Son of Thunder - Murray J. D. Leeder [45]
"Perhaps you could tell me," said Vell.
"You are a man," the treant said with great deliberation, "yet not a man. There is a sense to you, like something I knew in ages past. Great power is sleeping in you." The bark across its brow furrowed in its contemplation.
"Some of you are channels for energies. Power comes to you from the Weave," Duthroan indicated Kellin with the point of a root, "and to you from the divine." The root swung toward Keirkrad. "And to you from nature itself," Duthroan rumbled, pointing at Thanar. It paused. "But you are not a channel for power, but a repository."
"A repository," repeated Vell.
"There is danger where you walk. Danger even to this forest while you are here, if your power should wake and grow beyond your control. Why have you come?"
Thluna spoke "I am Thluna, chieftain of the Thunderbeast tribe. We are here…" But before he could finish, Duthroan raised up his roots and slapped them against the ground.
"Thunderbeast!" Leaves showered from Duthroan's branches as he shook them in anger. "The scourge of the Lurkwood? We treants know that name! The only Uthgardt ever known to fell living trees, even to sell them for profit? Not even the demon-tainted Blue Bears dared such a thing." In that heartbeat, all feared that their quest was over, that Duthroan would expel them from the forest-if not kill them outright.
"That is the past!" Thanar shouted. "I am a tender of nature as well, and I was appalled at my tribe's actions. I left them to wander the wilds of the North. I bathed in freezing rivers to purify my soul, to burn off what I considered a decadent, destructive way of life. Now the tribe has gone back to the true path, and I have rejoined them. Grunwald is rubble, life in the Lurkwood is far behind, and no more trees shall be cut down by the Thunderbeasts."
"Scant seasons have passed since this withdrawal," said Duthroan. "We who have lived ages recognize that such changes are not always permanent."
"Then the few generations they spent logging the Grunwald must seem like an eyeblink to you," said Kellin. "And is it not true that the Thunderbeasts once lived in the High Forest?"
"That is so," said Duthroan. This was a surprise to most of the Uthgardt present, though they had heard tales of life in the High Forest in their legends. "Before yellow-bearded Uther came to the North and tempted you out."
"You knew our ancestors as they lived and breathed?" asked Thluna, awestruck at the thought.
"They seldom dared enter our part of the wood," the treant said, "for they feared us. They made their home in the south."
"What of the behemoths?" asked Keirkrad. "The great lizards. Our totem has sent us in search of them."
A new expression crossed the treant's craggy features and he roared in excitement.
"You are one of them!" he shouted at Vell.
"One of whom?" demanded Vell.
"The behemoths! They roamed our woods once, great gentle beasts with necks that reached the highest tree-tops. But I have not known their like in a millennium, until today."
"I don't understand," Vell said. "How am I like them? I am a man, not a lizard."
"Some things cannot be explained easily," Duthroan said. "You cannot tell me you have no sense of what I mean."
Grim-faced, Vell nodded.
"Perhaps your kinsmen of the forest know of this," Duthroan said. "Perhaps I should take you to them, and let them decide what to do with you."
"The Tree Ghosts," said Keirkrad. They were the youngest of the Uthgardt tribes, an offshoot of the hated Blue Bear tribe. When the Blue Bears fell into savagery, evil, and the worship of Malar, the Tree Ghosts took their own strange path, devoting their lives to searching for a tree. They believed that the original ancestor