Excerpt from Forty Days Without Shadow by Olivier Truc, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Silence fell, but the tension was stifling. The pastor drew a thick, illuminated Bible toward him and pointed at the accusing words:

"He that sacrificeth unto any god, save unto the Lord only, he shall be utterly destroyed!" His thunderous voice filled the company with terror.

A thickset peasant woman with a red, congested face sighed heavily and fainted, overcome by the heat. Aslak crumpled to the floor.

"This soothsayer, this peddler of lies shall die, for he has preached apostasy, denying the true doctrines of Yahweh, your Lord God."

The men and women fell to their knees, muttering prayers. Children gazed around, wild-eyed with fear. Outside, the wind rose again, bringing oppressive gusts of warm air.

The pastor was silent now. Dogs barked. Then they, too, fell silent. A stench filled the village assembly room.

"Sentence has been confirmed by the royal courts in Stockholm. Sami, may divine and royal justice be done."

Two filthy men took hold of Aslak and dragged him outside. The pyre stood ready, halfway between the lakeside and the ten or so wooden houses making up the village.

Aslak was bound fast to a thick pole that had been brought upriver specially, from the coast—there were no trees tall and strong enough for the purpose here inland. The pastor stood stoically while the mosquitoes sucked at his blood.

No one noticed the arrival of a young man, down at the lake, his boat loaded with skins to trade. He saw what was taking place in the village and froze. He understood the tragedy unfolding before his eyes. He knew the man on the pyre. A member of a neighboring clan.

One of the peasants set the pyre alight. The flames spread quickly, engulfing the branches. Aslak began to tremble and shake. He struggled to unstick the lid of his one good eye.

He saw the lake in front of him and the hill. He saw the silhouette of a young Sami man, standing as if transfixed. The flames licked at his body.

"He saved the others of his clan, let him save himself now!" A man grinned, blind in one eye and missing a hand.

The pastor struck him hard.?"Do not blaspheme!" he hollered, and hit the man a second time. The peasant scuttled off, his one hand pressed to his head. "Sami,

Sami, burn in hell!" he yelled as he ran. "Cursed demon!"?A child began to cry.?Suddenly, the Laplander gave a piercing shriek. He was raving

now, gripped by the flames, uttering bestial moans and cries. The wailing of a man no longer human. The cry sank into a hideous rattle, then rose again in a new register, a new dimension, beyond pain. A kind of harmony, utterly alien and unexpected, born of suffering, but clear as crystal to anyone capable of listening through the torment.

"Curse him! The demon is chanting to his gods!" cried a frightened villager, pressing his hands to his ears. The pastor stood by, impassive, searching the Laplander's face as if, in the heat of the fire, the man might suddenly reveal the whereabouts of the thing he had been sent to find.

Aslak's cry petrified the young Sami in his boat. Afraid but fascinated, he recognized the guttural chant of a joïk, a Sami song. He was the only one present who could understand the words. The song transported him to another world. The words were fragmented now, tumbling out fast. With his dying breath, the condemned man was doing his duty, passing on what he knew.

Then the singing ceased. Silence fell. The young Sami was silent, too. He turned back the way he had come, his head ringing with the dead man's screams. His blood had turned to ice. There could be no mistake. He knew now what he must do. And after him, his son. And his son's son.

From the book Forty Days Without Shadow: An Arctic Thriller. Copyright (c) 2012 by Olivier Truc. Reprinted by permission of Twelve/Hachette Book Group, New York, NY. All rights reserved.