The Great Tree of Avalon Read Online Free Page A

Bells
    Careful, You Stupid Slug!”
    Master Lott planted his fists on his flabby hips, jangling the bells on his belt. He glared up at the young man climbing the ladder. “You’ll drop your load again—for the fifth time today. And you’ll never get to the rooftop at that pace. You addle-brained ass!”
    Tamwyn grunted, the only reply he could manage. His mouth felt as dry as a desert lizard’s back. Slowly, he climbed up another rung on the wobbly ladder—hard enough without having to hold a huge bale of thatch on his shoulder. And a hammer and a sack of nails in his hand.
    The ladder suddenly shifted, creaking under all the weight. Tamwyn held tight, but glanced down at the worn vine lashings that held the thing together. They looked ready to burst. Just hold on , he pleaded silently. Don’t break on me now. This is my last load. My last bale.
    He tried to shake the hair out of his eyes. And my last day as a roof thatcher. That’s a promise.
    What a mistake he’d made agreeing to work for Lott today—and the unending insults were the least of it. His back ached. His legs throbbed. Countless spears of thatch poked him in the neck and cheek. And those blasted lice . . .
    He growled at the thought. Lice. Unlike most other creatures he’d met in his travels, they never listened. Never spoke to him. Never did anything but bite. They were just tiny versions of ogres, they were. Why, if another one crawled into his ear, he’d hurl it all the way to the next realm! By the bark of the Great Tree, he would.
    “Wake up, you worthless wastrel!” barked Lott from below, his enormous belly quivering. “Finish the job, will you?”
    Tamwyn started to climb again. But after just two more rungs he paused, panting. Though lanky and strong for a seventeen-year-old, he felt nearly spent after a whole long day hauling heavy bales up this ladder. Let alone all those ridge beams, support poles, and rolls of twine. Everything needed to put a roof on this half-built stone house.
    “Come on, you mindless muddlehead! My five-year-old daughter could’ve finished this job hours ago.” Lott chewed on his chubby lower lip, suddenly curious about something. “Just how old are you, anyway?”
    “Oh, er . . . eighteen,” lied Tamwyn. He’d learned long ago that revealing he was born in the Year of Darkness got him only fretful looks and suspicion—and, in one village south of here, a dagger thrown at his back. Although the year had long passed, and light had returned at its end, some people, even normally peaceful priestesses and priests from the Society of the Whole, were still scouring Avalon’s seven root-realms for any sign of the child of the Dark Prophecy. Why, he’d even heard that the elves in Woodroot had offered a big reward to anyone who found—and killed—the Dark child. So anyone born in that year was at risk.
    Tamwyn gulped, despite his dry throat.
    “Are you sure about that?” pressed the suspicious roof thatcher. His eyes, sunk deep into the rolls of flab on his cheeks like a pair of almonds in a mound of dough, scrutinized Tamwyn.
    “Y-yes, Master Lout. I mean . . . Louse. No, Lott!”
    The thatcher’s face turned as red as a ripe apple. “However old you are, you’re a dim-witted dunce. A rascally rogue! And if you don’t finish soon, you won’t get paid.”
    “I mean to finish,” grumbled Tamwyn.
    “Then do it.”
    Tamwyn rolled his stiff neck. “Just let me stretch a moment, will you?”
    Lott stamped his foot impatiently. But Tamwyn ignored him, trying without success to loosen his neck.
    The young man sighed, feeling weighed down by more than the bale on his back. This was about as far away as he could get from his work as a wilderness guide—work that he greatly enjoyed. And not just because it took him to the wildest parts of Stoneroot, a realm so vast that in seven years of walking its rocky hills he’d covered less than half of it. No, there was something else that kept him roaming this