Read Online Second Night by Gabriel J Klein - Free Book Online Page B

night out with the spooks. I know too much about what fear really is and it gets in the way of everything I do. I wasn’t afraid when I was out there last time. I was just boiling mad, trying to stay alive and save the horses. I convinced myself that the burning and pain were a dream, until we came home and everything was changed. Dreams don’t do that – only reality. The fear came on afterwards and it’s never gone away. The truth is that I’ve been a mess ever since I ended up at World Tree.
    He forced himself to build a mental picture of the Tree as he knew it, and might soon be facing again. So huge there’s no beginning and no end to it… so much more alive than anything else I’ve ever seen… grabbing the sacrifices and hanging them up… the man with the haggard face and his mare going under Gungnir, the Spear… all that light… all the power… the voice in the shadow… don’t forget the rats.
    The sweat broke out again, running down his face and his neck. He muttered, ‘The Haggard Man wanted to be sacrificed, but there was a lot that didn’t. They were scared shitless too. It wasn’t just me. They stank of fear and it gave them away to the spooks. I won’t get the runes if I turn up stinking like that again. I won’t make it past the Place of Judgement, or whatever they want to call it. I’ll just end up dead in the void.’
    The outline of the rune was still shining faintly on the great black head of the spear, taunting him for his lack of knowledge and skill. I don’t even know what it’s called or how it works. Even Kyri can’t help me, and the old man’s useless.
    He slipped his fingers into the leather bag in his trouser pocket and took out one of the little wooden counters, turning it over to examine the mark burned into the polished wood. It’s always the Ice Rune, he thought bitterly. ‘Ice we call the broad bridge; the blind man must be led.’ He put the rune back in the bag before he followed the temptation to throw it away.
    â€˜You used to help me,’ he accused the old tree. ‘I thought we were friends. But you didn’t like me that first time I came up here, did you? You were shaking me so hard I dropped the knife and nearly messed up my chance to cut the rune staves. You would have succeeded if it hadn’t been for Bryn.’ He produced a small dagger from the sheath at his waist. ‘It’s not the same one I stuck you with before. That got fried on the way back from World Tree. This one’s better. Al helped me make it and it can do a lot more damage.’ He tested the blade against the bark. ‘Still asleep, huh?’
    He began carving his name in runes into the thickly knotted trunk, cutting deliberately deeper with every stroke of the blade… C, the torch rune… A, the oak rune .
    â€˜You know that one, don’t you?’ he said slyly, waiting for the shuddering to begin. He hung onto a branch, pumping his legs up and down on the bough, trying to shake the tree into reacting. Furiously, he cut the last rune, driving the dagger up to the hilt into the bark.
    â€˜Z, the eel-sedge rune, the one that makes a ghastly wound!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t you remember? Come on! Wake up! Fight me! Shake me down! What do I have to do to get you to help me?’
    He hooked his legs over the bough and swung upside down, looking up at the sky through the branches. Maybe I’ll end up like the old man, living my whole life alone, a mad, grey-haired, weird old dodderer ringing the bell for Jem to bring me tea and biscuits.
    â€˜Or perhaps you would care to join me for a little wine, my dear Lady Sibylla? ’ he said aloud, mouthing the plummy aristocratic vowels and adjusting an invisible eye patch.
    There won’t be any point keeping vows by then, he thought miserably. I’ll be too old and stupid to do anything except get blind