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Authors: Barbara Campbell

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BOOK: Heartwood (Tricksters Game)
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The Memory-Keeper began the song, his quavering voice quickly supported by others.

“Now is the dark time.

The sun’s light is ebbing.

The old year is waning.

The earth is asleep.

Now at the dark time

The Oak-Lord awakens.

The Holly-Lord threatens.

The battle begins.

Pray for the Oak.

Help him vanquish the Holly.

Pray for the Oak.

Make the darkness retreat.

Sing to the Oak

And the earth will awaken.

Sing to the Oak

And the spring will return.”

As they sang, Struath led the procession around the heart-oak. He offered the first gift, sprinkling blood from the flask over the tree’s roots. Children crumbled oatcakes, women poured libations of berry wine, men paused to tie arrows and fishhooks to the lowest branches. The last streaks of color were fading from the sky when he motioned the priests aside. It was time.

Only at sunset and sunrise, when the boundary between the worlds was thin, could they make the crossing. The first time, he had expected bolts of lightning or howling winds to mark the passage. Although he knew how it would happen, the wonder was as great as ever when he uttered the ancient words of permission and, between one step and the next, led the priests out of their tribal glade and into the grove of the First Forest.

He heard Tinnean gasp as the shadowy figures of other worshipers appeared. They came alone and in pairs, men and women, even a few who looked to be children. Some wore animal skins, others robes. Some bore elaborate tattoos, others were unmarked. Countless strangers, from all the tribes who worshiped the Oak and the Holly. All came in silence and in darkness, torches extinguished during their passage; the First Forest did not welcome fire.

Gheala emerged, full-bellied and fat, from behind the clouds. Tinnean gasped again as her moonlight revealed a grove so large their entire village could fit within it. And at its center, the living heart of this limitless forest, stood the One Tree.

As always, the sight filled Struath with awe. The One Tree had stood in this grove since the world’s first spring, observing the passing of time as a man might mark the passing of seasons. Each root was thicker than the trunk of their heart-oak. Twenty men with their arms outstretched could barely circle the trunk. But the true miracle was that the One Tree was also Two, for from those roots, from that trunk, grew the Oak and the Holly.

Tinnean’s eyes were wide, his face as pale as Gheala’s.
So I must have looked that first time,
Struath thought. He experienced a vivid sensation just then of his mentor’s hand resting on the back of his neck. He hunched his shoulders, shrinking from the memory.

One by one, each tribe laid its offerings among the Oak’s roots: blood and water, meat and grain, flint arrowheads and smooth stones. One man carried a brace of hares, another a gourd painted with bold green leaves. The gaunt woman before him in the procession offered a bouquet of dried goldenrod. Struath knelt and placed the bullock’s heart next to it.

“It is not the offering that is important, little rook, but the heart of the one who makes it.” So Morgath had told him before his first battle rite, the deep voice calming his anxiety, the gentle touch stilling his restlessness. Even as Struath shuddered, he realized he had failed to offer such reassurance to Tinnean. As he moved back from the One Tree, he squeezed the boy’s shoulder and was rewarded with a quick, relieved smile.

By the time each gift had been presented, Gheala’s light had traveled halfway across the grove. Struath’s heartbeat quickened with familiar excitement. In a dozen tongues, they offered the greeting. “Lord of the Oak. Lord of the Holly. We stand before you.” In a dozen tongues, they made the affirmation. “Lords of the First Forest, we come to witness.” And then they waited.

The air trembled. A shiver ran down Struath’s spine as the energy flowed around him and through him, through all of the watchers, human and tree alike—a circle of living power surrounding the Tree. A shudder rippled through the massive trunk. The sweeping boughs of the Holly shook as the Lord of the Waning Year offered the challenge. The Oak rattled its spindly branches, accepting.

“They battle!” Tinnean cried.

The boy should not have spoken, but Struath understood the need to give voice to the wonder. Around the circle of worshipers, the power surged. Through earth and air, the power of the First Forest resonated, filling his senses, making him want to shout like Tinnean with the joy of it.

Then the Holly attacked. The finger-length spikes of its leaves carved long gouges in the Oak’s trunk. Struath sang with the others, his voice shaking with cold and apprehension. Each day since Midsummer, the Oak-Lord’s strength had dwindled, and with it the strength of the sun. Tonight, his power was at its lowest ebb, yet somehow, the Lord of the Waxing Year must prevail.

A great bulge ran up the trunk of the Tree. Twigs burst out of the Oak’s naked limbs. They grew thick and strong, swelling with power. The Oak lashed the Holly, the sharp retort of cracking branches punctuating the singing. Green boughs sagged. Red berries, large as fists, rained down.

Struath flexed his fingers, unaware until now how tightly he’d been clenching his staff. As many times as he had stood here, the battle between the old year and the new was a fearful thing to behold. But all would be well. The Oak-Lord would vanquish his rival, the dying sun would be reborn, and just as their ancient song promised, winter would yield to spring.

The Holly’s limbs shriveled, retreating before the burgeoning power of the Oak. Even as relief surged through him, Struath heard a high-pitched whine. The chanting faltered. The smooth flow of energy fragmented as the worshipers searched the grove for the origin of the sound.

The whine intensified. Struath peered at the One Tree. Surely it was a trick of Gheala’s waning light that made the Oak seem to waver. Or was it his aging vision that created the illusion of a crevice snaking up the trunk of the Tree? In shocked disbelief, he watched the crevice widen, revealing a featureless void darker than the Midwinter night. Before he could puzzle it out, the Oak split with a horrifying shriek of rending wood.

Shards of wood, longer than any spear, catapulted through the air. Men and women fled screaming, trampling those in their path. Struath stood frozen as one of the flying spears shattered a man’s head. Another impaled a woman on a birch where her body hung, twitching.

A bearded man shoved Yeorna and she fell. Struath threw his body over hers, crying out as feet kicked his ribs and back. The Tree shrieked again. Struath raised his head as the Oak shuddered and ripped away from the trunk of the Tree. The great branches fell to the ground with eerie slowness, the shock of the impact knocking the few worshipers who still stood off their feet.

Blackness filled the jagged scar. In the blackness, stars red as blood. They gleamed with an unholy light as they swirled, slowly coalescing into a shape. A hand, Struath realized. An outstretched hand, the fingers curling and uncurling as if reaching for him. Even as an arm struggled to shape itself, the hand disintegrated, melting into a trail of red stars that oozed down the trunk of the Tree like malignant sap. Struath’s lips moved in the prayer to avert evil, but no sound would emerge from his mouth.

It was Tinnean who screamed.

Even as Struath reached for him, he knew he was too late. Tinnean raced toward the Tree, unlit torch raised high. It seemed to take forever for the torch to complete its graceful arc toward the trail of bloody slime and only a heartbeat for the torch to shatter.

Tinnean hurtled into the air. He screamed again, the shrill cry of a terrified animal. For a moment, his body was silhouetted against the swirling red stars. Then he plummeted into the branches of the Holly, his scream abruptly cut off.

An owl swooped past. The insistent whine faded. And then, as if Gheala could not bear to witness more, the moon disappeared behind a cloud, plunging the grove into darkness.

Chapter 3

D
ARAK WOKE WITH a startled curse. A drop of water ran down his cheek. Reluctant to leave the warmth of the wolfskins, he shifted on his pallet. The movement sent pain lancing through his temples, a vivid reminder of the jug of brogac he had drained the night before. Groaning, he lay still.

Another drop spattered on the bedstraw next to his head as melting snow dripped through a hole in the turf. He had meant to repair the roof before the snows came, just as he’d meant to plug the chinks in the walls, but he had more important concerns this autumn than the roof or the walls.

Judging from the light sifting through those selfsame chinks, it was past dawn. They would be back soon. A creeping sense of shame assailed him. No matter what he thought of the gods, he should have stood with his tribe. And no matter what he thought about Tinnean’s decision to become a priest, he should have attended his brother’s initiation.

Instead, he had made a spectacle of himself. And soon, he’d become a bigger one. When Red Dugan had passed out in his hut before the Midsummer rite, Struath had made him kneel in the center of the village for an entire day, chanting apologies to the gods, to the Tree-Lords, and to each member of the tribe.

The thought intensified the throbbing in his head. Whatever punishment Struath decreed, he would have to accept it. That was the law of the tribe and no man stood outside it.

He crawled out from under the skins, scratching his cheeks; two days’ growth of bristles couldn’t obscure the plague scars. The fire was nearly dead. His eyes felt gritty. His mouth tasted foul. And he stank.

He stumbled outside, blinking in the watery sunlight. The eerie emptiness of the village made him shudder and the shudder made his head ache. Cursing Tinnean’s insistence on dedicating himself to unfeeling gods, he hitched up his tunic and unknotted the thong at the waist of his breeches. The gods hadn’t cared when his wife died, screaming as the red plague pustules burst all over her body. They hadn’t cared about his mam, too weak to scream, too wasted to move, who simply ceased to exist between one breath and the next. The gods cared only for themselves.

Piss on the gods.

Rearranging his clothing, he peered east to find his kinfolk surging through the stubbled fields. He ducked back inside. When he faced Struath, he wanted to look his best.

He broke the ice in the basin and splashed water on his face. He rolled more water around his mouth to take away the taste of the brogac and spat it out on the rushes. Crouching beside the basin, he lathered his face, stretched the skin taut, and dragged his dagger across his cheeks. A shout outside made his hand slip; he winced as the flint blade nicked him, then resolutely finished the task. He wiped the dagger on his breeches and sheathed it as Griane flung aside the bearskin.

“You better come, Darak.”

The last thing he needed this morning was Griane’s breathless dramatics. Because she was his wife’s sister, he bit back his retort and asked, “What now?”

Judging by the way her lips thinned almost to invisibility, his answer had not been civil enough. Her face grew paler, making the freckles stand out all the more. He knew he should be patient, but he had a wicked headache and little inclination to wheedle information from the girl.

“What?”

Griane tossed that impossibly red braid over her shoulder. For a moment, he thought she might simply run off. All the women in her family had that odd manner, as if they were wild creatures only recently tamed. In Maili, he’d found it endearing.

Just when he was on the point of telling her to speak her mind or get out, he realized she was holding Mother Netal’s basket. Perhaps she had brought herbs to ease his pounding head. Regretting his gruffness, he mumbled an apology.

Griane’s face crumpled. Before he could do more than gape at her, Nionik ducked inside, cradling Tinnean’s limp body in his arms. Fear stabbed Darak, keen as a dagger’s blade.

The chief laid Tinnean on his pallet and Darak knelt beside him. Bloody scratches marred his brother’s face and hands, but he could see no other marks of violence. He might almost be sleeping, so peaceful did he look. His cheek was cold, though, and the hand that he grasped lay limp between his fingers. Melting snow spattered onto Tinnean’s face from another hole in the roof. He hauled the bedding closer to the fire pit.

“What happened?”

Nionik glanced away as Yeorna and Lisula slipped inside, all of them shoulder to shoulder in the close confines of the hut. Their silence terrified him as much as their haunted expressions. It was a relief to hear Mother Netal shouting at those outside to let her through.

He pulled Tinnean into his arms, hugging him hard, just as he had the morning Tinnean returned from the forest after disappearing for an entire day and night. That was the first time he had whipped his brother.

BOOK: Heartwood (Tricksters Game)
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