They found a hollow behind the rocks where the wind didn’t carry as much smoke, a place where the prairie dipped and the sound of fighting was a little less loud.
The boy slid off his pony and nearly fell. His ribs complained the moment his boots hit dirt. He steadied himself with one hand on the animal’s neck. The pony’s hide twitched under his palm, slick with sweat, flanks pumping hard.
Up on the lip of the shallow ravine, men screamed and horses screamed back. Somewhere beyond the rocks, a dragon roared and the sound rolled across the land like thunder dragged low.
Peta Nocona rode into the hollow with three other leaders at his back, all of them hard-faced and moving like they’d been born in the saddle. Comanche. Kiowa. Lipan Apache. The way they watched the world said they’d been fighting longer than the boy had been alive.
Peta swung down first.
He didn’t look at the boy’s bandages or the blood on his coat. He looked at the boy’s eyes, like he was checking if the thing inside them had changed.
“You smell like you crawled out of a grave,” Peta said.
“Did,” the boy rasped. His throat was raw from smoke and hard riding.
Peta’s mouth twitched. He turned sharp, eyes cutting to Rojas and the Cheyenne leader.
Rojas was still in his saddle. His rifle lay across his thighs, the barrel pointed down at the dirt.
The Cheyenne leader climbed down slow. Tall man. Flint eyes. Powder smudged at the webbing of his thumb. He spoke first, in his own tongue—fast, clipped—and the Kiowa leader answered him with a curt nod and a few words back. The Lipan leader watched all of them in a calm silence.
Peta held up a hand.
“Talk plain,” he said. “I see strange men riding deer. I see boars. I see fire from the sky. I see you in the middle of it.”
His gaze flicked to the boy’s necklace—eagle feather against a filthy shirt—and lingered there.
“What did you bring back?” Peta asked.
Rojas spat into the dirt.
“Elves,” he said. “That’s what they call themselves. We brought back hell with pointed ears.”
The boy heard the dragon again. Blue fire somewhere far off, the heat riding the wind in a faint taste of copper and burned grass.
Rojas leaned forward in his saddle and pointed his rifle’s barrel at the smoke on the horizon like he might stab it.
“Elves,” he said. “Not anything I’ve ever seen. They built a whole damned city out of living trees and they—”
He stopped. His jaw worked. Something behind his eyes went flat.
“They eat people,” Rojas finished.
For a heartbeat the world went quiet except for horses breathing and the distant roars.
The Kiowa leader’s expression didn’t change. The Lipan leader did not blink. Peta’s eyes narrowed a fraction.
“Say it again,” Peta said, voice low.
The Cheyenne leader spoke. His voice was hoarse but steady. He made a short gesture with his hand—two fingers pinched together, lifted to his mouth, then cut away. Meat. Eating. He said a word that sounded like stone scraping stone.
The Kiowa leader translated, blunt.
“He says their people were taken,” the Kiowa said. “Children. Women. Strong men. They do not come back.”
The boy had seen the elf woman’s perfect smile through the roots. It has been so long since I’ve had man flesh. He could still hear the words in his head. Disturbing. It almost reminded him of that old shack he and Lily came across many days ago.
“They kept us in a root cage,” the boy said. His voice came out rough and small against the sound of war. “A dome. They did something to our [Inventory]; no one could reach into theirs. I couldn’t. They take and eat… people.”
A scream cut him off. Far off, a horse shrieked and the sound ended in a wet crunch.
Peta’s head snapped toward the noise, then back.
“Why chase you this far?” he asked. “Why not take what they took and stay in their trees?”
Rojas answered with a laugh.
“Because they can’t,” he said. “Because we got away once, and now they think that makes it personal. And because—”
He jerked his chin at the boy.
“—they want him.”
Peta looked at the boy again. Long enough for the boy to feel the stare like a hand on his neck.
“They called him accursed,” Rojas said. “They’re scared of him, and they hate him for it. Princess Imrahil—yeah, princess, I heard it—wanted him made into entertainment.”
Peta’s eyes went flinty.
“Princess,” he said. “The daughter of their chief?”
The boy nodded once.
“She’s dead,” he said. “At least, I assume she is.”
Peta nodded.
Rojas scrubbed a hand down his face.
“We can’t keep running,” he said. “They’re faster and stronger than us. And they have a fire-breathing blue lizard and a flying cat–the blue lizard also flies..”
The Kiowa leader’s gaze cut to Rojas.
“And your soldiers?” the Kiowa asked. “Your fort men?”
Rojas glanced at Peta like the question tasted wrong.
“Yeah,” Rojas said. “Where the hell is the U.S. Cavalry? Where’s Hargrove’s boys? Where’s anybody with a uniform and a cannon?”
Peta sighed.
“There is no cavalry,” he said.
Rojas blinked, like he’d misheard.
“What?”
Peta’s voice stayed calm. His eyes did not.
“Prichard holds Fort Mason,” he said. “He has his hands full. He cannot afford to leave it. He does not have the men.”
“Prichard asked us to intercept when a ranger spotted all of you,” Peta said. “He did not send an army. There is no army.”
Rojas stared at him, then laughed again, sharp and ugly.
“Of course,” he said. “Of course it’s on us.”
The Lipan leader said something in his language, low. The Kiowa leader answered. Peta listened, then looked back to the boy.
“They say we can break them,” Peta said. “Here. Now. While the two monsters behind us bite each other.”
The boy looked past Peta to the smoke on the horizon.
The boar riders and elk riders were still out there. Greenskins and elves tangled together, hacking and stabbing. Gold blood and dark blood mixing into the grass. Above them, wings beat the air and the sky kept flashing blue and green like stormlight.
“They won’t stop,” the boy said. “Even if you break them today.”
Peta’s eyes narrowed. “Then we break them again.”
The boy saw how Peta held himself when he said it. Like a man who’d already made peace with the price.
Rojas leaned forward, voice low now, as if he didn’t want the prairie to hear.
“We need something,” he said. “A push. A gap. Something that makes their line turn. If we can make the elves and the greenskins both back off—just enough—we can get the Cheyenne and the women clear. Then we pick where we fight next.”
Peta looked to the boy.
He knew what he was good for.
“I can pull them,” the boy said.
Rojas frowned. “Kid—”
The boy cut him off with a look.
“They want me,” the boy said. “They already said it. They’re just chasing the women and children for sport.”
“I go in,” the boy said. “I make noise. I make them turn their heads. You hit their flank while they’re looking at me.”
Peta’s mouth tightened.
“With what?” Peta asked. “Your little gun?”
The boy’s hand went to his belt by instinct and found empty leather where the Colt should have been. He’d put it away again without thinking. Mud habit. Survival habit.
He reached inward.
[Inventory].
The familiar pressure opened like a door. The Colt’s weight sat there, patient and cold.
He didn’t pull it yet.
“Not just the gun,” the boy said.
He reached deeper.
[Bestiary].
Five names sat there, bright as teeth in a dark mouth.
He hadn’t looked since the river. Since the city. Since he felt their tethers snap and the System told him Recovery time: 24 hours.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
It had been two days.
He touched the first name.
[Dire Wolf].
The tether felt different. Stronger. He blinked and looked inward again.
[Bestiary] updated!
Bestiary (5)
[Dire Wolf] – Rank I – Level 2
Affinity: Level 2
Status: Rested. Unsummoned.
[Reaper Lizard] – Rank II – Level 2
Affinity: Level 2
Status: Rested. Unsummoned.
[Bison latifrons] – Rank II – Level 2
Affinity: Level 2
Status: Rested. Unsummoned.
[Giant Spider] – Rank II – Level 2
Affinity: Level 2
Status: Rested. Unsummoned.
[Giant One?Eyed Plague Toad] – Rank III – Level 2
Affinity: Level 2
Status: Rested. Unsummoned.
The boy’s eyes narrowed.
Level 2.
Affinity 2.
He didn’t know what Affinity did. He just knew the links felt… cleaner. Less like dragging a stubborn animal by rope and more like holding reins.
He looked up.
Peta was watching him.
“What?” Peta asked.
“My beasts,” the boy said. “They’re stronger.”
Peta stared at the boy’s face for a long moment, then nodded once.
“Do it,” Peta said. “Make way.”
He leaned in closer, voice dropping.
“And when you make way,” Peta said, “do not die. I don’t understand your cursed life, but I am tired of meeting ghosts.”
The boy nodded. Death was… an odd thing to think about when it wasn’t permanent.
“No promises,” he said.
He turned to his pony.
The animal’s eyes rolled white at the sound of the dragon again, but it stayed under his hand, trembling.
A Cheyenne boy stood nearby, maybe twelve, face pinched with exhaustion. His hair was cut short and his hands were too big for his arms. He held a rifle like it was heavier than him.
The boy pointed at the pony.
“Take him,” the boy said. “He’s mean but he runs well.”
The Cheyenne youth hesitated, then nodded hard and grabbed the reins. Relief flashed in his face like he’d been handed a second life.
The boy stepped away from the pony.
He looked at Peta once more.
“When I hit them,” the boy said, “don’t watch. Move.”
Peta’s eyes hardened. “We will.”
The boy turned toward the smoke.
He reached into himself and yanked.
[Bison latifrons].
The air tore open.
A mountain slammed into existence with a violent huff, shaggy and horned and too big for the hollow. Its hooves hit dirt and stone and the ground shook. Dust jumped. Horses nearby screamed and tried to rear away.
The bison’s horns swept out like scythes.
It was bigger than it had been.
Not by much. But enough that the boy’s eyes caught it and his gut believed it. More muscle at the shoulder. More thickness in the neck. A heavier set to the horn base. Like the world had poured more of the animal into the same shape.
It snorted, head low, ready to kill whatever it saw.
He grabbed a fistful of shag and hauled himself up.
His ribs screamed. His shoulder tugged at bandages. He ignored it and swung a leg over and settled behind the horn line where the hair was thickest.
It was like sitting on a moving hill.
The bison breathed once, a long violent exhale that stank of earth and old blood.
The boy reached into [Inventory] and pulled the Colt into his hand.
He checked the cylinder and reloaded. His rifle came next.
He slung it over his shoulder, strap biting across his chest. He capped and seated and made sure the hammer was down safe.
Then he reached again.
[Dire Wolf].
[Reaper Lizard].
[Giant Spider].
[Giant One?Eyed Plague Toad].
The air tore open four times in ugly quick succession.
The wolf hit first—bigger, leaner, eyes bright with winter. It landed and didn’t pause. Its head swung to the smoke and it growled low like thunder under snow.
The Reaper Lizard slammed in beside it, feathers flashing brighter than before, claws digging deep enough to tear furrows in rock dust. It was bigger too.
The spider arrived with a wet scrape, legs unfolding, body heavier, hair bristling along joints. It turned its head in quick ticks, already looking for something to climb.
The plague toad landed last, a wet slap that made bile dribble from its mouth. The green slime smoked where it touched stone.
The boy felt their tethers like reins in his fists.
The bison shifted under him, muscles bunching.
Peta stood just beyond the bison’s horn sweep, horse snorting behind him. He looked up at the boy, then lifted his lance and pointed toward the smoke.
“Go,” he said.
The boy kicked his heels into the shag and leaned forward. The bison launched.
Its galloping was akin to an avalanche. It tore out of the hollow and onto the open prairie, hooves hammering, horn tips slicing air. The boy’s stomach rose into his throat with the first surge of speed.
Faster, he thought.
It was faster.
The ground blurred under the bison’s chest. The wind slapped the boy’s face. He tasted the smoke in the air, thick and bitter, and the sharp tang of blood. The wolf and lizard ran alongside in streaks of motion. The spider skittered ahead and vanished into the scrub like it knew routes the boy didn’t. The toad bounded in heavy leaps, slower than the rest but relentless.
The boy broke out of the smoke’s edge and the battle opened in front of him.
Elves on their elks. Greenskins on boars. Bodies under hooves. Leaf?shields cracked and split. Gold blood sprayed in bright fans. Dark blood splashed thick and tarry.
An elk rider turned at the thunder of the bison and his haunting face went wide-eyed.
Too late.
The bison hit the elk and rider both like a falling wall.
Antlers snapped. Leaf?armor crumpled. Gold misted the air. The Hollow within ate the Elf’s soul as it was crushed.
The bison didn’t slow.
The boy raised the Colt and fired.
The shot cracked through a world of arrows and screams. An elf’s head popped apart in a burst of red and gold and the body folded backward off an elk.
The wolf took that moment and leapt.
It hit an elf archer mid?draw and tore the bow arm clean down. The elf screamed and then stopped screaming when the wolf’s jaws closed on its throat.
The Reaper Lizard slid under a boar’s tusk swing and tore into the greenskin rider’s leg. The greenskin howled and swung an axe down. The lizard twisted away, faster, and the axe bit nothing but air.
The plague toad spat.
A fan of bile arced out and washed over a leaf?shield wall trying to form. Wood smoked. Elves shrieked. One stumbled back clutching his calf as skin bubbled under the armor seam.
Each death fed him. The Hollow worked through his beasts just as much as it worked through him.
The boy kept the bison moving, driving it into the thickest knot of elves.
Because the elves were the ones with discipline.
The greenskins fought like fire.
The elves fought like a wall.
He broke the wall.
A boar rider screamed and charged toward him, tusks low, rider’s cleaver raised. The bison met it head on.
Horn hit bristle. Bristle tore. The boar went sideways, legs folding, and the greenskin rider flew and hit the ground hard enough that his scream turned into a grunt and then silence when the bison’s hoof came down.
The boy didn’t look.
He was looking up.
The sky was full of wings.
Blue and green.
The blue dragon and the green dragon were locked together in the smoke like two storms biting. They dropped out of the clouds and slammed into the ground again, tearing up grass and earth. The green dragon’s rider—a greenskin huge enough to look like a boulder in armor—clung to the neck ridge and roared, cleaver raised as if he could cut the sky. The blue dragon screamed back and blue fire leaked out between its teeth in short bursts that lit the smoke from within.
The boy’s eyes narrowed.
There.
The blue dragon’s flank flashed through the smoke, scales catching light like hammered steel.
The boy drove the bison straight at it.
Bodies tried to get out of the way and didn’t always manage. The bison trampled an elk, then a greenskin, then crushed a leaf?shield so flat it looked like bark again.
The dragon turned its head. Its eyes found the bison. Found the boy.
The System stirred.
[Blue Dragon] – Rank ???
[??]
The bison hit the blue dragon’s hind leg like a battering ram.
The impact boomed.
The dragon’s leg buckled. Its body lurched sideways, scales grinding against earth, wing dragging through dirt. Blue fire spat out in a wild, angry sheet and flashed across a patch of grass, turning it into a line of burning blue.
The bison shoved again, horns driving, shoulders heaving.
The dragon screamed and thrashed.
The boy felt the bison’s muscles bunch under him, stronger than before, and he knew it.
Level 2, the boy thought.
He reached inward with one clean motion.
[Beastmaster’s Spear].
The spear snapped into his hand, like it had been waiting.
The blue dragon’s tail whipped. It lashed through smoke and cracked across a boar rider, sending both rider and mount tumbling. The tail came back again, fast as a whip, spines along its ridge flashing.
The boy waited.
He watched the rhythm. The way the tail swung with the dragon’s hips. The way it had to coil before it struck.
Then he moved.
He stood up on the bison’s back, knees bent, hair whipping in wind and smoke, and when the dragon’s tail came through again he jumped. His hands clamped on the tail ridge just behind the spines. The impact jarred his arms to the bone. The tail whipped and tried to fling him off like a burr.
The boy hung on.
The spear was still in his other hand, gripped tight enough that his knuckles went white.
The dragon bucked.
Its tail snapped and the world swung in a wide, sick arc. Smoke became sky then dirt then sky again. The boy’s ribs screamed where bandages pulled.
He climbed anyway, dragging his body up the tail like it was a rope. The spines tore at his palms. He didn’t care. The dragon’s wings beat once, trying to lift.
The green dragon crashed into it again from the side, jaws clamping on the blue dragon’s neck. Scales shrieked as teeth scraped. Acid stink rolled through the smoke, thick and foul.
The boy used the collision.
The moment the dragons locked, the blue dragon’s tail steadied for half a heartbeat.
He hauled himself up over the tail base and onto the blue dragon’s back.
The scales were slick under him, cold and hard. They shifted like armor plates, each one as big as his hand. Heat bled up through them where the dragon’s muscles worked.
The blue dragon twisted its head, trying to look back.
It couldn’t.
Not with the green dragon’s teeth in its neck.
The boy crawled forward along the spine ridge, staying low, using the scale seams as grips. Smoke ripped past him. The sound was all teeth and screaming and wingbeats and far-off gunfire.
He reached the back of the skull ridge.
The horns swept back from the head like hooked stone. The ridge between them was thick with scale, but the plates thinned where the head met the neck—where anything needed to bend.
The boy planted his knees and raised the spear.
The blue dragon convulsed beneath him. Its wings flared. Its tail lashed once more. The boy almost slid, caught himself, and drove the spear down.
It bit.
Not deep enough.
The boy snarled and yanked the spear back up, hands sliding on the shaft.
Again.
He found the seam a finger’s width lower—where softer plates overlapped.
He drove the spear down with everything he had.
The metal edge punched through.
The dragon screamed so hard the sound turned into a physical blow. The boy’s vision went white at the edges. He felt the spear sink, felt resistance give way to something wet and dense. He shoved. The spear went deeper. The blue dragon’s entire body locked.
For a heartbeat it stopped fighting the green dragon. Stopped fighting the world. Every muscle seized at once as if some invisible hand had clenched the spine.
Then it went limp in a shuddering wave.
The green dragon’s jaws tore loose, snapping up gold-blue blood and smoke, and the greenskin rider on its back roared in triumph—until he saw the boy standing on the blue dragon’s neck.
The boy didn’t look at him.
New beast bound: [Blue Dragon]
[Bestiary] updated!
The boy’s breath hitched.
He blinked ash out of his eyes and looked inward for half a heartbeat.
A new line burned in his mind.
[Blue Dragon] – Rank X – Level 1
Affinity: Level 1
Status: Resting. Unsummoned.
The boy’s mouth went dry.
Rank X.
His first.
His only.
Under him, the blue dragon’s body slumped into the torn grass, wings collapsing in a slow, heavy fold. Smoke rolled over its scales like a funeral cloth. The boy stood on the dead dragon’s neck with the spear still buried to the haft, and for a moment the whole battlefield seemed to pause around that single fact.
