

  Arrows hissed.

  Rifles cracked.

  And he rode on.