Heartwood (Tricksters Game) (11 page)

He followed Darak obediently, sucking in great gulps of the sweet, clean air. It burned his throat and tasted even better than Griane’s hot apple cider.

Thinking of Griane drove away some of the sweetness of the air. A lump formed in his throat as if a small stone had lodged there. He swallowed hard and it grew larger. Stroking his throat only made it worse, for then he remembered Griane’s hands patting his face, light as moths. He would miss her hands. And her voice, soft and growly when she was happy, yippy like a fox when she was not. And the many smells of her—sheep and apples and green plants and a musky scent that all combined to make his nose quiver.

But he did not belong with Griane. He belonged here. The trees knew it. They called him, their energy as eager as his, beckoning him. Abandoning the trail, he ran.

Darak shouted his not-name, but this time, he could not obey. He wove in and out among the trees, staggering against them, laughing. He fell to his knees to trace curving roots. He clawed through snow and pine needles to breathe in the cold, rich, wondrous scent of earth. He touched rough bark and sticky sap. That tang came from the pine. He licked his fingers. He had never known its taste, but now he would carry the knowledge with him forever. He closed his eyes, his senses overwhelmed. Then he heard Darak shouting.

He was close now, but he still needed them to reach his grove. Summoning his ages-old patience, he rose and turned toward the sound of Darak’s voice.

Darak seized Tinnean’s shoulders and shook him. “Don’t do that again. You must stay with us.”

“Aye, Darak.”

Keeping a firm grip on Tinnean’s arm, he led him back to the trail, willing his heart to stop pounding, willing his mind to stop imagining how easily he could have lost him.

He kept his pace slow, guiding himself with memory and touch as much as sight, head cocked to catch any sounds that might mean danger or that his brother had strayed from the trail again. Even at midday, the forest was a place of shadows. In the heart of the night, each shadow seemed to hold the thing that had attacked Tinnean.

Every hunt held fear: the quarry could elude you, you could be injured, you could surprise a predator. You had to accept the fear. Only then could you conquer it. Control fear and you could control anything. Even yourself.

Something brushed against his forehead and he pulled up short, clawing at his face. A vine. Only a vine. His heart thudded loudly enough for the whole forest to hear. He shook his head in disgust. The great hunter—trembling before a vine.

Even in the dark, he recognized the looming mass of the boulder on the little outcropping, the birch with the broken limb. With a sigh of relief, he skirted the birch and walked into the glade.

After the close-packed trees, he felt exposed and vulnerable in Gheala’s creamy light—and utterly insignificant before the heart-oak. He knew that the slight rise the oak straddled made it seem even taller, that the shadows cloaking its lower branches lent a greater air of mystery. As always, awe conquered logic, the same awe he had felt as a child, head thrown back to look at the soaring trunk that made the tallest of the pines seem as small as his first spear.

Tinnean edged past him, moving like a dream-walker. He stretched out his hands and laid his palms against the trunk. His body slumped. “Not the oak.”

“Your Oak is in another forest,” Struath said.

“Close?”

“Very close.” Struath took Tinnean’s arm and led him to the edge of the glade where Yeorna and Gortin waited. At least the shaman would not hear his prayers. He could humble himself before the gods, but humbling himself before Struath would be intolerable.

Darak gazed around the glade, uncertain how to begin. The shadowy trees held no answer; they simply waited, a silent black mass. Finally, he squared his shoulders.

“Hernan. Lord of the Forest.” His whisper sounded loud in the stillness. “You know me. I’m a hunter, not a shaman. But I ask your permission to enter your sacred forest. I intend no harm to any of your creatures. I just want to accompany my brother and help him find his way home.”

If the Forest-Lord heard, he gave no sign.

“Oak-Brother.” He stroked the heart-oak’s runneled trunk, just as Tinnean had. “My people have always revered you and your tree-kin. We clear only the ground we need to sustain us. We cut no limb from a living tree without offering a sacrifice in return. Help me. Please. Not for my sake, but for my brother’s. He’s a good boy and he loves you and he is lost.”

He had offered many prayers to the Forest-Lord over the years, but tonight he found it easier to speak to the heart-oak. It had stood with his tribe since the beginning. It was as mortal as he was and knew what it was to suffer loss. He found himself telling the tree how Tinnean used to sneak off to the forest long before his vision quest, driving them all near frantic with worry until they’d spy him running through the fields, laughing and breathless with the excitement of some new discovery.

Darak shook his head. Maybe there had always been something different about Tinnean. Else how could a child wander the forest and never come to harm?

His father would have known; he’d always had the answers.

Gheala’s oval of light had crept to the far side of the glade. The night was waning. He slipped his bow off his shoulder and drew his dagger. Then he hesitated, staring at the squat quickthorn that grew in the shadow of the heart-oak. Its dense tangle of branches reached away from the oak, seeking the light and space denied to it by its giant brother. Sheathing his dagger, he shrugged his mantle off his shoulder and pushed back his sleeve. Then he plunged his arm into the branches.

He winced as the thorns pierced him, but jerked his arm back to allow more to claw a fiery path down his forearm. Fist clenched, he shoved his arm deeper into the branches, twisting it back and forth to expose more of his flesh. Sweat broke out on his forehead, but he pressed his lips together, mastering the pain. Finally he pulled his arm free, grimacing as a thorn caught the flesh inside his elbow and ripped him open to the wrist.

He crouched before the heart-oak and let his blood drip onto the exposed roots, squeezing the flesh around the shallower cuts so that they, too, spilled their offering. When he finished, he scooped up a handful of snow and rubbed it against his wounds. The fire flared briefly, then receded to a dull throb.

“Struath said I must humble myself. And so I will. I cursed you after the plague. I know that was wrong. But they suffered so, Mam and Maili. Six days and nights, burning up with fever, screaming as the sores burst …”

The grief caught him unprepared, choking him. He thought he had conquered it by now. He rested his head against the heart-oak, waiting for it to subside. When it didn’t, he beat his forehead against the trunk of the tree, again and again and again, until finally, pain banished grief. Weary now, he addressed the gods one last time.

“I blamed you for their suffering. And for what happened to my brother. Maker help me, I cannot forgive what you did to my folk and ’twould be a lie if I pretended otherwise. So punish me. Not Tinnean. Bring him back. I . . I beg you.”

He rose. Whatever sign the gods sent, he would meet it on his feet like a man.

Please don’t let my punishment be to lose him.

He heard a gasp behind him and spun around, automatically reaching for his dagger.

A wolf stood at the edge of the trees. A huge beast, twice the size of any he’d killed. Impossible that it could have crept up on him. Years of hunting had taught him to stay alert at all times. Even when the awful grief had seized him, one part of him had remained attuned to the forest. Briefly, he wondered if his vision mate had somehow materialized, but he dismissed the idea when the animal stepped into Gheala’s light; this wolf was silver, not black.

Never taking his eyes off the beast, he slowly bent and retrieved his bow, right hand already reaching over his shoulder. As he straightened, he nocked the arrow in his bowstring. Even in the predawn gloom, he could see Yeorna’s fingers flying. Gortin was trying to pull Struath behind him, but the shaman just stared at the wolf, transfixed.

The wolf shambled toward the others, weaving like Crel’s dog when it had the water sickness last summer. It came to a halt before Struath. Edging left, Darak drew the bowstring back, but the wolf just stood there, swaying slightly with the effort to keep its footing.

“Struath?” He kept his voice soft, but the animal’s ears pricked up. “Move right. Now.”

The wolf crouched. Struath cried out and pushed Tinnean into the brush. Darak loosed the arrow as the wolf leaped. The animal yelped and spun toward him. For a moment, they were face-to-face. He was reaching for another arrow when the wolf bolted. Its legs buckled once, but it recovered and staggered into the underbrush, the cracking of twigs and branches testifying to its headlong flight.

Darak raced across the glade. “Are you all right? Tinnean?”

“Aye, Darak.”

Struath clutched his staff as if it were the only thing keeping him on his feet. Darak peered at his face, stunned by the stark terror he found there.

“He saw the wolf,” Gortin said. “In his vision today.”

Darak retraced his steps, bending low to examine the snow-dusted ground. His fingertips and nose confirmed what his eyes found: the wolf might have appeared in a vision, but it shed real blood.

A quick glance overhead showed the circle of sky had lightened to deep blue. Whatever the creature was, he had no time to track it. He walked back to the others. Struath was still staring after the wolf, visibly shaking. What in Chaos had the old man seen in his vision?

Yeorna gave a helpless shrug. “The wolf is … part of this. Somehow. And so are you, Darak. The gods must value honesty over humility.” Her rueful smile made heat flare in his cheeks. Silently, he took her proffered hand.

“Tree-Father,” Gortin said in a gentle voice. “It is time.”

As if waking from a dream, Struath took Tinnean’s hand.

“Darak. My hand.” Yeorna’s voice was gentle, but a hint of amusement lingered. It took him a moment to realize he was crushing her fingers. The embarrassing heat flushed his face again. Yeorna’s small smile only made it fiercer.

Struath led them sunwise, his lips moving in secret words too soft to hear. A blackbird greeted the dawn, its melodious warble drowned out by crashing in the underbrush. Yeorna’s fingers tightened on his. The clump of elders shook. Griane stumbled into the glade. Without thinking, he reached out his free hand to steady her. Ice-cold fingers clasped his. And then the glade disappeared.

S
TRUATH GLANCED AROUND wildly, letting out his breath when he realized the wolf had not followed them. He wheezed out a shaky prayer, staring at the gaping wound that split the Oak nearly in two. Ragged shards of heartwood reared up, as sharp and menacing as the wolf’s fangs.

“Nay.”

“Tree-Father?” Gortin grasped his arm, his kind, homely face twisted with concern. “Are you all right?”

“I am fine.” A lie. But not as awful as the others he had spoken this night.

“Tree-Father. What is it?”

He had lied to Gortin. He had lied to Yeorna. He had lied to the council. When the wolf appeared in the glade, he was certain it had come to punish him.

Tinnean’s strangled cry startled him out of his thoughts. The boy tottered forward, picking his way through the branches that littered the ground. Struath flung off Gortin’s hand and stumbled after him, but Darak reached him first. He grabbed Tinnean’s hand as he reached for one of the Holly’s branches, so heavy with leaves and berries that it brushed the ground.

“Don’t touch it, Tinnean. It could hurt you.”

Of course, Darak didn’t understand. He saw only the boy’s form, not the spirit inside. He saw only what he wanted to see.

Struath shuddered. Was he doing the same? He had seen the wolf in the vision that had come to him before the council meeting, but the rest was sheer invention: the mist-shrouded island, the wolf threatening Tinnean, the green-boughed Oak that rose from the heart of the island to protect the boy. It was the only way he could save him—and the ancient spirit that now inhabited his body.