[ WP ] The mutant forest must not advance . If the treeline expands into our village we will be doomed like all the others . We chop as one , and hold the line .

A hand on my shoulder made me jump. `` Settle down, boy,'' Da said, hushed to keep from provoking the spirits in the wind. 
 
 I looked to him, my hands trembling with hatchet in hand. Father felt no fear, he was n't scared of anything. Not even the woods, always just on the edge of sight from camp. Scars traced his face, exposed where his burly beard did n't reach. I'd have scars like that someday, maybe even tonight. The trees did n't go down quietly, silent in the night. 
 
 `` You still got a few weeks, you know,'' he said softly. `` Ranging is n't meant to bring you to battle. That's left till you become a man.'' 
 
 I swallowed the lump in my throat. `` I am a man, Da. I can do this. I was born to do this. We're born with an axe --'' 
 
 `` And we die with an axe. But the best of us die old, fighting our whole lives. Yours has barely started, boy. Keep your wits about you, or the trees'll get ya.'' 
 
 The warhorn blared, signalling the change of guard. In the distance, I could see them coming back, the dawn patrol. Some walked fair on their own two feet, but most were limping. Others still were far worse off, missing limbs and chunks from their chests. The lowest of my village, given the duty of dusk to dawn. 
 
 `` We'd die without them,'' Da said, fastening the straps on his leathers. He nodded to one of them, clutching the bloody hole where his eye had been. `` And they hate us'cause they know it.'' 
 
 The man sneered at the base camp, wandering past tent after tent. Our village lay beyond the hills, miles away from the treeline. A hundred years ago, the forest had n't yet crossed the seas. Injured as he was, he did n't stop for help or even to rest. The lowborn did n't get anything but a fresh hole to be buried in. And that was only for the men who came back. They were n't worth the healing. 
 
 `` Why do n't they just stop cutting?'' I asked, queasy as another man hobbled by, using his axe to make up for the lost leg. 
 
 `` They do at times, and that's why we're here, at the end of the line.'' Da grabbed his axe off the table, double-bladed and tall as any man. Notches in the staff marked his kills. There were n't nearly enough to inspire confidence. `` The lumber burns but it wo n't sail, like our ancestors could. We're stuck here until we die. If more men keep quitting, that wo n't be too long from now.'' 
 
 He left the tent, stopping just outside the flaps. He turned to me, concern flooding from his eyes. `` I ask you, son. Stay here. Stay alive.'' 
 
 If that's what he'd wanted from me, he should've kept his mouth shut. `` No, Da. The village dies if we quit, and it'll die sooner with me sitting on my arse.'' Tightening my grip on the hatchet, I said, `` We're born with an axe and we die with an axe. And I've already done the first one.''
