Heartwood (Tricksters Game) Read Online Free PDF Page B

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’