The Herald of Autumn (Echoes of the Untold Age Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page B

from when
we lived across the dark ocean. I hoped she wouldn’t hate me for using it.
    I pressed my hand to the trunk.
     “ Jillian Greenspruce !” The
world trembled as the name tore through me like a wind from beneath the earth.
I beckoned her with every whisper of what I was, beseeching. It mattered little
how long she had slept. It was almost impossible to ignore a beckoning that
one’s Name evoked.
    The creature’s keening howl grew
closer. It sounded triumphant, certain.
    You dare much, Tommy Maple . Her thoughts were cold, distant. I
could feel her petulance, and the underlying anger we all felt when accosted
with our Name.
    My need is great, sister. She wasn’t kith or kin, but I truly
found no other word. Because I knew her true Name, I became closer than any
lover or any bond of blood. Only you could answer so formidable a need.
    Her smirk laced her reply.
    Your honey-tongue doesn’t snare me, O
Great Herald. She
wouldn’t awaken fully, yet even so, she became more present, more real.
    I glanced up the rise at the
shambling thing, only now coming down the ridge. It leered, hungrily.
    I have not long for honeyed words,
sister. I am hunted, stalked by darkness dire. I need a boon, else there will
be a new Herald of Autumn.
    I don’t know how much I can do,
Tommy. You must stop poking at the things in the darkness.
    I know you feel it, dear sister. I
need to kill it. It won’t stop hunting me.
    She considered for a moment, weighing
unbroken years of life and wisdom. Spruce and I had always been on friendly
terms, a fortunate happenstance.
    No minor boon, this, Tommy. Not for
crying my Name to the ends of the world. Not for dragging me from my bower of
cold. Such is the
nature of my people. Murder stood less than four strides from me, and she
bargained for a greater boon.
    Agreed. I tried not to hurry her as my
terror grew.
    A boon for a weapon?
    Exactly what I had thought. Agreed
twice! A boon, struck square. Just give me something, anything, I can use to
kill this—!
    Above you.
    Just over my head was a thick, dead
bough. Stouter than my wrist, it was certainly strong enough to support my
weight. I doubted I could break it. Jillian would not deal me crooked, however.
    Thrice agreed. Bargain made. I jumped straight up, catching it
with both hands. Breaking it struck me as impossible, and yet it did, a perfect
break that left a wicked point in my hands.
    A mere branch is not a greater boon,
Tommy. I must give more. You wouldn’t rob me, would you?
    Upon me now, the fetch attempted to
wend its way into the tree’s bower, hindered by the stout branches.
    I clung close to the sap-covered
trunk as the magnificent tree thwarted the fetch. No matter how the shamble-man
tried, it couldn’t pass her thick boughs. I was safe—for the moment.
    I’ve learned many-a-thing on this
hill, Tommy. Once, in a twilight long forgotten, a fire-fae whispered to me
that one with need would come. I felt her strength, even if she weren’t yet entirely present.
The old spruce acted as a window for her, and she cast the threads of her
Telling through it. Care for a story of how that limb died? Care to know
from whence came yon spear?
    My brow furrowed. I needed to be
careful here.
    Such a tale could be useful, Jillian.
Could make a greater boon twice-fair . While I couldn’t Tell myself stories—for any who did was
certainly damned, a fool, or human-born—I could easily ride along on Jillian’s
words. Whereas the Old Man and I had sparred, Jillian and I could sing together.
    If I had time.
    The fetch circled the tree, huffing
its great, hollow, terrible breath. Still, it could not reach me for the spruce
itself confounded the creature.
    Jillian began with no seeming
concern.
    It was the greatest storm in
two-hundred years. The sky-folke had gone to war with the hidden people, such a
great confrontation that the very forest could fall in its wake.
    Her words echoed in my mind, a secret
history of the wood that none but her