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Three men sweated as they hacked their way onward, driven by hearts filled with greed and dreams of untold wealth. For six days the jungle had defied them, but now the temple reared from the undergrowth. 
Fast and Dumb
Anthony Burch
In addition to cutting off the punchline of an incredible joke I’d been telling, Yi made me dive into the thick of a thistleshrub to avoid detection.
There were six of them. Five bandits and their rope-bound captive, an elderly farmer with anxious eyes.
Brotherhood
Ariel Lawrence
The source of the crying is a boy. Six, maybe seven summers.
He sits cross-legged with his back to me, in front of a tall sapwood.
Strand by Silken Strand
The weeks spent on the ocean had made Markus feel dizzy and weak, so he was glad to be back on dry land. The path leading from the basalt shore had a slick, oily quality, making it treacherous underfoot. The crooked trees to either side were wretched, blackened husks that wept yellowed sap from where it looked like some panicked animal had clawed them ragged. Soft light shimmered between the trees, dancing like the corpse candles that flickered over marshland and drew unwary souls to their doom. The branches were hung with what looked like canopies of ragged muslin, and it took Markus a moment to realize they were swathes of cobwebs.
Wiry bracken clogged the undergrowth on either side of the path, rustling with the motion of unseen creatures shadowing their passage through the forest. Perhaps the rats infesting the ship had followed them. Markus had never caught sight of one, beyond a fleeting glimpse of a swollen, black-furred body or the skittering sound of claws on wood. He’d never been able to shake the notion that it sounded as if these rats had a few too many legs than any normal rat should have.
The island’s air was heavy with damp, and his finely tailored tunic and boots were sodden with clinging moisture. He held a scented pomander beneath his nose, but it did little to disguise the stench of the island, reminding him of the charnel pits beyond the walls of Noxus when the winds blew in from the ocean. Thinking back to his homeland, he felt a brief twinge of unease. The revels in the catacombs far beneath the city had been a deliciously illicit thrill, a reward for following the secret symbol of the black-petaled bloom. Within the darkened sepulchers, he and his fellows gathered as devotees.
Where she awaited.
He looked ahead, hoping for a glimpse of the beguiling woman whose words had brought so many of them to this place. He caught a flash of crimson silk and swaying hips before the mist oozing between the trees obscured his sight of her. He’d thrilled to the sermons of her ancient god, and had been overjoyed when he and the others had been chosen to join her on this pilgrimage. It seemed like a grand adventure when they boarded the heavily laden barque at midnight, under the still gaze of the mute and hooded steersman, but being so far from Noxus had begun to dull his enthusiasm.
Markus paused and turned to look back along the path. His fellow pilgrims pushed past, like vacant-eyed cattle en route to the slaughterman’s hammer. What was wrong with them? Behind them came the steersman, gliding over the path as though his feet barely touched it. His robes were undulant with motion and suffocating fear flowered in Markus’s breast at the thought of being near this repellent figure.
He turned away, only to find himself face to face with her.
“Elise…” he said, and the breath caught in his throat. He instinctively wanted to push her away and flee this awful place, but the intoxication of her dark beauty overpowered any thought of rejection. His sense of revulsion passed so swiftly he wasn’t even sure he’d truly felt it.
“Markus,” she said, and the sound of his name on her lips was divine, sending a surge of pleasure down his spine. Her beauty transfixed him, and he savored every detail of her perfect form. Her features were angular and sharp, framed by lustrous crimson hair, like that of a highborn girl he once knew. Full lips and eyes of dark radiance drew him deeper into her web with the promise of raptures yet to come. A cloak of sable secured by an eight-pronged brooch, mantled her rounded shoulders. It rippled with motion, though there was no wind to stir it.
“Is something the matter, Markus?” she said. Her smoky tones soothed his fear like a balm. “I need you to be at peace. You are at peace, aren’t you, Markus?”
“Yes, Elise,” he said. “I am at peace.”
“Good. It would make me unhappy to know you were not at peace when we are so close.”
The thought of displeasing her sent a jolt of panic through Markus and he dropped to the ground. He wrapped his arms around her legs, her limbs slender and alabaster white, smooth and cold to the touch.
“Anything for you, mistress,” he said.
She looked down on him and smiled. For an instant Markus thought he saw something long, thin and glossy shift beneath her cloak. The motion was sickening and unnatural, but he didn’t care. She hooked a sharpened, obsidian-black fingernail under his chin and drew him to his feet. A rivulet of blood ran down his neck, but he ignored it as she turned and led him onward.
He willingly followed, all thoughts save pleasing her vanishing like wind-blown smoke. The trees thinned out and the path ended before a rocky cliff carved with time-weathered symbols that made his eyes sting. A shadowed cave gaped like a vile maw at the base of the cliff, and Markus felt his certainty waver as a sudden sense of dread uncoiled in his gut.
Elise beckoned him inside, and he was powerless to resist.
The interior of the cave was unnaturally dark and stiflingly warm, a clammy, fever heat that reeked like offal swept from a butcher’s block. A voice deep inside was screaming at him to run, to get as far from this hideous place as possible, but his traitorous feet carried him still deeper into the cave. A droplet from somewhere high above landed on his cheek and he flinched at the sudden, burning pain of it. He looked up at the cavern roof, seeing pale, grub-like shapes hanging overhead and swaying with frantic, trapped motion. In the translucent surface of the fresh-spun web, a human face screamed in mute horror against the suffocating, silken net.
“What is this place?” he asked, the veils of deceit woven around him falling away.
“This is my temple, Markus,” said Elise, reaching up to unfasten the eight-pronged brooch at her shoulder and letting her cloak fall away. “This is the lair of the Spider God.”
Her shoulders squirmed as two pairs of slender, chitinous limbs unfolded from the flesh of her back; long, dark and tapering to razored talons. They lifted Elise up as a grotesque, bloated mass shifted in the darkness behind her. Colossal legs heaved its corrupt body forward, the faint light from beyond the cave reflecting on the myriad facets of its eyes.
The vast spider’s bulk was enormous, furred and scabbed with wet, mutant growths. The terror of its nightmarish appearance shattered the last of Elise’s hold on Markus, and he fled toward the cave mouth with her cruel laughter ringing in his ears. Ropes of sticky web struck the rock beside him. Glutinous strands struck his flailing limbs and his pace slowed as he became more and more entangled. He heard the clicking of clawed limbs in pursuit and wept at the thought of her touching him. Yet more strands of her web snared him as something sharp stabbed his shoulder with astonishing swiftness. Markus fell to his knees, paralyzing venom spreading through his body and locking him in a prison of his own flesh.
A shadow fell across him and he saw the mute steersman with his arms outstretched. Markus screamed as the steersman’s hooded robe collapsed, revealing that this was not a man at all, but a writhing nest of innumerable spiders given the semblance of a man. They fell upon him in their thousands, and his screams were choked to muffled grunts as they crawled into his mouth, clogged his ears and burrowed behind his eyes.
Elise swung into view above him, borne aloft by the jointed limbs at her back. She was no longer beautiful, no longer even human. Her features were alight with a ferocious hunger that could never be sated. The looming form of her monstrous spider god lifted Markus from the ground with its razored mandibles.
“You have to die now, Markus,” said Elise.
“Why…?” he managed with his last breath.
Elise smiled, her mouth now filled with needle-like fangs.
“So that I can live.”
Tomb of the Troll Boy
''Would you like to hear a bedtime story?''
''Grandma, I'm too old for that.''
''You're never too old to enjoy a good story.''
The girl reluctantly crawled into bed and waited, knowing she wouldn’t win this battle. A bitter wind howled outside, whipping the falling snow into devil whirls.
''What kind though? A tale of the Ice Witch, perhaps?'' asked her grandmother.
''No, not her.''
''What about a story of Braum?''
The girl nodded and the old woman smiled.
''Ah, there are so many, which to choose…? My grandmother used to tell me of the time Braum protected our village from a great dragon! Or once, this was long ago, mind, he raced down a river of lava! Or-''
She paused and shook her head. “No, none of them. Wait, have I ever told you how Braum got his shield?''
The girl shook her head. The hearth fire snapped, its warmth holding off the night’s chill.
''Well, in the mountains above our village lived a man named Braum. He mostly kept to his farm, tending his sheep and goats, but he was the kindest man anyone had ever met, and he always had a smile on his face and a laugh on his lips.
''Now, one day, something terrible happened. A young troll boy around your age was climbing the mountain and happened upon a massive stone door with a shard of True Ice at its center. When he opened the door, he couldn't believe his eyes! Beyond was a vault filled with gold and jewels. Every kind of treasure you could imagine!
''What he didn't know was that the vault was a trap. The Ice Witch had cursed it, and as the troll boy entered, the magical door clanged shut behind him! It locked him inside! Try as he might, he couldn't escape.
''A passing shepherd heard the boy’s cries. The entire village rushed to help, but even the strongest warriors couldn't open the door. The boy's parents were beside themselves. His mother's wails of grief echoed around the mountain. It seemed hopeless.
''And then they heard a distant laugh.''
''It was Braum, wasn't it?'' asked the girl.
''Aren't you clever? Braum had heard their cries and came striding down the mountain. The villagers told him of the troll boy and the curse. Braum smiled and nodded. He turned to the vault and faced the door. He pushed it. Pulled it. Punched it. Kicked it. Even tried to rip it from its hinges, but the door wasn’t for budging.''
''But he's the strongest man ever!'' cried the girl.
''It was perplexing,'' agreed her grandmother. ''For many days and nights, Braum sat on a boulder, trying to think of a solution. After all, a child's life was at stake.
''Then, as the sun rose on the fifth day, his eyes widened, and a broad grin lit up his face. ‘If I can't go through the door,' he said, ‘then I'll just have to go through-’...''
The girl thought for a moment. Her eyes went wide as she exclaimed, ''The mountain!''
''The mountain indeed. Braum headed to the summit and began punching his way straight down, pummeling his way through the stone, fist after fist. Rocks flew in his wake, until he had vanished deep into the mountain.
''As the villagers held their breath, the rock around the door crumbled. And when the dust cleared, they saw Braum standing amidst the treasure, the weak but happy troll boy cradled in his arms.''
''I knew he could do it!''
''But before they could celebrate, everything began to rumble and shake. Braum's tunnel had weakened the mountain, and now it was caving in! Thinking quickly, Braum grabbed the enchanted door and held it above him like a shield, protecting the villagers as the mountain collapsed around them. When it was over, Braum was amazed. There wasn't a single scratch on the door! Braum knew it was something very special. And from that moment on, the magical shield never left Braum's side.''
The girl sat upright, struggling to conceal her excitement.
''Grandma,'' she said, ''can you tell me another story?''
The girl’s grandmother smiled, kissed her forehead and blew out the candle.
''Tomorrow,” she said. “You need to sleep, and there are many more stories to tell.''
The Wedding Crasher
She bent awkwardly and set the glasses on the mosaic floor, right in the path of oncoming dancers, and burped the opening bars of Vi is a Stupid Fathead, a tune she’d only just made up. Cliques of society ladies turned to sneer at her coarseness, and Jinx covered her mouth in mock, wide-eyed embarrassment.
The Thrill of the Chase
He held a heavy brass-cornered case in his metal-clawed hand; a crude thing Vi said he’d had done in one of Zaun’s ask-no-questions augmentation parlors when he was a foolish youth. 
Right On Time
Dana Luery Shaw
Renata says nothing, letting Basile squirm and sob on the floor a little longer. He had come to her for a loan six months ago for his wife’s replacement leg after an accident at a machinist’s shop.
A Feast Fit for A King
Graham McNeill
A hulking figure trudged through the waist-deep snow of the canyon, lumbering uphill with a purposeful gait that dared the blizzard to stop him. He left a deep trench in his wake, heavy clawed feet ripping up the loose shale beneath the snow with every step. Howling winds billowed his patchwork cloak of stitched-together hides, and the figure pulled it tighter around his body.
Even among trollkind, Trundle was huge; his muscles like rocks rolling beneath thick blue skin that was the texture of leather left out under the desert sun. Not that Trundle had ever seen a desert, but he knew what one was.
The Ice Witch had told him about a place beyond the southern mountains where the sun burned you red, and the snow was like little bits of gritty rock that got all up in your nethers and didn’t melt.
Sounded a bit far-fetched to Trundle, and what was the point of snow that didn’t melt?
He carried a giant leather sack slung over one massive shoulder, bulging with the carcasses of elnük, drüvasks, feral hogs, and clumsy mountain goats. It had been more days than he had fingers since he’d left his cave, and the meat was starting to give off a deliciously ripe stink, and the blood pooling inside had frozen black and solid.
Soaring cliffs of ice reared up to either side of him, blue like an ocean wave that had suddenly frozen in place. Maybe they had, Trundle didn’t know. The Ice Witch had told him about a long ago time when magic did all sorts of mad things to the world, so maybe he was walking through a rolling ocean at the top of the world right now. He liked that idea, and wondered if he’d see any skeletons of sea monsters this far north.
Sea monsters in ice, yes, that’d be a good story to tell when he got back. Didn’t matter if it wasn’t true. Most trolls didn’t have much rattling around in their skulls anyway, and would believe pretty much any tale he told.
He stopped thinking so hard for now.
He was going to need all his best thinking later.
This wasn’t his territory, there were more ways to die up here than he could count, and he could count a lot higher than any other troll he knew.
He might fall into a crevasse, get swallowed by a riddling ice-wyrm, or get cooked in the pot of one of the wild troll clans that lived up this way. Bigger than most other trolls, they didn’t have the good sense to know they needed a king to be in charge of stuff and didn’t give an elnük’s fart for titles.
They’d rip his arms and legs off for a snack if he tried to be all fancy.
Which made the need for this journey all the more strange, because he’d heard stories of a giant troll called Yettu who was going about telling the other clan-trolls that he was the troll king. Trundle had needed to bash a few heads together when some uppity trolls heard those stories and got to saying stupid stuff out loud. Stupid stuff like, if anyone could call themselves king, then why did they give Trundle the biggest share of the food and do what he told them?
Yeah, something needed to be done about this Yettu before things got out of hand.
Just because he’d newly thought of becoming a king like Grubgrack and the other ancient troll lords, didn’t mean anyone else got to think like that!
The wiry hairs on the back of Trundle’s neck tingled, like he was being watched.
He couldn’t see them yet, but he could smell the stink of their ripe bodies hidden beneath the snow ahead. Any troll that called himself king didn’t get to stay that way for long without having a sense for when blood was about to be spilled.
He kept going, walking all casual, like he was just out for a morning emptying of his guts. He pretended like he was having a big, wide-fanged yawn as he scanned the lumpy snowbanks ahead of him.
Hard to see much of anything through the swirling blizzard and howling winds.
There, two humps of snow that were just a bit too big and too regular to be natural.
Also, he could see a foot sticking out of one, and a tuft of hair from the other.
Trundle grinned a wide, gap-toothed grin and shook his mane of ragged red hair free of frost.
Then he reached under his filthy, patchwork cloak to grip the frozen haft of his faithful war-club, unhooking it from his belt. He trudged onward, making sure to look like he was struggling against the fierce wind and driving snow.
A pair of long fingers with long, yellowed nails poked through the snow of the mound to his left. They slipped back into the mound, and a pair of yellow eyes appeared, staring right at him.
Trundle waited until he was a club’s length away from the mound before hauling out Boneshiver. Instantly, the temperature dropped, and icy cold stabbed into his hands as the eternal ice frosted the air around him. The club was an enormous chunk of True Ice mounted on an obsidian handle, and it had never failed him in battle.
The eyes inside the mound widened in surprise as Trundle sprang through the air and slammed his giant club down into the snow with a satisfying crunch.
A troll with greenish skin like mossy tree bark rose unsteadily from his hiding place, the back of his skull a smashed-in crater. He waved a stone-bladed sword at Trundle, but his knitted brow and cross-eyed glare told him he was trying to decide if he was dead or not.
“I fink I’m dead,” said the troll.
“I think you’re right,” said Trundle, and the troll toppled over into the snow.
The second ambusher leapt out with a throaty roar, lifting a giant stone club over his head and slamming it down where Trundle had been standing a moment ago. It looked puzzled there wasn’t a dead troll on the end of its weapon. And in the span of time it took for him to notice the only dead troll was his fellow ambusher, Trundle had a meaty fist wrapped around his throat.
He lifted the troll from the ground, a middling-sized thing with a rust-brown hide covered in gnarled lumps and sprouting tufts of wiry hair from its armpits and nethers.
“Right then, you rascal!” said Trundle cheerfully.
“You supposed to be dead,” gurgled the troll. “I meant to hit you with me club.”
“I saw that,” said Trundle, squeezing the troll’s neck until his face turned a pretty shade of purple. “But turns out I’m alive, and looks like you and your friend here got the dungy end of the stick, don’t it?”
Trundle dropped the troll, who fell to the snow with a rasping wheeze of breath.
“This is King Yettu’s land,” gasped the troll. “Whatcha want ’ere?”
Trundle held Boneshiver close to the troll’s head, who grunted in pain from the nearness of its icy power.
“My name’s Trundle, the Troll King, an’ I want you to take me to Yettu,” he said.
The troll with the rust-brown hide was called Sligu, and he led Trundle through the blizzard toward a series of dots in a glacier that looked like cave entrances. Sligu wasn’t the chattiest of trolls, but after a couple of encouraging taps from Boneshiver he discovered a whole lot of things he wanted to say.
Trundle knew trolls were, by and large, not exactly imaginative, so when Sligu described Yettu as a mountain with eyes, a fighter with fists like boulders, and a belly as deep as a ravine, he began to get an idea of what he might be up against.
“So where does he get off on calling himself a king?” asked Trundle.
“He heard you was walkin’ about calling yourself king and that everyone gave you all the best food first,” said Sligu. “Soon as he ’eard that, it was king this and king that all the time!”
“I thought you northern trolls hated titles like that?”
“We do, but Yettu said if it were good enough for a warmskin southern troll like you, then he wanted to be a king as well. And once he killed all the uvver clan-chieftains who said he weren’t no king, it didn’t seem too clever to not agree wiv ’im.”
“He killed them all?”
“Yeah, punched the chief of the Rock-Eaters’ head right off his neck,” said Sligu. “Flew right over to the next valley, so it did.”
“Not bad,” said Trundle, wondering how far he could punch a head.
“And then he smoked out trolls of Ice Cave Glacier and took their lair.”
“How’d he do that?”
“Ate a load of cave mushrooms and elnük dung, then blocked the cave entrance and let loose a bum-ripper down their air hole.”
“Clever,” said Trundle. “Nasty, but clever all the same.”
“And then he ate the biggest troll of the Night Soilers from the knees up.”
“Why the knees?” said Trundle. “There’s good eating on feet.”
Sligu shrugged, and a tiny rodent poked its head out from the dense knot of fur at the back of his neck with an annoyed squeak. “Dunno. I fink ’e said summat about them being too smelly. Said even a midden-licker wouldn’t touch ’em.”
“Nice ’n’ crunchy, feet are,” said Trundle, taking a sidelong glance at Sligu’s. Wide and flat, just the way Trundle liked them, with good, crusty-looking toenails.
“More of a fingers troll meself, but I likes a good foot too,” agreed Sligu.
Trundle prodded the troll with Boneshiver, and said, “You was telling me about Yettu.”
“Oh, right, so I was,” continued Sligu. “Well, he ’eard about the big troll horde you ’ad, and wanted one for ’imself. Someone told ’im only a king could have an army, so figured he needed to be a king.”
“Does he have a crown?”
“What’s a crown?” asked Sligu.
“It’s like a spiky hat that tells everyone you’s the king.”
“A hat does that? It’s magical, like?”
“I think some of them are,” said Trundle.
“Oh, well, then yeah, he’s got a crown.”
“Where’d he get it?”
“He told us he got it from an ice-wyrm’s belly wot he walked through like a big smelly tunnel, but my mate, Regi, says it looks like he made it from some teef and antlers wot he found in a dung pile.”
Dung pile or not, Trundle wanted a look at that crown now. Couldn’t have some wannabe king saying he was better than Trundle just because he had a bigger crown!
“How far is it to Yettu’s cave?”
Sligu pointed a crooked finger up toward a blue-sheened glacier at the end of the canyon that looked like it had been crudely carved to resemble a giant troll’s head. The giant icy face was the second biggest thing Trundle had ever seen, with giant eyes that still managed to look beady and cunning, fat lips and jutting tusks below a giant, warted nose.
“That supposed to be Yettu?” asked Trundle, trying not to sound impressed.
Sligu nodded. “Yeah, but they ’aven’t quite got his nose right.”
A winding series of rocky paths and bone-scaffolds offered a treacherous path up the sheer face of the glacier.
“Right, let’s get to climbin’ then,” said Trundle.
The sun was going down over the edge of the canyon by the time Trundle and Sligu reached the entrance to Yettu’s cave. That entrance was through the wide nostril of the carved head, and the water dripping from the icicles inside it had a peculiar greenish color.
A pair of wild trolls stood guard, carrying giant bone axes, and naked but for helmets made from hollowed-out drüvask skulls.
They were big, all right, orange-skinned and wiry, birds’ nest hair sprouting from the empty eye sockets of the dead animals. Both were bigger than Sligu—who Trundle was now beginning to realize must have been chosen as a sentry because he was skinnier and sneakier than the rest.
If these boys were this big, how big might Yettu be…?
“Who goes dere?” said the first guard.
“It’s me, Sligu.”
“Which one?”
“Your brother, dung-for-brains.”
“Oh, that Sligu,” said the guard. “Why you not say so? What you want?”
Sligu jerked a yellowed thumb in Trundle’s direction and said, “This one’s ’ere to see Yettu.”
“No one get to see Yettu,” declared the second guard, his beady eyes like two lumps of coal.
“He’ll want to see me,” said Trundle.
“Me? Who’s Me?” said the second guard. “Is it you?”
Trundle tried to follow the guard’s logic, but gave up when it began to hurt his brain.
“I’m Trundle,” he said. “Trundle the Troll King.”
“I heard of you,” said Sligu’s brother. “You not from here.”
“You’s a clever one,” said Trundle.
The troll shook his head and waved his axe at the beady-eyed guard. “He clever one.”
Trundle whacked the clever, beady-eyed guard over the head with Boneshiver, and turned back to Sligu’s brother. The troll took one look at the glittering mass of True Ice that used to be his fellow guard, and Trundle could almost hear the rocks in his brain grinding together as his eyes went back and forth between the club and its owner.
Knowing a troll’s thought processes could take a while, Trundle swung the large sack down from his shoulder and held it open before Sligu’s brother. An irresistible stench of maggoty meat and rank, coagulated blood wafted from its ragged neck.
The troll licked his lips, and thick ropes of yellow saliva drooled between his jutting tusks.
Trundle reached into the sack, lifted out a dripping hunk of meat and handed it over.
“You get come in,” said Sligu’s brother with a hungry smile.
Sligu’s brother, it turned out, was also called Sligu, so Trundle came up with the bright idea of calling one Big Sligu, and the other Little Sligu. Even the guard he’d bashed over the head would be able to tell one from the other now, if he forgot he was dead and got back up.
Big Sligu led him deeper into the glacier, a sparkling network of smooth tunnels carved deep into the ice. No trolls had cut these passageways, but something about them didn’t strike Trundle as being natural. He got a gripey, magical feeling from them, the same as he had when he’d been deep in the frozen maze beneath the palace of the Ice Witch.
They passed caves with spiky roofs of ice and filled with trolls of all shapes and sizes. Trundle couldn’t help but notice that most of those shapes and sizes went from just really big all the way to massive.
Trundle quickly lost count of how many trolls he saw.
“You northern trolls are a big bunch,” he said.
Big Sligu nodded. “Lots of monsters here. Want to eat trolls. Only big trolls live.”
Trundle took a better look at Little Sligu, wondering how he’d managed to survive, guessing there was maybe more going on inside his head than most. Amongst trolls that wasn’t saying much, but cleverness was something a cunning troll like Trundle noticed.
Maybe he might take Little Sligu back with him. Didn’t do to leave clever trolls alone for too long. Sligu might only be little, but sooner or later he might get some big ideas.
Eventually, Big Sligu led them into a gigantic cavern deep in the heart of the glacier. A beam of moonlight speared into the cavern through a hole in the roof that made the towering walls of ice shimmer with dancing lights and ghostly shapes. Trundle thought it looked pretty until he remembered how Yettu had won these caves, and tried not to imagine his warty backside pressed through that hole and disgorging the foggy contents of his guts.
“Big trolls hang out here with king,” said Big Sligu.
A lot of very big trolls indeed were gathered around a gigantic blue rock covered in slimy moss and knots of what looked like taiga grass.
Except it wasn’t a rock.
It was a troll, and somehow it managed to get even bigger when it turned around, catching wind of the sack Trundle was carrying.
Yettu was nearly twice the height of Trundle, his rangy arms like tree trunks and his legs like even bigger tree trunks. His head was like a boulder that had rolled down from a mountain top, gathering up all the frozen moss and gorse along the way before landing on an even larger boulder. A long black-bladed knife of smooth stone from the steaming haunches of a fire mountain was sheathed across his chest in a fold of his skin.
He stared at Trundle the way a pack of rimefangs looks at a fat elnük with a limp.
Trundle had planned to smash Yettu’s head in with Boneshiver the moment he came face to face with him. Looking at the northern troll’s giant head, he decided against it. Between Yettu’s skull and Boneshiver’s True Ice, Trundle wasn’t sure which would come out best.
Time for a new plan…
“You got meat,” said Yettu with a rumbling, gravelly voice.
“I got meat,” said Trundle, reaching into the bag and hauling out the stinking remains of a curling-horned mountain ram. Yettu’s eyes widened and he snatched the carcass from Trundle’s hands to stuff it whole down his gullet.
Yettu wiped his blood-greasy chin and belched.
“You Trundle?” he asked. “One who says he troll king?”
“Yes.”
Yettu reached out and lifted Trundle’s patchwork fur cloak.
“This far north too cold for you, little troll?” said Yettu, and the trolls around them grunted with laughter, the sound like avalanches colliding in slow motion.
Trundle shrugged. “Troll King gotta look good, right? I suppose you’re Yettu then?”
“Who else I be? You see any other troll here wearing a crown?”
Trundle took a closer look at the great mass of moss on Yettu’s head, now seeing that woven into the wiry thatch of thorny briars and ice were various bloodstained animal bones, horns, and antlers.
It looked like an upside-down storm cloud spitting bolts of bone lightning back at the sky.
“So that’s what a crown looks like,” he said.
Yettu nodded and stomped toward Trundle.
“You not so big,” said Yettu, tapping a thick finger on Trundle’s matted red hair. “I ’erd you was biggest troll ever. That you scraped your head on the sky and could drink seas.”
“That was a good one. I made trolls tell that one wherever they went,” said Trundle. “Did you hear the one about how I used the tallest tree in the Big Green Forest for a toothpick? Or the one where I ate a mammoth for breakfast and then used its skull for a bath?”
“What is bath…?”
“It’s when you… Never mind,” said Trundle. “Or the one where I jumped over the southern mountains in a single leap to wrestle the Whitestone Giant? That I broke his tail across my knee and took it home to dig out the inland sea at Rakelstake? That’s my favorite.”
“You fight giants a lot,” said Yettu.
“It’s the only way to get a good fight,” answered Trundle.
“You come here to fight me?” said Yettu with a grin, putting up his fists that were, as Sligu had mentioned, like giant boulders. The other trolls made a rough circle around them and began stamping their feet, just waiting for Yettu to bash him good.
Time for a plan so cunning it would make the Ice Witch’s hair melt.
“Fighting ain’t always done with fists,” said Trundle.
“Yeah, sometimes I kicks things to death,” agreed Yettu.
“That ain’t what I mean,” said Trundle, tapping a curling, yellowed claw to his forehead. “If you’re a king, a real king, you gotta use this.”
Yettu nodded. “Headbutts. Yeah. I likes them too, I do.”
“I mean the thing inside your head,” sighed Trundle. “The brain that does your thinking!”
“Brain?”
“It’d be a battle of wits,” said Trundle, then, under his breath, “Lucky for me it looks like you’re unarmed.”
“How do we fight wiv our squishy brains?”
Trundle grinned a toothy grin and upended the sack to spill out the rest of the animal carcasses between them in a stinking red pile of fur, bones, and rotten meat.
“An eating contest!” said Trundle.
“’Ow’s that usin’ our brains?” asked Yettu with a confused look at his trolls.
“You’ll see,” promised Trundle.
More meat was brought up and placed in the pile between the two seated troll kings. Giant hunks of flesh torn from the bellies of giant sea creatures, ribs from hairy mammoths, slithering piles of rotten fish, giant wings from the flightless birds of the tundra, entire elnük heads, and squirming heaps of wriggling body parts that Trundle was glad he didn’t recognize.
As well as food, giant stone bowls of frothed liquid were brought out, stuff that made the hairs in Trundle’s nose curl up. The stench was like the cracks in the earth around the mountains that spouted smoke and fire, and Trundle had a feeling it would taste worse than the amber water the squishy folk of the south called beer.
Truly this was a feast fit for a king, but only one of them could walk away from it.
“We just eat?” said Yettu.
Trundle nodded. “Eat and eat. First one to die loses. Last troll standing is the real king.”
Yettu grinned and said, “You got some good stories, Trundle, but you only got little belly. Real king needs the biggest belly, and Yettu’s bigger and meaner. Once ate two whole mammoths when yawned and didn’t even notice.”
The trolls around the two kings oohhed.
“That so?” said Trundle. “Well, I once drank so much that when I had to pass water I made the sea at Rakelstake.”
The trolls aahhed.
Yettu’s brow furrowed and his eyes rolled around their sockets as he tried to dredge up a memory from only a few moments ago.
“Wait, you said you dug land to make sea at Rakelstake…”
Trundle retorted without missing a beat. “Dug it out to make a hole big enough to pee in.”
The heads of the trolls around them went back and forth as the two troll kings exchanged boasts, each one more outlandish than the last.
Finally, Trundle said, “Just before I came here, I climbed yetis’ mountain and took a bite of the moon.”
The trolls laughed at this outrageous boast until Trundle pointed up at the crescent moon shining down through the hole in the cavern’s roof. Every troll’s head lifted to follow his pointing finger, and they muttered among themselves with a newfound respect.
While they were looking up, Trundle stuffed the now empty sack beneath his patchwork cloak and pulled it tight around his body.
“No more stories,” growled Yettu. “We eat.”
Trundle nodded, and the feast began.
He began by tearing the meat from a giant rib, making sure it was picked clean before cracking it open over his knee and sucking out the marrow within. Yettu wolfed down the flank of a drüvask, chasing it down with a hearty mouthful of the frothed liquid in the stone bowls.
“Drink!” commanded Yettu. “Not feast without frustbogga!”
Trundle took a proffered bowl and swilled it down in one, chugging gulp. His eyes watered at the noxious flavor of it, somewhere between corpse-blood swamp runoff and the red rock that flows. It burned his throat as it went down, and he felt it light a fire in his belly he knew was going to wreak havoc on his backside when he was forced to empty himself out.
He forced a smile and said, “Not bad. I’ve had stronger.”
Yettu grinned, seeing the sweat on Trundle’s brow, and leaned forward, grease dripping from his chin. “I see fire in belly. Burn you up, little troll.”
In response, Trundle picked up a crawling hunk of whale meat and devoured it in three giant bites. He spat the gristle and bone aside, and hungry trolls pounced, fighting for the splintered scraps.
Yettu tilted his head back and slid an entire Aurma fish down his throat, smacking his lips together as its tail disappeared into his gullet. Trundle scooped up handfuls of meat and guts, stuffing them into his mouth with relish and chewing the meat to paste before swallowing.
On and on they ate, their audience cheering with every rotten mouthful of food and every bowl of frustbogga they drank. The mountain of meat seemed to get no smaller, no matter how many chunks they ate. Yettu popped a shovel-like handful of tiny skulls into his mouth, crunching them and rolling the pieces around his mouth like they were some kind of delicacy.
“Found these when boat made of trees wrecked on sea,” said Yettu. “Lots of little people all dead and going to waste.”
Trundle didn’t mind eating the meat of the small people, but tried to avoid it where he could since most of them didn’t have much in the way of eating on them and their brittle bones got stuck between his teeth.
Another carcass of ribs and meat was washed down with frustbogga, and he knew he was going to pay for this feat on the way home. The northern king stuffed his face with the furry meat of a mammoth, but Trundle saw the telltale signs of a full belly in the redness of Yettu’s face and the slowed pace of his eating.
Trundle, too, was feeling the effects of so much meat and frustbogga.
Yettu belched, a belly-rumbling roar that shook snow from the ceiling and sent a bunch of giant icicles falling from the roof. Trolls jumped out of the way, and Trundle used the distraction to lift the neck of the food sack beneath his patchwork cloak up under his fat and blood-soaked chin.
He looked up and saw Little Sligu staring at him. The clever little troll must have seen him hide the sack under his cloak. Little Sligu gave him a slow nod and Trundle grinned, leaning forward to grab yet more meat and bone. He shoved it toward his mouth, but instead of eating it he tipped most of it down his front and into the sack. He took his time, taking slow bites here and there, all the while stuffing entire wings, heads, and racks of blackened ribs into the sack until it was full and he could fit no more in.
Trundle’s belly rumbled and he belched a stinking cloud of yellowed gas.
“Full yet?” said Yettu, chewing on a leg bone of something long and heavy.
Trundle slapped his bulging midriff and shook his head.
“Full? Me?” he grinned through a mouthful of crunching bone and dripping fat. “I’m just getting warmed up. When do we get properly started?”
The other trolls laughed, and Yettu roared at them to shut up.
“I king here!” he yelled. “Not him.”
Trundle grinned. Yettu was king here because he was the strongest, meanest, and hungriest troll, but Trundle knew that kind of king was easy to topple.
But the cunningest of kings? That kind of king could stay king forever.
Trundle leaned back and yawned, stretching like he was ready to go for a nap.
“Hey,” he said, holding his hand out to Yettu. “Can I borrow that big knife of yours?”
Yettu eyed him suspiciously through red-rimmed eyes swimming in grease.
“What for? Fink you gonna cut me?”
“Nah, just got to make room for next course.”
The northern king gripped the stone handle of his knife and pulled it from the flesh of his chest. He tossed it over the remaining mound of bloody meat, and Trundle caught it in his sticky palm. For a weapon of trolls, it was surprisingly well made and wickedly sharp.
Trundle pushed himself carefully to his feet, holding the bulge of his cloak and letting out a thunderous fart that swiftly cleared the space behind him.
Then, he took Yettu’s knife and sliced it across his cloaked belly.
He let out a convincing groan of relief as the vast quantities of food he’d stuffed into the sack spilled out around his feet in an avalanche of chewed meat, gnawed bones, and fragments of half-eaten gristle.
“Ah, that’s better,” he said, handing the knife to Little Sligu with a sly wink, who returned the blade to Yettu. The big troll stared in amazement at Trundle as he lifted yet another handful of meat and stuffed it into his mouth.
Yettu looked from the knife to Trundle, and rose to his full height with a roar of laughter.
“You gonna let him beat you like that?” said Little Sligu.
Yettu shook his head.
“Nobody beats me,” he snarled, and plunged the knife deep into his own stomach.
The northern king sliced the razor-sharp blade across his belly and lifted the bloody knife high with a triumphant grin.
“Yettu make room for food too!”
Trundle watched the northern king’s grin fade as his belly yawned open like a second mouth and all the half-digested food he’d just eaten came spilling out in a torrent of his own blood and coiled guts.
“Something wrong?” asked Trundle, pulling the skeleton of a fish carcass from his throat.
Yettu tried to answer, but his mouth just flapped as his innards continued to pour from his opened belly. The knife dropped from his hand and his knees buckled.
Yettu sank to the ground, trying in vain to hold the sliced flaps of his belly together.
“That don’t feel good…” he said, before falling face first into the mound of meat.
Little Sligu came forward and Trundle eyed the smaller troll with a mixture of suspicion and respect.
“Now I think I know how a little troll like you’s managed to survive up here among all these big boys,” said Trundle. “You’re clever.”
“A bit,” said Sligu with a modest shrug.
“Maybe you should come back down south with me,” suggested Trundle in a tone that made it clear it was anything but a suggestion.
“Yeah,” said Little Sligu, looking around at the other trolls. “Change of scenery might be nice.”
“Then you knows what you got to do now, yeah?”
Little Sligu lifted Trundle’s arm.
“Trundle is winner!” shouted the clever little troll. “True king of trolls!”
Child of Zaun
Ian St. Martin
“I’ve told you all I can, Vi. Believe me.”
“You could always come with me,” I say with a grin.
Hwei
In northwest Ionia, the island of Koyehn once stood beautiful and serene. Among its golden sands, seasonal bazaar, and quaint mill town sat the Temple of Koyehn, an ancient and renowned conservatory for the arts.
Lukai Hwei was born to inherit this temple.
Kind and precocious, Hwei spent his childhood putting to canvas his wild daydreams, which exaggerated the world around him into surreal, fantastical sights. He knew these visions differed from reality, but through them, he saw life itself as art. So connected was Hwei to the shades of the world that even his eye color shifted in hue to reflect his mind and mood.
Hwei expressed this vibrant imagination through paint magic, a medium that influenced the emotions of its audience. As such, it required strict control and discipline, lest it overpower both mental perceptions and bodily sensations. Among its current practitioners, those unable or unwilling to control their art endangered themselves and the community—and were banished from Koyehn.
Despite these precepts, young Hwei indulged his imagination. In a demonstration for the temple masters, he recreated Koyehn’s sea. As paint flowed around the canvas, however, his control ebbed. Emotion crashed through him, wild and fathomless as an ocean, and he surrendered himself to its beauty. His vision turned black, his last memory the awestruck masters, drowning.
Hwei awoke days later, surrounded by his masters—alive, but infuriated. They would not exile the temple’s heir, but they stressed his responsibilities. Hwei was horrified—but fascinated—by the depths of his power, and he craved to see more.
Thus, by day, he upheld Koyehn’s conventions. But alone at night, he pushed the boundaries, driven to explore the extent of his power. In time, this practice focused the intensity of Hwei’s imagination, allowing him to manifest a palette that flowed with magical paint.
Well into adulthood, Hwei mastered his craft. And with passion and humility, he prepared to inherit his birthright, surrounded by the respect and affection of his peers. But part of his mind remained forever shrouded at nightfall.
And so it remained, until the temple received a visiting artist: Khada Jhin.
Over a gilded summer, Hwei accompanied Jhin, guiding him around Koyehn. They often exchanged their creative perspectives, and, respecting their differences, Hwei recognized Jhin’s virtuosity and valued their time together.
But the night before Jhin’s departure, the man challenged Hwei. Jhin sensed that the pieces Hwei showed others were forced façades—and he wanted to see a real performance. Hwei tried to deny it, but his eyes betrayed him. Flooded by the years spent creating meaningless art, his imagination begged catharsis.
So Hwei painted. Decades of practice guided his brush. The night came alive, colored by the brilliant infinity of his mind. Emotions washed over him, harmonious and visceral, and Hwei welcomed them. Sharing these forbidden visions for another exhilarated him and illuminated the powers of his art: connection, inspiration, and unfettered creation.
Jhin witnessed all. Afterward, with eyes alight and tone inscrutable, he said farewell, stating he would be moving on tomorrow “to watch the lotuses bloom.”
At dawn, Hwei and his fellow artists awoke to a series of tragedies.
First: four historic paintings, destroyed.
Second: an arrangement of four bodies—the masters that Hwei had almost killed in his youth.
Third: the fiery eruption of the temple’s four lowest floors.
Amid the flames, Hwei imagined the air electric with color. Everything that lived within him bled outward.
It was terrifying. It was beautiful. It was... art. Realizing its dark potential—of destruction, devastation, and torment—Hwei felt the same horror and fascination he had in his youth.
The temple quickly collapsed into ruins, with Hwei emerging as its only survivor.
Exhausted and guilt-ridden, he mourned. Yet his imagination overflowed, reliving every moment of the disaster.
During the day, Hwei and the villagers from the mill town held burials. At night, he revisited the ashen-gray wreckage and painted, his palette taking the shape of Koyehn’s crest—the same worn over his heart.
On one such night, Hwei found the remnants of a trap beneath the rubble—one petaled like a lotus flower.
Realizing who’d wreaked this havoc, a cascade of emotions engulfed Hwei. Fear. Sorrow. Betrayal... Awe.
A question burned within him: why?
But did he want the answer? Or would it be safer to suppress this need? He could stay here with his people—as the heir—help them rebuild... or...
Bearing little more than his paintbrush and palette, Hwei left his island, and his people, behind.
In the time since, Hwei has learned that the answers he seeks arise through revealing the full extent of his art to others. He tracks down nefarious individuals in Ionia’s darkest corners, unleashing scenes of suffering upon them to understand his own well of pain. Yet he also reaches out to Ionia’s victims—fellow witnesses—to create shared tranquility and reflection.
Both the relentless artist rising from the ashes and the kindhearted man from a once-peaceful isle, Hwei faces the conflicting hues of Ionia—and his own imagination. As he spirals deeper into the shadows, he lights a path, mind brimming with possibility.
Which shade of himself will triumph, however, is yet to be seen.
Fizz
In ages past, the oceans of Runeterra were home to civilizations far older than those of the land. In the depths of what is now the Guardian’s Sea, a great city once stood—it was here that the yordle Fizz made his home. He lived alongside the artisans and warriors of that proud, noble race. Even though he was not one of them, they treated him as an equal, and his playful nature and tall tales of adventures in the open sea made him welcome at any gathering.
But the world was changing. The oceans were growing warmer, emboldening fierce predators to rise up from the deepest trenches. Other settlements had fallen silent, but the rulers of the great city could still not agree on how to deal with the threat. Fizz pledged to roam the seas in search of survivors, or anyone who knew what had happened.
Then, one dark day, the gigalodons came.
These huge dragon-sharks stunned their prey with fell shrieking, and the avenues of the great city were soon clouded red. Thousands died in a matter of hours, the immense bulk of their killers crushing towers and temples in a monstrous feeding frenzy. Scenting blood in the water, Fizz raced back, determined to join the fight and save the city.
He was too late. There was nothing left of the city to save. When the debris finally settled, not a single living creature remained, nor any stone upon another, and the ravenous shoal had moved on. Alone in the cold depths, Fizz sank into mournful despair. As his yordle magic began to fade, he let himself be carried by the currents, drifting in a catatonic torpor, dreaming away the millennia…
It was only chance that reawakened him. A handful of copper coins fell from above, scattered to the seabed in the wake of a huge, wooden fish that swam upon the surface. This was no gigalodon, but Fizz was alarmed nonetheless—he knew little of the world overhead, but surely no fish could survive up there? He ventured up and peered into the salty air for the first time.
There were people, people who lived outside of the water and sailed in wooden fish of all sizes. Fizz found the thought both frightening and exciting, but the curious gifts they cast into the water made it clear that they wanted to be his friends. In time, following their movements to and fro across the oceans, he came to the port city of Bilgewater.
To the inhabitants of that lawless place, this strange and slippery creature quickly became something of a legend—the Tidal Trickster, a spirit of the ocean itself. It is said that he can summon great beasts to do his bidding, hole a ship’s hull with his stone trident, and breathe air or water as it suits him. Many a misbehaving child has been warned on a moonless night: “Go quickly to sleep, or the Trickster will come and feed you to the fishes…”
Fizz is good-natured, but mischievous even for a yordle, and delights in confounding the people of Bilgewater. The most seasoned fishermen know, just as the ocean may rise and fall, the Tidal Trickster is as likely to lead them into windless doldrums as to an easy catch that would fill their nets. Even so, Fizz does not take kindly to the greedy or selfish, and more than one haughty sea captain hoping to make a quick pile of silver has found that her mysterious guide has led her crew not to safety, but to shipwreck.
Standing Room Only
Daniel Couts
But even back then, I could hear the doubt edging into her optimism. Six rejections, and she was still facing forward. But it was through a cloud of doubt: Should she maybe be doing something else with her life? 
The Boys and Bombolini
Jared Rosen
Graves commanded as he and Fate dropped their argument and made a run for the exit with a rapidly sinking catwalk buckling underfoot.
Six strides from the doorway, another blast tore upward from the powder floor, consuming the Azure Way mercenaries in a pillar of raging flame as the crates beneath them began to blow one by one.
At The Edge Of The World
Ian St Martin
She looked up after several deep lungfuls of air, taking stock of what remained of her command.
There were six of them in total, including herself. Ragged, drained and terrified, only three of them still carrying weapons.
An Intimate Evening at Oyster Bill’s
Jared Rosen
He reaches for a replacement but finds none, so instead gazes quietly out onto the street where six dead bodies and two halves of a giant marine louse are scattered. 
Puboe Prison Break
Matt Dunn
Years of avoiding the stares of humans taught me their many blind spots.
Six acolytes guard the gate leading to the dungeons. They carry double-firing crossbows, swords tucked in their belts, and who-knows-what-else in the pouches fastened around their waists.
Everything We Should Have Said
Michael Luo
The zealots plunge toward him, attacking from all angles. How many are there? Four, five, six? His vision fades in and out—maybe due to heat, maybe due to exhaustion—and he steps forward, but his right knee buckles beneath him.
The Winged Beast
Rayla Heide
The gated watchtower was empty.
Shyvana knew its stern, gray-bearded guard, Thomme, would have cut off his own hand before abandoning his post. She had scented human blood while patrolling the northern hills of Demacia and followed its trail to this tower.
Inside, the smell was all but overpowering, though no bloodstains were visible. As a soldier of Demacia, Shyvana remained in her humanoid form most of the time in order to conceal her true nature, though her dragonic instincts remained sharply intact. She chewed her tongue to distract herself from her growing hunger at the scent. Shyvana climbed to the top of the tower where she could better survey the surroundings, and fixed her gaze on the thick, tangled trees where leaves rustled near the edge of a clearing.
Shyvana leapt from the window of the watchtower and landed on her feet, five stories below. She detected a hint of blood on the wind, and sprinted west into the forest, dodging branches as she pursued the scent. At the edge of the clearing, a large feline beast with golden fur feasted on Thomme’s mangled body. Atop the creature’s shoulders were black feathered wings, and its forked serpentine tail twitched as if independent of its owner.
The smell of fresh blood was intoxicating, but Shyvana forced herself to focus on the hunt. She had joined Demacia to be part of something greater, not to surrender to her animalistic desires.
She crept toward the beast and felt dragonfyre warming in her hands as she readied to strike. But before she could attack, the creature turned from its kill. Its face was hairless and wrinkled, like an old man. It smiled at Shyvana through bloodied fangs.
“All yours,” it said.
Shyvana had heard stories of the vellox’s ferocity, its appetite for human flesh and its slick agility. But nothing had prepared her for the creature’s eerily human face; its unblinking eyes held her gaze as it slinked into the brush and disappeared. Shyvana’s heart raced as she sprinted to catch and kill the beast. The vellox’s fur mingled with the dappled sunlight, camouflaging its torso as it leapt over fallen bramblewoods and raging rivers. It could not disguise the blood on its breath, however, and Shyvana followed the scent.
A fallen boulder blocked the path ahead. The vellox’s claws scraped the rock as it leapt and disappeared over it. Shyvana dug her heels in at the top of the crag to halt her momentum – the rock marked the edge of a wide crevasse, plummeting in a steep vertical drop.
Across the gap, the forest continued indefinitely, and the vellox was already deep into the thicket. Shyvana sighed; there was only one way to cross the ravine, and she had not wanted to resort to it.
She checked to ensure no one was watching, inhaled as much air as would fill her lungs and felt her breath burn within her chest. Even across the width of the ravine, she could smell Thomme on the vellox’s fangs. She embraced her hunger until it powered the furnace-heat beneath her skin. With an exhalation of streaming flame, Shyvana burst into her enormous draconic form and roared. The ravine shook as it echoed back her mighty call. She spread her thick, velvety wings, and swept across the ravine into the forest ahead.
She no longer had to duck between trees. Instead, she barreled through their branches, tearing down anything in her path. She leaned into her wings and the forest blurred into a whirl of brown and green. Woodbears, silver elk, and other woodland creatures scrambled to evade her path, and Shyvana relished the power she felt at their fear. She breathed a flaming torrent of fire, burning a thick grove to smoldering ash.
She spotted a trace of gold fur ahead and leapt onto the vellox’s back. Its teeth raked her flanks but she barely noticed the pain.
“I know you,” the vellox snarled, fighting to break free. “They call you the Chained One.”
The golden beast leapt, slashing taloned paws and grazing her throat with its teeth. Shyvana sank her claws into its back and savored the sensation of tearing flesh.
“Why do you hunt me?” the vellox asked. “We are not enemies.”
“You killed a soldier of the Demacian army,” Shyvana said. “Thomme.”
The vellox drew blood from her neck, but she exhaled plumes of fire and it spun away to avoid the flames.
“Was he your friend?”
“No.”
“And yet you attempt to avenge his death. I fear the rumors are true. You are merely a tamed pet.”
Shyvana growled.
“At least I am no killer of men,” she said.
“Truly?” the vellox smiled through its stained teeth. “You have no thirst for human blood?”
Shyvana circled the vellox.
“I see the hunger in your eyes,” it said. “The taste for living meat. You need the hunt as much as I. After all, where’s the fun in a meal without a good chase?”
Now Shyvana smiled.
“Which brings us to my intent,” she said.
Shyvana dashed forward. In one quick motion, she pinned the vellox’s body to the mulched forest floor and gorged on its throat. The vellox spit scorching venom and clawed at her chest, scraping scales from her skin. Shyvana’s eyes burned from his poison and her wounds stung, but she held fast.
The vellox’s once-glossy fur was now sticky and matted with blood. Its watery human eyes stared up at Shyvana in horror as its life dripped away.
Though her hunger was unrelenting, Shyvana stopped herself before she devoured his flesh. She exhaled, releasing the dragonfyre from her chest and shuddered as she transformed back into a human. She was disturbed at how much she had enjoyed the kill. Shaking, she lifted the vellox’s body and dragged him back to the crevasse. There he would lie, proof of her inhuman hunger, hidden in the darkness beneath the rock.
Fit to Rule
John O'Bryan
“I’m starting to sweat, Bayal. Please, do not let me sweat.”
Qiyana’s servant fretted at the words. He mustered what little control he had over the elements, concentrating on forming a magical cloud of mist. In seconds, the mist surrounded Qiyana and grew cooler, dispelling the heat of the jungle.
“That’s better,” said Qiyana. “If I am to do this, I must be able to focus.”
She began to swivel her ohmlatl slowly around her body, causing the jungle thicket to bend and part with each rotation of the ring-blade. Roots and stems popped, tossing up bits of soil until, at last, a narrow trail revealed itself in the brush.
“Here it is,” Qiyana said, and promptly started down the winding path.
With each twist of her ohmlatl, the thick vines of the rainforest receded before her. Behind her, they slithered back across the path to conceal it. Bayal fell behind just long enough to be caught in the growth of the writhing plants.
“Keep up, Bayal,” said Qiyana. “Honestly, you have one task.”
The servant hurdled the freshly grown thicket, struggling to catch up to Qiyana, and to maintain the temperature of her mist cloud.
When the two finally emerged from the forest, the sun had sunk low in the sky, its golden dusklight shining on a small village. Qiyana took one last look behind her to see the secret path was now completely buried in jungle. Three village elders greeted her with a respectful Ixtali salute, arms held tightly across their chests, and led her into a plaza just inside the settlement.
At the far end of the plaza, a great Piltovan machine sat lifeless and defeated—spoils from a recent skirmish in the jungle. Qiyana paid it little mind as she took the seat presented to her at a small table, modestly set with fruits and nuts.
“To what do we owe this honor, Child of the Yun?” asked an elderly woman, leaning forward to get a better look at Qiyana.
“I have heard the news of your prefect’s passing. You have my condolences,” said Qiyana.
“Killed by the outlanders,” said an old man, pointing at the Piltovan machine to his rear. “Tried to stop one of those from felling trees for their mine.”
“So I was told,” said Qiyana. She sat perfectly upright as she arrived at the purpose of her visit.
“It seems that Tikras needs a more capable governor. One who is strong enough to stand up to the outlanders, and their toys,” said Qiyana with confidence. “Someone like me.”
The elders turned to each other, confusion showing through their weathered faces.
“But Yunalai, respectfully, we already have… someone like you,” said the old woman. “Your sister is here.”
“What?” fumed Qiyana.
As if on cue, a procession of local servants marched across the plaza toward Qiyana. Four of them carried a palanquin on their shoulders.
As the palanquin came closer, Qiyana could see a plush bed, several fine silk pillows, and her sister Mara, reclining with a goblet of wine in her hand. A silver tray of exquisite dishes rested beside her, and two servants cooled her with elemental magic far stronger than Bayal’s. As Qiyana wiped a bead of sweat from her brow, she glared bitterly at her servant.
“Qiyana. So… good to see you,” said Mara uneasily, as her palanquin came to rest on the ground.
“Mara. You seem to be enjoying yourself,” said Qiyana.
Mara squirmed under her sister’s penetrating stare, seemingly trying to retreat into the plush bedding.
“Would you care for some wine?” offered Mara, as she took a tense, joyless sip from her goblet.
“You’re supposed to protect this village, not empty its larders,” said Qiyana, declining the drink. “You should step down. Let me be prefect.”
Mara froze as she forced wine down her rigid throat.
“I cannot do that,” she said. “You know this. I am older than you.”
“A whole year older,” replied Qiyana. “Yet so far behind.”
She approached her sister’s bed, her smug expression slowly transforming into a scowl.
“I say this only as a statement of fact. You know it is true. What would happen if these miners discovered this village?”
“I would defend it,” said Mara meekly.
“You would die. So would everyone in this village. This we both know,” said Qiyana, for everyone in the plaza to hear. “I can protect them.”
A murmur spread about the plaza. Mara bit her bottom lip—something she had done since childhood, particularly when her younger sister had gotten the better of her.
“I… cannot give it to you. The Yun Tal will not allow it,” said Mara timidly.
“They will if you resign,” said Qiyana. “Go home to Ixaocan. Tend your water garden. I will assume your responsibilities here.”
She watched Mara’s eyes dart around at the elders, as if looking for some way to save face.
“The law is clear,” said Mara. “No one else may be prefect, as long as I am capable of governing.”
Clenching her jaw in anger, Qiyana turned toward the great machine resting at the far end of the plaza. She spun her ohmlatl around her body, startling the elders from their seats. Drawing elements from all around the plaza to the blade, she launched them toward the machine. In an instant, the great metal behemoth was entombed in ice, battered by rocks, and ripped apart by vines—all at the command of the young Yunalai.
The elders and servants in the plaza gave an audible gasp at the display of power.
“You think you already have ‘someone like me,’” said Qiyana. “But there is no one like me.”
The elders frowned at her, reaffirming the decision. “As long as Yunalai Mara is capable of governing, the position belongs to her.”
The words rang in Qiyana’s head as she turned and silently left the plaza, dejected. She led Bayal back to the edge of the village, where they were met by two elementalist wardens.
“No need to see us off,” said Qiyana. “I know the way, and what to do with it.”
With a turn of her ohmlatl, she parted the brush to reveal the path that lead back through the jungle. With her servant struggling to cool her, she walked back toward the grand arcologies of Ixaocan, uncovering the secret path, and re-covering it behind her.
As soon as they were out of sight of the village, Qiyana’s ohmlatl slowed. Behind them, the path was now unconcealed, laid bare in the late day sun.
“My Yunalai—you’ve forgotten to cover the path,” said Bayal.
“Bayal, does your one task have anything to do with tending the path?” asked Qiyana.
“No, my Yunalai. But… what if someone finds the village?”
“Not to worry. I’m sure the new prefect will defend it.” said Qiyana.
*** The following morning, Qiyana awoke in Ixaocan to the sound of sobs.
“Outlanders. They found Tikras!”
Her sister’s cries came from the hallway outside her bedroom. Qiyana put on her robe, and opened the bedroom door to find Mara, weeping in Bayal’s arms.
“Mara. What’s the matter?” asked Qiyana, making some effort to sound concerned.
Her sister turned to her, red-faced and trembling, covered in scratches from running through the jungle.
“The miners… they leveled the village. Half the people are dead. The other half are hiding. I barely escaped—”
Qiyana embraced her sister, suppressing a smile over her shoulder.
“Do you see now? I was only looking out for you,” said Qiyana. “Being a prefect is a dangerous responsibility.”
“I should’ve listened. You… You would have crushed the Piltovans,” lamented Mara.
“Yes. I would have,” said Qiyana. She beamed as she thought of the miners and mercenaries that had plundered the village—how easily she would slaughter them, and how the surviving elders would grovel in thanks to her as they came to the same realization her sister was now reaching.
“You should be prefect of Tikras,” said Mara.
I should, thought Qiyana. I deserve it.