The words of the old man still echoed in Zeke's head—"The Fang of Thunder… the weapon of prophecy."
But whatever respect or awe he expected from that statement never came. Instead, the tension in the hall deepened. The villagers muttered. The bearded man slammed a palm on the table and barked orders.
Two guards grabbed Zeke by the arms, wrenching him toward the door.
"Hey!" Zeke protested, jerking against their grip. "The hell's this about? I didn't do anything—"
They ignored him, dragging him out into the square.
The late afternoon light burned hot under the twin suns. A crowd had already gathered, as if the entire village had been waiting for this moment. Zeke's stomach sank when he saw the structure in the center of the square: a wooden stake driven into the packed earth, surrounded by a waist-high pile of dry logs and kindling.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me…"
The guards shoved him forward. He stumbled, catching himself just short of face-planting into the stake. Before he could recover, they'd pulled his arms behind the post and tied them with thick rope.
Dusty was nowhere in sight.
The old man hadn't followed them outside. Neither had the bearded leader. Instead, the woman in leather armor stepped forward, unrolling a parchment and reading in a loud, clear voice. Zeke didn't understand the words, but the crowd's reaction told him all he needed to know.
Every few lines, she pointed toward him. Faces hardened. People spat on the ground.
Zeke twisted against the ropes. "Look, I think there's been a misunderstanding. I'm not your enemy. I just—"
A rock sailed out of the crowd, striking him in the shoulder. He flinched. Another followed, bouncing off the post behind his head.
A man stepped up with a torch, holding it high. The orange light caught in his eyes.
Zeke's pulse kicked into overdrive. He knew that look—mob justice.
They began piling more wood around his feet, dry branches that snapped and cracked under the weight. The smell of pitch filled his nose. Someone doused the base of the pile with oil.
The woman finished reading and tossed the parchment aside. She barked a single word. The man with the torch stepped forward.
Zeke yanked at the ropes. "You light that damn thing and I swear—"
Flames licked to life, small at first, but hungry. Smoke curled upward, stinging his eyes. The heat brushed against his boots.
The crowd's chant grew louder.
And then—
A sound ripped through the square.
It wasn't human. It wasn't anything Zeke had ever heard before. A deep, bone-rattling roar that seemed to shake the air itself.
The crowd froze.
From beyond the eastern palisade came the crash of splintering wood. A section of the fence exploded inward, scattering debris like kindling before a storm.
Something massive stepped through the gap.
Zeke's brain scrambled to make sense of it. At first, it looked like a man—if a man could be ten feet tall, with arms like tree trunks and skin the color of old bruises. Tusks jutted from a jaw that could crush a horse's skull. Its eyes glowed a sickly yellow.
The villagers screamed.
"Ogre," Zeke muttered. He'd heard the word in stories back home, but never believed. This thing made every bedtime monster seem like a friendly campfire tale.
It waded into the crowd, swinging a club the size of a fence post. The impact sent people flying. Stalls collapsed. Chickens scattered in a storm of feathers.
The guards who'd tied Zeke down scrambled to form a line, spears leveled. The ogre barely slowed. One swipe of its club shattered three spears and sent the men behind them sprawling.
The flames around Zeke's feet flickered and died under the chaos, trampled out by panicked villagers.
He twisted harder at the ropes. "Come on, come on—"
The ogre's roar rattled his bones again. It was closer now, moving through the square with terrifying speed for its size.
A blur of motion to Zeke's left caught his eye—a small figure darting out from an alley. A kid, maybe six or seven, hair tangled, eyes wide with terror.
The child tripped.
Before anyone could react, the ogre's massive hand closed around the kid's torso. It lifted the child into the air as easily as plucking an apple from a tree.
The crowd screamed.
The ogre opened its mouth. Rows of jagged teeth glistened in the twin sunlight.
And Zeke, still tied to the stake, could only watch.