Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 139

Aki's fingers were bleeding as he clawed the mat. Renn tried to stop him, but he was too strong. She called for help. Aki's father ran in and clasped his son in his arms. A second man, haggard from fever, raised a spiral amulet and made the sign of the hand.

'He says there are demons in his shadow,' Renn told him.

The Boar Mage nodded. 'I've just seen two more with the same sickness, Renn. If it's here, it'll be with the Ravens, too. I'm well enough now. Go back to your clan.'

The Boars had camped on the River Tumblerock, less than a daywalk north of the Ravens, but the fog made Renn's progress slow. As she stumbled through it, she thought of grey moths and Eostra the Masked One. Every falling leaf made her jump. She regretted having declined the Boar Clan Leader's offer to accompany her.

Her tired mind went in circles. How to stop the grey moths? How to fight the shadow sickness? What if Saeunn was too old and weak to cope, and everything came down to her?

And like a dark current beneath it all was the gnawing anxiety about Torak.

For days she'd been reading the embers, and last night she'd placed a dream-stave under her sleeping-sack: a stick of rowan wound with a lock of his hair. Now she wished she hadn't. Everything pointed the same way. She prayed that she'd got it wrong.

The fog was gone by mid-afternoon, and she paused for a salmon cake under a beech tree. She was opening her food pouch when the zigzag tattoos on her wrists began to p.r.i.c.kle. Quietly, she closed the pouch and examined the tree.

On the other side, someone had gouged a strange, spiky mark in the trunk. It was about a hand wide, and it had been hacked not carved but hacked into the smooth silver bark.

Renn had never seen anything like it. It resembled a huge bird with outstretched wings. Or a mountain.

And it was fresh. Tree-blood oozed from the wounds. Whoever had done this had acted from hatred and a desire to inflict pain.

Drawing her knife, Renn scanned the Forest. The light was beginning to fail. Shadows were gathering under the trees.

She knew of only one creature who could treat another with such savagery. A tokoroth. A demon in the body of a child.

She touched the scar on the back of her hand, where one had bitten her two summers before. She pictured filthy, matted hair. Vicious teeth and claws. She fancied she saw branches stir, heard a cackling laugh as the creature leapt from tree to tree.

There's nothing here, she told herself.

But she was running up the slope.

Not far now. Just over the ridge, then I'll be back in the valley of the Ashwater, and it's downhill all the way.

It was a frosty night when she reached the Raven camp. Her clan, hunched round the long-fire, greeted her with subdued nods. n.o.body asked why she was frightened. Fear hung in the air. The Boar Mage was right: things were worse here too.

Two young hunters, Sialot and Poi, had fallen sick; they said there were demons in their shadows. All day they'd been gouging strange, spiky marks on everything: earth, wood, even their own flesh. Fin-Kedinn was at the river, making an offering. And Torak was gone. He'd left for the Mountains that morning.

When she heard this, Renn gave a strangled cry and rushed to her shelter.

Inside, the Raven Mage was reading the embers.

'Why didn't you stop him?' cried Renn.

Saeunn didn't look up. She sat beneath her elkhide mantle, feeding slivers of alder bark to the fire, watching how they twisted, straining to catch the hissing of the spirits. 'The Mountain of Ghosts,' she breathed. 'Ah . . . Yes . . .'

Renn flung down her gear and scrambled closer. 'The Mountain of Ghosts. Is that the mark I found on the tree?'

'She has made her lair in the Mountain. She seeks power over the dead. Yes . . . This was always her desire.'

Renn thought of Torak making his way through the Forest, not knowing what he was heading into. She started cramming salmon cakes into her food pouch.

'You would set off at night?' mocked Saeunn. 'With the moths and the shadow sickness, and tokoroths waiting in the Forest?'

Renn paused. 'Then at first light.'

'You cannot leave. You're a Mage. You must stay and help your clan.'

'You help them,' retorted Renn.

'I am old,' said Saeunn. 'Soon I shall seek my death.'

Alarmed, Renn met her flinty gaze. Even while she'd been away, the Raven Mage had declined. Beneath her mottled scalp, her skull looked as fragile as a puffball: one touch and it would collapse into dust.

But her mind remained as sharp as a raven's talons. 'When I am dead,' she declared, 'you will be the Raven Mage.'

'No,' said Renn.

'There is no choice.'

'They can find someone else. It happens. People do choose Mages from other clans.'

'Fool of a girl!' spat Saeunn. 'I know why you shirk your duty! But do you think that even if he survived this final battle if he vanquished the Soul-Eater and lived to tell of it do you think he'd stay with the Ravens? He's a wanderer, it's in his marrow! You will stay, he will leave. This is how it will be!'

In that moment, Renn hated Saeunn. She wanted to shake those frail shoulders as hard as she could.

Saeunn read her thoughts and barked a laugh. 'You hate me because I tell the truth! But you know it, too. You've read the signs.'

'No,' whispered Renn.

Saeunn grasped her wrist. 'Tell Saeunn what you saw.'

The Mage's claws were as light and cold as a bird's, but Renn couldn't pull away. 'The the crystal Forest shatters,' she faltered.

'The shadow returns,' added Saeunn.

'The white guardian wheels across the stars-'

'-but cannot save the Listener.'

Renn swallowed. 'The Listener lies cold on the Mountain.'

'Ah . . .' breathed the Raven Mage. 'The embers never lie.'

'They must be wrong!' cried Renn. 'I'll prove them wrong!'

'The embers never lie. Eostra will take him alone. Without you. Without the wolf.'

'She won't!' Renn burst out. 'She can't keep us apart, he won't face her alone!'

'Oh, he will. I've seen it in the embers, I've seen it in the bones, and they tell me yes, and you know this in your heart they tell me that the spirit walker will die!'

After a dreadful night, Renn slid into a dreamless sleep. When she woke, she was horrified to find that the morning was half gone.

The first snow had fallen, and the white glare made her blink as she emerged, thick-headed and heavy-limbed. Camp was bustling. The clan was taking down the shelters and using the saplings and reindeer hides to make sleds, while the dogs who knew what this meant raced about, eager to get into harness. The Ravens were breaking camp.

Renn found Fin-Kedinn dismantling his shelter. 'Where to?' she said. 'And why now?'

'East, to the hills. The clans will gather there. They'll be safer near the Deep Forest.' He saw her expression and stopped. 'You're going after him.'

'Yes.' She expected him to try to stop her, but he went on with his work. His face was grey. She could see that he hadn't slept.

'Why are you breaking camp now?' she said again.

'I told you. They'll be safer near the Deep Forest.'

'They? But aren't you going with them?'

'No. Thull will lead them while I'm gone. Saeunn will counsel him when the clans gather.'

'What?' Renn stared at him. 'But they need you more than ever! You can't leave now!'

Fin-Kedinn faced her. 'Do you think I would leave my people if I wasn't convinced it was the only way? I've thought of little else for days. Now I'm sure.'

'Why? Where are you going?'

He hesitated. 'I need to find the one person who can help Torak. Who can help us all.'

'Who's that?'

'I can't tell you, Renn.'

She flinched. 'You can't? Or won't?'

He didn't reply.

With a cry, Renn turned her back on him. Everything was happening too fast. First Torak. Now Fin-Kedinn.

She felt her uncle's hands on her shoulders, gently turning her round. She saw the snow sprinkling the white fur of his parka; the silver hairs threading his dark-red beard.

'Renn. Look at me. Look at me. I cannot tell you. Because I swore on my souls, I swore, that I would never tell.'

Ice flowers grew on the banks of the River Horseleap. The trees sparkled with frost. It was too cold for the Blackthorn Moon. It didn't feel right.

Renn guessed that as Torak had decided it was too dangerous for her to go with him, he would also try to leave Wolf behind; which meant that he would go first to the resting place, to say goodbye. To save time, she crossed the river and headed up its gentler south bank. It didn't look as if Torak had done the same. At least, she didn't find any tracks.

She was too worried to be angry with him. He had lived with the burden of his destiny for three winters, and over the last summer, she had watched the dread grow. He never spoke of it, but sometimes, when they were sitting by the fire or playing with the cubs, she saw a tightening around his eyes and mouth, and knew he was thinking of what lay ahead.

If only he didn't feel that he had to do everything alone.

She'd set out so late that she wasn't even near the resting place when she had to start looking for a campsite. She ground her teeth in frustration. Torak had a day's lead on her, and he walked fast.

A day's lead was all it would take.

FOUR.

Torak had wasted the whole morning seeking a place to cross the Horseleap. The north bank got steeper and steeper as he'd headed upstream, so at last he'd been forced to double back.

He was exasperated. He'd grown up in these valleys. How could he have forgotten them so quickly?

And already, he was missing Wolf. They'd been apart before, but this felt different. He almost hoped that Wolf would seek him out, and he would see that grey shadow loping towards him through the trees.

Overnight, the Forest had turned white. Torak saw drag-marks where a badger had collected bracken for winter bedding; and patches where reindeer had pawed away the snow to get at the lichen beneath.

The mark on the yew tree shouted at him from ten paces away.

He wasn't sure what it meant maybe a mountain with a great bird swooping towards it but he sensed its intention. I am here, said the Eagle Owl Mage. I am waiting.

Torak bristled with outrage. The sign had been hacked through the bark and into the sapwood. It was as if Eostra were threatening the Forest itself.

On impulse, he shook some earthblood from his mother's medicine horn into his palm, and patted it into the tree's wounds. There. The horn was special, made from the World Spirit's antler; maybe the ochre it contained would help the yew to heal.

It was also a gesture of defiance to the Soul-Eater. Torak did this.

As he moved off, he heard Darkfur's distant, questioning barks: Where are you? And far away, Wolf's answering howl: Here! They sounded happy. Torak told himself he'd done the right thing in leaving them.

But he still missed Wolf.

Wolf had slept through the Light, but as the Dark came on, he set off to hunt. He left his mate teaching the cubs to avoid auroch horns. She'd found an old one, and was tossing it up and down; the cubs were doing the rest, by leaping for it and getting biffed on the nose.

As Wolf trotted through the Forest, he caught the scents of prey gorging on nuts and mushrooms. At a spruce tree where a reindeer had scratched its head-branches, he rose on his hind legs and chewed the delicious, b.l.o.o.d.y tatters.

But some things troubled him.

It was so cold that the ground was stone beneath his pads, and even the trees were shivering. This cold felt odd. Dangerous.

And Tall Tailless was hiding something. He'd told Wolf that he was going hunting, but Wolf had sensed that he wasn't after prey. So why hadn't Tall Tailless told him? How could he hide things from his own pack-brother?

Worst of all, the Stone-Faced One had appeared to Wolf in his sleep. Through the hissing Dark she had come, and terror had seized him by the scruff. Her yowl had bitten his ears like splintered bone. Her smell was the smell of Not-Breath. Her terrible face was stiff: her eyes were not eyes but holes, and her muzzle never ever moved. As Wolf cowered before her, she had plunged her forepaw into the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot and taken it out unbitten.

When he'd woken up, she was gone. But now, as Wolf followed the scent of a roe buck through the willowherb, he wondered if this was why Tall Tailless had left. Was he hunting the Stone-Faced One?