"Here you go! Here you go! Here you go!"

  I'm passing out axes, one after another. Getting Orcs to wait in an orderly line has to be one of Reka's greatest achievements in organization. We've only had to break up two fights so far!

  The Elves who brought up the carts to the forest edge only freaked out slightly when they saw hundreds of Orcs emerge from the woodline, many of them bloody. Alexia managed to calm them down, good for her, finally pulling her weight.

  "Sloppy work," Semuel rumbles at the "practice station". He's trying to train Stone Age tribesmen on how to swing an axe properly. We've broken down the Orcs by tribe to avoid fights. Their differences seem like nothing to us, but the Orcs with pierced ears really hate the Orcs with mohawks, god knows why. It would be nice if it were a debate about fashion sense, but the earring tribe is probably bitter about a past genocide or something.

  "Working hard, buddy?" I walk over to Semuel after handing out the last axe in my cart. The empty-handed ones will just have to share.

  "An art, felling trees is, Great Berserker. These Orcs have clumsy fingers. There is a limit to what I can teach them. Even your lady, she can make them listen but not understand. Butchery, I call this, but it will serve to enrage the treeherders."

  Great Berserker.

  Semuel's been calling me that lately. It's funny because I don't feel like I get particularly mad in battle, just kind of annoyed sometimes. It's the helmet, probably, conceals my facial expressions.

  "Do the best you can," I tell him. "All we need to do is divide them into work gangs and have them chop down trees and stack the logs into piles. Even if they're not particularly quick or efficient about it, these Orcs should be able to do that much."

  "It is as the Great Berserker says. One Other binds them to do their utmost. More than that, we can't expect."

  Our conversation dies down while we watch the Orcs at work. One pair is on opposite sides of a single tree, taking turns swinging at it. More than a few will get crushed, but I can't bring myself to care.

  I notice Reka having a quiet conversation with Lady Alexia in the distance. She catches my eye and waves me over. "Later, Semuel."

  "-Deploying the fires of Elbereth is hardly necessary, Your Grace. Oh, welcome, my love!" She leaps into my arms and gives me a big hug.

  Alexia's nose wrinkles in displeasure. "The Ents are ancient beings! Their bark is like iron. While I don't doubt the prowess of your husband, I'd be mad to; his axe, however skillfully wielded, will not be enough."

  "The Curse of Submission is not the only one Semuel knows," Reka says enigmatically.

  Oh, I remember! "She's right! When I needed to chop a bunch of wood really fast, Semuel cursed my axe. It was so easy!"

  Alexia shakes her head, clearly unconvinced. "Some of these Ents are as great as towers, as tall as the tallest trees."

  "I've killed big things before!" I insist.

  We bicker about it for a while. I'm sure Reka has a perfectly good reason to want us to kill the Ents without using Alexia's magic, so I do my best to support her argument.

  "What if we made a game of it?" Reka finally suggests.

  Alexia looks like she wants to say no, but part of her is intrigued. "What sort of game?"

  "My Brad can slay an Ent in single combat. If he falters, you may intervene, elsewise stay your magic."

  Well, Reka wouldn't say it if it wasn't true. "Yeah!" I agree.

  "You are awfully insistent on this point," Alexia notes suspiciously.

  "My family's merchant house wishes a claim on the Entwood, and a contract to build logging roads in your forest."

  Lady Alexia takes Reka's measure, looking like she's finally figured her out. "Vulgar trade, is it? Very well. If you can slay them yourself, you're welcome to their corpses. The fires of Elbereth would consume the Ent. I'm surprised you knew that."

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  "Ohoho!" Reka puts a hand over her mouth and laughs lightly. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

  ***

  Every Orc logging crew has a horn and instructions to blow it right away if an Ent attacks them. So far, no bites. We've positioned their camps in a rough circle around our own, allowing rapid response.

  "What did you say this was?"

  Alexia is stuffing her face in a very unladylike fashion.

  "Cornbread," I answer.

  After nearly a month together, concealing our food supply from the Elf proved impossible. At least she doesn't know Reka can shrink our bread and freeze it in time.

  "Is not all bread made from corn?" she asks, confused.

  "'Tis a particular yellow corn, a specialty of Brad's ancestral lands. It grows well in dryer climes," Reka explains, eating her meal with more restraint.

  "Ah, understandable. The lands of Men are not so rich as my own estate on Lake Ethilion. You would need hardier crops." She licks the crumbs from her fingers. "There is a richness to this bread, fit for any lord's table, I deem. You simply must ship me a few bushels of your yellow corn. My feasts would be the hit of the season!"

  "There are even finer things, sweets fit for a queen," Reka alludes. "The most convenient place to ship them for us would be Tar Guldrim. If the roads could be improved..."

  "Yes, yes, with no Orcs and no Ents, I should be happy to fund a road-building project in my lands. Truly, you are a merchant's daughter. I'm surprised Sir Brad's family allowed you to wed."

  Again with the slick comments! It's like Elves insult everyone around them on instinct. In this world, business is looked down on. Under normal circumstances, a knight from a noble family wouldn't be caught dead marrying the daughter of a merchant.

  All my wife can do is offer a strained smile. We're used to it by now.

  "How many Ents in the wood, total, would you say?" I try to change the subject.

  "Mayhaps fifty," Alexia answers. She cleans her hands with a spell not unlike Reka's. "There were more in ancient days, but the trees have receded, and so have the herders."

  "So I won't have to fight more than one at a time?"

  "Likely not. Are you worried?" Alexia teases.

  With dramatic timing that would seem contrived if it were a real tv show, we hear the sound of a horn booming in the distance. "Guess we're about to find out! Stick close with me, Semuel."

  "As the Great Berserker says!"

  "It's one of the more remote camps to the east!" Reka bounds through the grass, leading the way.

  My legs pump as I follow, chain mail rattling with every stride. It's a good thing I'm in shape. We have to traverse several hills and valleys on the way. We run, but not too fast. Without Semuel's curse, I'll be useless. My Dwarf friend is doing his best, but stubby legs like his aren't meant to cover such distances quickly.

  "Urugah!" Terrified Orcs flee in the opposite direction, chased by a big black shadow.

  A moving shadow!

  Thwomp!

  A gnarled limb strikes the forest floor with such force that I feel the vibrations through my boot. The Orc on watch blows the horn again uselessly. We're already here, buddy! Run for your life!

  He doesn't run. The shadow passes over him.

  Thwump! Orc paste.

  I can make out more than a shape now. It's a tree, or it looks like a tree. Ten, no, twenty feet tall, with a face in the trunk, walking on legs like the thickest roots.

  "Semuel, curse!"

  Nothing happens. I look behind me. Semuel isn't there. The shadow is looming over me now!

  Thwump!

  I dodge, barely. Fast son of a bitch for something old and made of wood. Reka gives the Ent a few arrows in the eyes, allowing me to put some distance between us.

  "Vile betrayer! You are the demon who hath led the Orclings astray!" it booms.

  "Your day is done, old man! You can't hold back progress!" Reka fires back viciously.

  Good. Good. Let him talk. Once Semuel catches up, we can even the odds.

  "I could burn him, you know," Alexia offers. Her staff's jewel glows to emphasize her point.

  "Progress! What meanest thou by corrupting the innocent? Call you that progress?" the tree-thing demands.

  Innocent? Does the Ent mean the Orcs? How funny! I guess they get along here.

  "Aye! Putting the idle to work is progress!" Reka sounds oddly passionate about this.

  "Living in harmony is not idleness, usurping rogue! Feel the wrath of the old growth!"

  For all his talk, the Ent doesn't mind knocking over trees to get to us. Reka dances around him nimbly, leaping and tumbling with grace that can just barely pass for natural. She's holding back, so Alexia doesn't know her full capabilities, I'm sure.

  "Great Berserker!" Semuel huffs and puffs behind me. I run to him. He has to take a few deep breaths before cursing my axe. It glows green briefly.

  When I look back, one swipe of the Ent's clawed hand almost catches Reka in the chest! I clutch my axe in both hands. Time to die, fucker!

  "Raaaaaagh!" I charge, feeling angrier than I've ever been. How dare he attack my wife!

  Kuchak!

  My axe bites deep in his leg, sending bark flying. When I wrench it out, the wound bleeds sap like blood.

  "Uwwwwah!" the Ent cries in pain.

  Reka did her job well. She distracted the Ent long enough for me to get behind it. Now it's my turn.

  Kuchak! Kuchak! With two more swings, I sever a leg, making the Ent crumple. A clawed hand with wooden nails as long as swords lashes out to impale me, but I meet it with my battleaxe, a great arching upward slash. Now his hand is nothing but a bunch of bloody sticks! The limb instantly withdraws as if burned, and the Ent tries to turn over and right itself.

  When it looks at me with its ugly, withered, face of simian treebark, I completely lose it.

  "Die! Die! Die!"

  I'm a buzzaw, a whirling dervish of death! My axe is everywhere, cutting, biting, hurting! I love the sound of his screams! The other hand tries to protect the Ent's face. I sever it one with one blow.

  It's only when the Ent stops screaming that I realize I've won. All is silent except...is that clapping?

  "Wonderful work, my love! Let's move the Orc logging camps to the next region. One down, forty-nine to go!"

  We're really gonna earn our pay for this one, huh?

  Brad vs. Ent