The Goblin Raider Queen

The sap keeps flowing from the lightning-split tree, and then the bark loosens with a wet crack. Something brass glints inside the hollow, buried deep in the grain.

A horn, smaller than a war trumpet and carved with old marks, sits embedded in the wood. Violet light beats through it in time with the roots around Rozah.

The Lookout stares from the glowing trunk to Rozah's mantle, and the pieces click into place. The forest is not merely feeding here, it is anchoring itself into the tribe's land through the horns.

The tree shivers under Rozah's touch, sap and violet light mingling at the split. The hidden conduit pulses once, hard and hungry, as if it has finally found its path home.

Rozah snarls her command, and the violet roots answer at once. They surge from the ground in thick cords, wrap the split trunk, and squeeze. Bark groans, sap sprays bright and hot, and the hidden brass horn shudders in the wood.

The tree buckles with a cracking roar. Its hollow chest caves inward, and the horn tears free as the conduit splinters into glowing shards and rotten splinters.

The Lookout staggers back from the blast of light, eyes wide on the ruin. The tethering pulse falters, stutters, then dies under the collapse.

The sap keeps shining in the split bark, but the hungry rhythm is gone. Rozah stands over the wreckage with the horn at her feet, while the forest around the hollow goes still and uncertain.