It didn't ache now, despite the thunder. What could it mean?

Nor was a limp his only wound in a lifetime of wrestling trees. An oak had pinched off the last three fingers of his left hand. Though he was barely twenty years old, his legs and arms were scarred from branches and his own misguided axe cuts, but they were huge and brawny too, for what the forest had taken away it had replaced elsewhere. Because he was forever tearing through brush and chopping branches, Gull wore no cloth, but only leather, kilt and tunic. Even his long chestnut hair was drawn back with a rawhide thong. He wore clogs of hickory he'd carved himself, good protection for his toes, though they clumped mournfully on wood or stone floors.

Life in the forest had hardened Gull in other ways, though he scarcely knew it. Working alone, cutting and felling and solving problems the day long, he'd developed his own way of doing things, and was apt to ignore advice or compliments. In fact, the village wags said, working with mules had made him muleheaded. And as for keeping company with a simpleton, it was hard to tell which was which.

Now Gull veered down a brushy deer trail that would take him to the meadows sooner. And keep him hidden. All this strangeness meant trouble.

They'd been expecting it.

One moon ago, the villagers of White Ridge had tumbled out of bed to a ferocious warbling hiss. Dashing outdoors, everyone had seen the streak of yellow-white fire burn the night. Then a crash to the faraway northwest had shaken the ground, and flames had lit the horizon. A distant reach of forest had burned for days, a column of smoke blackening the sun. Finally late winter rains had doused the inferno and the smoke stopped.