Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 118

'Don't talk,' warned Renn.

'Hurts less than breathing,' said her uncle. 'Where are we?'

Torak told him.

He groaned. 'Ah, not here! Not the hill!'

'We can't move you, not tonight,' said Renn.

'This is a bad place,' muttered Fin-Kedinn. 'Haunted. Evil.'

'No more talk!' admonished Renn, cutting strips from the hem of her jerkin for bandages.

Wolf lay beside her, his muzzle between his paws. Rip and Rek stalked up and down at a stiff raven walk. Torak watched Fin-Kedinn turning his head from side to side. He'd never felt so powerless.

Renn told him to fetch wood for a fire, and he ran off. His hands were shaking and he kept dropping sticks. He thought, if that beech had fallen just a little differently, it would have crushed his breastbone, and we'd be putting on Death Marks. It would be my fault. I could have killed us all.

From where he stood, the hill sloped down to the Blackwater. A deer trail wound along its bank, past one of the stone jaws and into the Deep Forest. He pictured the Oak Mage vanishing into the shadows. He had been so close.

Back at the ledge, Fin-Kedinn had slipped into an uneasy doze, and Renn was on her knees with a handful of birch-bark tinder, grimly trying and failing to get a spark with her strike-fire. 'Well, go on then,' she said without looking up.

'What do you mean?' said Torak.

'Go after him. That's what you want.'

He stared at her. 'I'm not leaving you.'

'But you want to.'

He flinched.

'It'll take days to get Fin-Kedinn back to the clan,' she said, still failing to get a spark. 'And all the time, Thiazzi's getting away. That's what you're thinking, isn't it?'

'Renn '

'You never wanted us to come!' she burst out. 'Well, here's your chance to be rid of us!'

'Renn!'

They faced each other, white and shaking.

'I won't leave you,' said Torak. 'In the morning I'll bring round the canoes. Then we'll work out what to do.'

Savagely, Renn struck a spark. Her lips trembled as she blew life into it.

Torak went down on his knees and helped feed the fire with kindling, then sticks. When it was fully awake, he took her hand, and she gripped so hard that it hurt.

'He's beaten us,' she said.

'For now,' he replied.

Night deepened, and the sliver of moon fled across the sky. Renn said they should take comfort from it; it would grow stronger, and so would Fin-Kedinn. Torak thought she was trying very hard to persuade herself.

While she tended Fin-Kedinn, he fetched their gear from the canoes, then used branches to turn the ledge into a rough shelter, leaving a gap for the smoke. He'd found a clump of comfrey near the river, and Renn pounded its roots into a poultice, while Torak made the leaves into a strengthening brew in a swiftly fashioned birch-bark bowl. Together, they bandaged Fin-Kedinn's ribs. The binding had to be tight, to help set the broken bones. When it was done, all three of them were sweating and pale.

After that, Renn fed the fire with juniper boughs and wafted some of the smoke into the shelter to drive off the worms of sickness. Torak tucked a slip of dried horse meat in a crack in a boulder to thank the Forest for letting his foster father live. Then, as they were both famished, they shared more meat. Fin-Kedinn did not eat at all.

The moon set, and his restlessness increased. 'Don't let the fire die,' he murmured. 'Renn. Draw lines of power around the shelter.'

Renn gave Torak a worried look. If his wits were wandering, it was a bad sign.

Torak noticed that the ravens hadn't settled to roost, but were hopping warily among the rocks, while Wolf lay at the mouth of the shelter, watching the dark beyond the firelight. Torak had the uneasy sense that they were on guard.

Renn took her medicine pouch and went to draw the lines.

'Don't go far,' warned Fin-Kedinn.

Torak fed the fire another stick. 'You said this was a bad place. What did you mean?'

Fin-Kedinn watched the flames. 'Nothing grows here now. Nothing has since the demons were forced back into the rocks.' He paused. 'But they're close, Torak. They want to get out.'

Torak dipped a clump of moss in the cup and cooled his foster father's brow. Renn would be angry if he let Fin-Kedinn talk, but he had to know. 'Tell me,' he said.

Fin-Kedinn coughed, and Torak held his shoulders. When it was over, the skin around the Raven Leader's eyes had a bluish tinge. 'Many summers ago,' he said, 'this hill was thick with trees. Birch, rowan, in cracks between the rocks. Holding the demons inside.' He shifted position and winced. 'Soul's Night. Long past. People came to let them out.'

Renn returned and knelt beside him. 'But the demons couldn't get out, could they?' she said. 'I feel them under the rocks, very close.'

'One man stopped them,' said Fin-Kedinn. 'He set a fire on the hill. Banished the demons back into the rocks. But the fire escaped.' He licked his lips. 'Terrible . . . It can leap into a tree faster than a lynx, and when it does when it gets into the branches it goes where it likes. You wouldn't believe how fast. It ate the whole valley.'

Torak began to be afraid. 'Was anyone hurt?'

Fin-Kedinn nodded. 'Trapped. Terrible burns. One killed.' He grimaced, as if he smelt charred flesh.

Torak peered into the dark. 'What is this place?' he whispered.

'Don't you know?' said Fin-Kedinn.

The hairs on Torak's arms p.r.i.c.kled. 'Is this where . . . '

'Yes. This is where your father shattered the fire-opal. Where he broke the power of the Soul-Eaters.'

Out in the night, a vixen screamed. From far away came the deep oo-hu, oo-hu of an owl. Torak and Renn exchanged glances. It was an eagle owl.

Renn said, 'When I was drawing the lines of power, I felt a presence. Not only demons. Something else. Lost. Searching.'

'There are ghosts here,' said Fin-Kedinn. 'The one who died.'

Flames leapt in Renn's dark eyes. 'The seventh Soul-Eater. '

The Raven Leader made no reply.

An ember collapsed in a shower of sparks. Torak jumped. 'Were you here that night?' he said.

'No.' Pain contracted Fin-Kedinn's features. Torak didn't think it was caused by his broken ribs. 'After the great fire,' Fin-Kedinn went on, 'your mother and father sought me. They begged me to help them get away.'

Renn put her hand on his shoulder. 'You need to rest. Don't talk any more.'

'No! I must tell this!' He spoke with startling force, and his burning blue gaze held Torak's. 'I was angry. I wanted revenge against him for for taking your mother. I turned them away.'

Torak heard the click of raven talons on stone. He looked into the face of his foster father and wanted it not to be true, and knew that it was.

'Next day,' said Fin-Kedinn, 'I relented. I went after them. But they'd gone. Fled to the Deep Forest.' He shut his eyes. 'I never saw them again. If I'd helped them, she might have lived.'

Torak touched his hand. 'You couldn't have known what would happen.'

The Raven Leader's smile was bitter. 'So you tell yourself. Does it help?'

Wolf leapt up with a growl and sped after a quarry only he could sense. An ember dislodged from the fire. Torak nudged it back with his boot. Suddenly, the light seemed a fragile shield against the dark.

'Keep the fire bright,' said Fin-Kedinn. 'And stay awake. Demons. Ghosts. They know we're here.'

The Chosen One watches the unbelievers sleep, and hungers to punish them and set the fire free.

The girl who woke the fire did it wrongly and without respect. She is an unbeliever. She does not follow the True Way.

The boy threw a branch at the fire and kicked it. He too has lost the Way.

The Master shall know of this. The Master honours the fire, and the fire honours him. The Master will punish the unbelievers.

The fire is sacred. It must be honoured, for it is the purity and the truth. The Chosen One loves the fire for its terrible glare and its hunger for the Forest, for its dreadful caress. The Chosen One longs to be one with the fire again.

The wind changes and the Chosen One moves to crouch in the breath of the fire, to drink its sacred bitterness. The Chosen One's hand cups ash. The ash is acrid on the tongue, heavy in the belly. It is the power and the truth.

The injured man moans in painful dreams. The boy's sleep is also troubled, but the girl slumbers as one dead. And over them, wolf and raven keep watch while the fire sinks untended. Dishonoured.

Anger kindles in the breast of the Chosen One.

The unbelievers are evil.

They must be punished.

EIGHT.

Torak woke before dawn. The fire had burned low. The others were still asleep. Renn lay on her side, one arm flung out. Fin-Kedinn was frowning, as if even sleeping hurt. Both looked disturbingly vulnerable.

Quietly, Torak wriggled out of his sleeping-sack and crawled from the shelter.

Below him on the slope, a wolverine rose on its hind legs to snuff his scent, then bounded off. This told Torak that Wolf must have gone hunting. If he'd been near, the wolverine would have stayed away. With a twinge of apprehension, Torak wondered what else might have managed to creep close.

Below him the valley of the Blackwater floated in mist. The Forest rang with birdsong, but the ravens were gone.

On the hill, he could see nothing except naked rock. He climbed to the crown. Nothing. Only an ancient tree stump on the western slope, its roots still clinging to the demon-haunted cracks. He thought of his father, who had sparked the events that had brought him to this place. He was shocked to realize that he could scarcely remember Fa's face.

As light crept into the sky, he spotted a faint dew trail of booted feet. Drawing his knife, he followed it round to the overhang above the shelter. Near the edge, he found a small cone of fine grey ash. He frowned. Someone had poured it with care, like an offering. Someone who had watched them in the night.

He caught a flicker of movement in the mist by the river. His heart contracted.

Someone stood on the bank, staring up at him. The face was indistinct; the hair long, pale. An arm rose. A finger pointed at him. Accusing.

Torak touched the medicine pouch at his hip and felt the shape of the horn within. Sheathing his knife, he started down the hill. He dreaded coming face to face with Bale's ghost. But maybe it would speak to him. Maybe he could say he was sorry.

The birds had stopped singing. On either side of the trail, hemlock floated in vaporous white.

Footsteps heading his way.

A wild-eyed man burst from the mist and blundered into him. 'Help me!' he gasped, clutching Torak's parka and glancing back over his shoulder.

Staggering under his weight, Torak breathed the stink of blood and terror.

'Help me!' pleaded the man. 'They they '

'Who?' said Torak.

'The Deep Forest!' Blood sprayed Torak's face as the man brandished his stump. 'They cut off my hand!'

'You'd be mad to go in there,' snarled the man as Renn finished binding his stump. He'd stopped shaking, but whenever an ember cracked, he cringed.

He said his name was Gaup of the Salmon Clan. His parka and leggings were muddy fish-skin lined with squirrel fur, and one cheek bore the sinuous tattoo of his clan. Around his neck he wore a band of sweat-blackened salmon-skin, and small fish bones were braided into his fair hair, reminding Torak of Bale.

'And it was Deep Forest people who did this?' said Fin-Kedinn. He sat with his back against a rock, haggard, breathing through clenched teeth.

'They swore that if they saw me again, it'd be my head.'

'But they made sure you survived,' said Renn. 'They seared the wound with hot stone so that you wouldn't bleed to death.'

'So I should thank them?' retorted Gaup.

'How about thanking Renn for sewing up your stump?' said Torak.

Gaup glared. He hadn't thanked Torak either, for helping him to the shelter and giving him food and water. And Torak hadn't missed the smear of ash on the heel of his boot.