Greenwode by J Tullos Hennig

Author:J Tullos Hennig [Hennig, J Tullos]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: fantasy
ISBN: 978-1-63216-438-4
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
Published: 2014-10-28T04:00:00+00:00

IT WAS a magnificent dagger. One could think it too delicate, with the wide, filigreed quillion and the long, slender blade. But it was serviceable as well as lovely.

Like its owner.

For that was the most important thing, that it had been Gamelyn’s.

The moon was setting over Mam Tor, a waning sickle beyond the stark gray stones surrounding him, descending into the black shadows of the forest’s treetops. Rob was kneeling amidst the ring stones. With a touch of the pommel to his lips, he passed the dagger, hilt to tip then tip to hilt, through the fire he had lit upon the center stone.

His father would not approve. His mother would fork an evil eye at him—likely right before she boxed his ears. And Rob was frankly positive that Cernun, did he discover his protégé preparing a dubious blood rite on a hallowed doorstep of the Barrow-lines, would kick his arse and starve him in the caverns for a month. But Cernun was nowhere to be found, and Rob had to know what none would tell.

He laid the knife edge upon his unbandaged left palm. Better to hear Marion’s fussing than to lame his good hand as well as the other, but for this he had no choice. Any left-hand path was a chancy one, but it was, after all, Rob’s stronger hand….

Suddenly there was a shadow on the stone, nigh eclipsing the fire, and rage in a low voice. “What do you think you’re doing, boy?”

A boot kicking the fire, smoke and ash scattering across the altar, and a wiry hand grabbing his tunic and shoving him back. Rob went sprawling, as much from shock as the strength of the shove, and rolled to his hands and knees before Cernun.

“You canna—uh!”

With uncanny speed and strength, the old man lurched forward, grabbed Rob’s tunic front, and yanked him close. “Are you now thinking to tell me, boy, what I can and cannot do?”

Before the rage in those clear eyes, Rob had no answer.

“Did you really think you could do this, on my doorstep, and I would not know?” Cernun growled, and shoved Rob back. “You are powerful, young stag, but not that powerful. Do you think there is anything—anything!—that happens in my forest of which I am unaware?”

“Then where were you two nights ago?” Rob shot back, stumbling to his feet. “Where were you when Will needed you? When I….” He choked off.

“Will is no longer of our covenant.”

“He—”

“And what happened between you and the young lordling ’twas what brought me here!”

Rob fell silent, trembling all over, gripping tight the hilt of Gamelyn’s dagger.

“What were you thinking?” Cernun gave a snort. “Now that I ponder it, you weren’t thinking, two nights ago or now. Unless what’s in your cod-wrap now does your thinking for you! You would call a blood rite… you? A stripling barely come to his power would think to hold the Wheel still or even turn it back!” He leaned forward, roared, “Why?”

“I want answers!” Rob snarled back.

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