Cursed woodland was what White-hair had called it earlier, and I was beginning to see why. “Pinewolves,” White-hair said, the word dripping in disgust. “How exceedingly typical.”

  “Why would trees want to eat people?” was the first thing that came out of my mouth. I mean, it didn’t make much sense. Well, no, now that I thought about it, decaying bodies were pretty good for plants. Great fertilizer.

  “That is the inquiry you choose to make? My consistent impression of your intelligence being a fathomless disappointment remains accurate.”

  I didn’t get to respond. The pinewolf jumped, jaws open. What happened next was more impulse than active choice. I’d been standing like a batter waiting for a ball, and I swung like one just as the head sailed towards me.

  The flat of the shovel hit the carnivore-tree hard. I heard the almighty sound of wood cracking as the neck of it snapped and splintered. My arms shuddered with the impact, and I staggered as the wolf was sent off its murder-course and slammed into the snow.

  It lay on its side for only a moment, and it curled its wooden claws. I slammed my shovel into it again. The shovel glowed at me as I pummeled the piece of wood, turning so the edge of the head would bite into the creature. Chunks of wood flew off as I drove the side of my shovel-head into the wolf over and over again. My questionable weapon bit deeper than I thought it could, but still, the damn thing was moving, rising only for me to slam it back into the frozen earth once more. I mean, to be fair, I was hitting wood with a fucking shovel.

  “Bludgeoning damage has no effect on pinewolves, or at least not with a weapon of that kind. Perhaps, if you had chosen the hammer, you might not be in this predicament.”

  Yes, thank you, I had already clued in to that little fact. Unfortunately, I couldn’t exactly turn back time and pick the hammer instead.

  I didn’t know what to do. I had a glowy shovel, stubborn panic, and a highly educated smartass in my list of available tools. The first two weren’t working, so hopefully the third would do something instead of telling me to break the laws of physics.

  I smacked the wolf down again. It rose with the perfect, endless patience of the tree it was made from. My arms burned from the strain as I gritted my teeth, raised the shovel, and slammed the head back into the snow.

  Why hadn’t the other trees turned into wolves yet?

  “Aha.” The rich accent of White-hair sounded entirely self satisfied. “Fortunately for you, I possess access to fire, and the capacity to make it burn in adverse conditions. Mind you, your prehistoric ancestors had long since discovered that particular technology, but since it seems to be beyond you, I will instead supply it accordingly.”

  The pinewolf rolled onto its branch paws, and I swung the shovel into its face like I held a golf club.

  The top of the jaw finally came off, spinning through the air and staking into the snow. It snarled, furious, despite missing a substantial chunk of snout.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  The so-called fire that White-hair had promised had yet to appear. Before I could ask, the wolf blurred, the three dimensions of it flattened and flashed to a ball of purple-blue light, flecked with pixelated black.

  It flashed back, froze in place, stopped mid-lunge, and burst into flames.

  Literally, the damn thing exploded.

  One moment, I’d been bracing for my next swing. The next, I went ass over teakettle. The world spun between snow and sky. Darkness and blistering cold against my face. The orange text of my ‘heads-up display’--HUD, I think, was the abbreviation for it, from my limited memories of gaming with my brother--flashed violently in the black.

  HP - 15/20

  I couldn’t hear shit. Well, I could hear ringing, but the sort in movies where the protagonist had just sat next to a bomb going off.

  My heart hammered. I took one deep breath.

  Another icon showed up next to the glitchy one White-hair had given me. It was a drop of…what, blood?

  I popped my head up, exhaled, and saw that the wood of the wolf had detonated. It had exploded like I’d strapped C-4 to its belly, sending shards of wood out like spears. Flaming spears--several of which had embedded themselves in the trunks surrounding our clearing. The fire, like the wolf had, flickered violently. It went from blaze to a flat, scattered purple light and back again.

  A mound of black was crumpled a few feet away.

  White-hair. I pushed myself into a stand, stumbling. Pain shot through me, sharp and demanding. A leg buckled beneath me. One glance, and I realized a chunk of wooden-shrapnel-turned-flying-stake had buried itself in my upper thigh. I gritted my teeth and squinted around me. My shovel was perfectly intact, and it wasn’t far away. I crawled over to it and grabbed the base handle, burying the head in the snow and forcing myself to my feet. One of my snowshoes had snapped in half, but it was the snowshoe on the bad leg. That leg was just out for the count, then. If I used the shovel like a cane, I’d be able to manage it. I kept sinking as I hobbled over. He didn’t move in the time it took me to reach him. He was facedown, like I’d been, and hadn’t twitched.

  I leaned down, grasping him properly on the side, and pulled him backwards. He flipped over, eyes closed, limbs limp. I rooted around for his wrist. Shit, gauntlets. I squinted at his chest. Was it rising and falling, or was it my imagination? I frantically worked at the leather straps that held the metal armor on my hand.

  Something behind me roared. The night went from very cold to very fucking hot. The shock of the second explosion and the sensation of what felt like my back briefly being cooked for a nice pair of barbecue ribs forced me forward, so I curled over White-hair’s body.

  It was daylight, and there was a moon.

  I turned my head and saw that half of the howling trees had been consumed in a conflagration. The fire was still glitching, coming in and out of existence. It caused the world to bleed color, shifting slowly to that purple-blue. The trees twisted, encased in flame, pulling up from their roots and reaching towards each other. The sum of their parts met, and something greater and more terrible was born.

  I watched in brief, dumb surprise as a wolf as tall as the trees themselves, was built of burning pines. They whined and whimpered and howled, the sound of something burning alive. Heads formed from the fire, as did tails, extra paws, claws and gnashing teeth, a terrible mix of forest and flame. One by one, their heads turned towards me.

  Oh.

  It wasn’t long ago that I’d burned. Time continued to have very little meaning, but it still felt recent. My memories and feelings about it had been buried. They bucked against their mental graves, reacting to the color, the heat, the smoke drifting in the air.

  I would give just about anything to not experience that again, but it seemed appropriate for my nightmare. Of course this is how it would end, how I would finally wake up.

  My HUD appeared again, entirely without my input. Orange text took over the center of my screen, dominating my view and dimming the world around it.

  QUEST GRANTED: BURN FOR CATO’S MISTAKES