Chapter 272

and the iron jaw closing on it. A mouthful of pale, living, glistening wood torn out of the root of the world.

swallowing. One great gulp. His eyes rolling back in bliss.

Every root in sight shuddering at once, arches flexing, root-trees swaying, sap bursting from old strip-wounds. And from everywhere and nowhere, a sound that isn't a sound: the tree, screaming.

In the root-harbour, every plank of the Marka groaning at once, Levla and Drekk grabbing the rail.

On Glasheim's lowest terrace, an old birdhouse rattling on its post.

In the Brygdar cliffs, a stone king's open eyes watering.

And on the Great Root, Flisa, on her knees, both hands over her ears, screaming with it.

The amber book in the oak blazing white-gold. And heartwood climbing out of it over him, pale and living, not bark this time but the wood under the bark, spreading over the man half like a tide coming in.

Gnag growing. Three metres, five, eight, the heartwood swelling him up past the strippers, past the lowest root-arches, his twig-crown spreading into branches, his knot-eye a hollow you could climb into. Only the man's mouth still a man's mouth, and one human eye.

and his strippers, backing away from their master, white.

Gnag lifting one heartwood hand, and every root round the Great Root moving with it, bending, rising, curling like fingers, as if he were the tree. Roots whipping up out of the ground under both crews and flinging them.

standing up through the screaming, and throwing herself at Gnag's heartwood leg, splinter-teeth out, gold glints flaring in her, a Swell building in her fist. And stopping. Her fist an inch from the pale wood.

crumpling.

Krydog, out of nowhere, a Rising Fist off a chalk stair straight into Gnag's jaw. And Gnag's heartwood hand swatting him like a fly: Krydog down, through a root-arch, into the dirt.

rising, ba-dum, ba-DUM, the silver double-ring in his eyes, getting up healed. And Gnag's other hand already coming down, inside the same heartbeat, before the second DUM has finished.

Vigolas, a streak of green lightning, landing in front of Krydog and taking the second blow across his own back, both arms over his rival's head. Driven into the ground to his knees.

under him, staring up, his heart still on its one borrowed beat, not overflowed.

Gnag, enormous, at the foot of the Great Root, both arms raised. And all the roots that knot together in a great vault above the Great Root's foot, arches as thick as towers, knotted over both crews' heads like the roof of a cathedral, tearing loose at his command and coming down.

both crews looking up as the sky of roots falls on them: Isa, still, holding it for one panel; then her breath going, and it falling again. Emma's circle too small. Tihi, for once, not laughing.

staring up at the golden bear holding his falling roots. Then grinning, and slamming a heartwood fist into its golden side. And again. And again. Each blow strong as a tree.

Not moving. Not one inch. Looking down at the half-man with calm, warm, brown eyes, holding up the sky.

Gnag turning back to the Great Root, to the raw white wound of his first bite, and opening his jaw wider than before.

under the bear, grabbing Vigolas's coat with both hands, sap pouring out of her cracks, her knot-eyes wide.

on his knees, bleeding, Greed-sight blazing across Gnag, thinking faster than he ever has.

looking at the white wound in the Great Root. At the heartwood glowing in Gnag's chest. At where it came from.

Vigolas walking out from under the Cave-Bear's golden belly, alone, into the open, toward Gnag at the foot of the Great Root. Small. Lightning crawling over his torn hands.

turning from the root, irritated, looking down at the little greedy man with no wood on him.

Gnag raising one great heartwood fist high over Vigolas's head, a fist as big as a house, strong as the tree that holds nine realms.

not moving. Head down. A hand pressed flat over his own chest, as if he'd felt something knock there. His eyes going wide.

A dark corridor in his chest, and at the end of it a door opening, and a word coming through it, bright and green, walking home. And as it passes, its hand brushing along the walls, where small warm pictures hang, and taking one down.

(The picture it takes is drawn too small to read. Just warm colours. A kitchen, maybe.)

a single tear sliding out of one eye, not knowing why.

The Great Root, the golden bear holding the sky of roots, two crews beneath it, a girl made of splinters on her knees, and in the open ground below the root a giant of heartwood bringing a fist like a house down on one small man in a coat.

lifting to the falling fist, burning emerald-white, the ∞−1 over his head glitching gold, his mouth opening on a word that has just come home.