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In the stands, the crowd shouted and cheered as the Tuscans advanced mercilessly toward the cornered witch.

Certainly, a majority of the common people wanted to see Heila overcome impossible odds yet again. Already, she had defeated forty men in a series of increasingly lopsided matches that pitted some of the most capable of High Fen City’s gladiators against the witch from the Vale of Mists.

Only the most revered champions had refused to take to the sands, believing it would stain their honor to participate in a match that was so unfavorable to their opponent, though a few of them had begun to hope that Heila might entertain a proper challenge for single combat if she survived this ordeal.

A small number of residents in High Fen City had taken the chance to bet against the outsider who had, in their minds, humiliated many of the city’s most famed gladiators. Seeing Ipiktok’s unrelenting advance, they raised their voices and called out for blood!

"Spill her blood!"

"Crush the witch!"

"Tuscan! Tuscan! Tuscan!"

In his private box, sweat poured from Yotsun’s brow as the silver-haired merchant gripped the railing with white knuckles.

He had already spent more on these Tuscan warriors than he had spent on everyone else he hired to take down the diminutive witch and seeing six of them fall without so much as swinging a weapon made his blood boil and his stomach churn.

"What’s the matter, old friend," a serpentine merchant wearing expensive silks said as he slapped the shorter, horned merchant on the shoulder. "It couldn’t be that you think your mercenaries will lose, could it? Weren’t you just boasting to us that you’d treat everyone else in this box to a revitalizing potion brewed by ’your witch’ once these Tuscans defeated her? "

"Shut up, Beilan," Yotsun spat. "Don’t think I haven’t noticed your wife getting cozy with the witches in High Lady Erna’s private box. When I win, there won’t be any potions waiting for you."

"Ha ha ha ha ha," the serpentine merchant laughed at the dark look on his rival’s face. "I never expected to receive anything from you, old goat. But maybe when this is all over you can..."

-CRACK-

An explosive sound split the air interrupting their exchange of barbed pleasantries as the situation in the arena changed yet again.

Blood flowed in a wide rivulet down Heila’s face, seeping from a wound hidden by the War Hat. Without the hat’s strong defense, protecting her as well as a helmet would have, the impact of the iron shot might have shattered one of her horns and certainly would have knocked her senseless.

Four other iron balls had already embedded themselves in the stone wall behind her as the advancing Tuscans coordinated their attacks, forcing her into a position where she was off-balance and unable to dodge out of the way.

"Damn it," she cursed, running a finger along the band of her War Hat and retrieving one of the gifts that Jacques had bestowed on her. The seedpod taken from the Bloody Sandbox Tree was a precious item and not one that could be easily replaced. He’d harvested more than a dozen for her before they left the Briar, bemoaning the fact that he couldn’t accompany them on their journey.

Heila had intended to save them all for the upcoming war with the Lothians, but now that she found herself all but surrounded by the advancing Tuscans, she reached for her most unlikely friend’s gift without hesitation.

"A gift from a friend," she taunted the advancing Tuscans as she hurled the palm-sized fruit of the Bloody Sandbox Tree.

"Cover!" Ipiktok shouted, dropping to one knee and covering his head with his arms as he felt a dangerous surge of magic from the strange cluster of seeds.

An instant later, while his companions were still in the midst of responding to his orders, dropping their slings to protect themselves, the seed pod tore itself apart in a violent explosion.

There was no light or burst of flame, but a lurid red aura spilled from the fruit leaving a dozen crimson streaks hanging in the air as the shrapnel of the seedpod tore through the thick fur of the Tuscans, embedding themselves deep in their flesh.

Had it been a normal seedpod from a sandbox tree, even one empowered by the notoriously prickly Sandbox Witch, that would have been an end to it.

The wounds inflicted were grievous but hardly life-threatening.

This seedpod, however, had been taken from a Sandbox tree deep in the Briar, one that had been nurtured by decades of blood offerings, first from the Mother of Thorns and then from the Sandbox Witch who bore one of its seeds as his seed of witchcraft.

-brRREEEEEEE-

The wail of injured Tuscans split the air, once again driving the crowd to cover their ears as the trumpet blast was higher in pitch than any they’d heard from the towering giants before.

Ipiktok staggered to his feet, retrieving his spear and glaring at Heila with murderous hatred as he clutched the bloody wound on his side where two of the seeds had embedded themselves in his flesh.

A second later, however, that murderous glare trembled, his eyes widening as horror gripped him.

"What, what did you do to us, witch!" Ipiktok shouted, unable to suppress the tremble in his voice. "What, what was that?"

"A gift from the Sandbox Witch," Heila said, clutching her head as silvery-green light swirled around her hand, sealing the wound and stopping the flow of blood as she regained her composure.

"Surrender now," she said, her voice growing loud enough for the crowd in the arena to hear. "Surrender now," she repeated. "And I’ll save your lives. Refuse my offer and you’ll die within the hour."

"Leader," one of the Tuscans said with a pained look on his face. "That thing... it, it’s moving," he said, clutching at his bleeding leg as his thick fingers poked at the wound, desperate to stop the advance of the burrowing seed.

"It’s called a Heart Seeker Seed," Heila explained, using a trace of wind energy to carry her voice to the entire arena. "It’s a creation of the Sandbox Witch. The seeds in your flesh will dig deeper and deeper into your body until they can ’plant’ themselves in your heart.

When you die, they will use your body as nourishment to grow a new Bloody Sandbox Tree wherever you fall. "

In the stands, a hush had fallen over the crowd as they heard Heila’s description of the terrifying weapon.

Several looked at the wounded Tuscans with gazes filled with pity.

Perhaps the men were still strong enough to fight.

With the wound that the Willow Witch had already suffered, they might even be able to defeat her.

But what kind of victory would it be if they died less than an hour later?

Even though they could still fight, what was the point if they killed the only person who could heal them?

"Defeat her!" Yotsun shouted from his private box. His small fists pounded on the railing as strained his voice to make himself heard. "If you defeat her, she must enter my service! I will command her to heal you, so just defeat her now!"

"You’re a smart man," Heila said, looking up at the leader of the Tuscans.

"You could still fight me. You’re not dead yet," she acknowledged.

Slowly, she drew the small sword at her hip, filling it with just enough energy for the crystalline blade carved from Frost Walker horn to grow a brilliant white.

"But if I have to expend my energy to fight you, will I still have enough left to heal you in time? "

"Right now, I can remove those seeds from all of you," Heila promised, meeting wide-eyed gazes of each of the wounded Tuscans. "The seeds haven’t burrowed too deeply yet. I still have strength to fight, or to heal. Or you can fight me. Maybe you’ll win," she added, lowering her head enough to hide her eyes from the men under the wide brim of her War Hat. "Maybe you won’t. Either way, if we fight, you’ll probably die. "

"Leader," the man clutching his leg said. "This isn’t how I want to die, but if you order it, I will fight to my last breath."

"Not every fight is worth winning," Ipiktok said with a shake of his shaggy head. "Perhaps, if we fight for this little witch for a few years, we’ll be even stronger when we return home. A hunter doesn’t die pointless deaths, he consumes his prey to grow stronger and he never fights battles he knows he cannot win. "

"There is no shame in this," the Tuscan said as he bowed his head and touched the tip of his trunk to the ground in an oddly formal gesture of subservience. "We are defeated, Willow Witch. And we wish you victory in the coming days so we may grow stronger under your banner."

"Damn it, you feckless sell swords!" Yotsun shouted, cursing the Tuscan mercenaries and seven generations of their ancestors while he was at it.

Unfortunately, the cheers of the arena were so overwhelming that no one, not even the other merchants in the private box with him, could hear his curses. Everyone was too busy cheering the intense battle that marked the Willow Witch’s fifth consecutive victory over ten times as many foes.

Meanwhile, several people began to look at the fuming merchant with curious gazes, wondering what else he could produce at this point that would pose a threat to the diminutive witch who seemed like an unstoppable force unleashed in the arena.