Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 157

'I don't know.'

Renn jammed her knuckles in her mouth. Somewhere in this terrible Mountain, Torak was facing Eostra alone.

A cold hand touched her wrist.

'Is that you?' she whispered.

'What?' said Dark, some paces away.

A chill finger touched her cheek.

'Stop it!' she cried.

'I didn't do anything!'

Renn screwed her eyes shut. She opened them. She saw. It wasn't possible in this darkness, and yet she saw. 'Do you see it too?' she breathed.

'I see it,' Dark said softly. 'But I don't know who it is.'

Renn did. It was indistinct, as if in a mist, yet it seemed to hold its own light, as spirits do. Renn's fear drained away, leaving only a distant sense of loss.

Before her stood the wizened figure against whom she had rebelled all her life. For the last time she took in the flinty gaze; the lipless mouth which had never been known to smile.

Noiselessly, it extended one frail arm and pointed at the tunnel of the stone spear.

'Thank you,' murmured Renn. 'Thank you . . . And may the guardian fly with you.' With both hands on her clan-creature feathers, she bowed to the spirit of the Raven Mage.

When she straightened up, it was gone.

Renn hoisted her quiver and bow higher on her shoulder. Then she reached out and took Dark's hand. 'Come,' she told him. 'We know the way now.'

THIRTY-FIVE.

Torak was tumbling down a waterfall of stone. The ground rushed to meet him. Pain exploded in his shoulder and skull.

He lay still. His cheekbone hurt savagely, but he could move his arms and legs. Somehow, he'd kept hold of his knife.

Above him the stone waterfall disappeared into the dark. Unclimbable. No getting back. He thought, at least Wolf isn't here. At least he's got a chance of getting out.

He had a sense of a vast, shadowy cavern. Stone had once flowed like honey: dripping, pooling, then freezing hard. Twisted fangs of rock hung down; others jutted from the floor to meet them. Like teeth, thought Torak. Oldest of all, the stone bite. I'm in the jaws of the Mountain.

Firelight glimmered. He caught the whisper of water far below. Closer, he heard the rhythmic clink of bones. A voice chanted.

By power of bone By power of stone By power of demon eye Eostra summons the Unquiet Dead Eostra binds them to her!

Torak stumbled towards the light. No point trying to hide. She knew he was there.

Then he saw it.

In some ancient catastrophe, rocks had fallen in a pile as tall as two tall men. On the pile rested a slab of black stone, where a fire burned. Behind this altar, flanked by a pair of tokoroths rattling bones, stood the Eagle Owl Mage.

Her feathered robe seemed to gather the darkness to it, but her mask glowed ghastly white. In one corpse hand she grasped the mace which bore the fire-opal; in the other, the three-p.r.o.nged spear for snaring souls.

By power of bone By power of stone By power of demon eye . . .

Torak tried to speak, but his mouth was too dry.

The arms of the Masked One rose, and her winged shadow engulfed the cavern. The tokoroths grovelled, their evil child-faces alight with terror and adoration.

'You know I'm here,' panted Torak. 'You know I'll stop you.'

The Masked One never faltered in her chant, but her spear swung round and pointed at him. At the foot of the rockpile, seven pairs of eyes lit up. Dark shapes sped towards him.

Jamming his knife in its sheath, Torak kicked off his boots and scrambled up the nearest fang of rock. The pack was almost upon him. Heaving himself onto a ledge a few fingers wide, he drew up his legs. The dogs swarmed about his refuge, leaping, snapping. Their breath scorched his bare feet, their jaws clashed empty air. Snarling, they fell back and sprang again, their hatred sucking at his souls.

An arm's length above him, his rock fused unevenly with a hanging tooth. He could climb higher. But then, a tokoroth could climb down. A shadow swept towards him. He lashed out with his knife. The owl veered and flew back to its mistress.

Streaming sweat, Torak clung on. The fire's bitter smoke was making his head spin. Through it he saw the Soul-Eater set aside her spear and begin to wind a cord around the fire-opal. A sigh broke from the tokoroths. With frenzied l.u.s.t they rattled their bones.

Firelight struck glints of russet and gold in Eostra's cord, which was braided, like hair. As Torak watched her wind it about the stone, he felt himself drawn deep into the heart of the fire-opal.

It was the terrible scarlet of a lethal wound. It was beauty and suffering and mad desire. It was the glare of the Great Auroch in the winter sky, and it blazed with all the pain it had ever created.

Suddenly, the Soul-Eater ceased her chant. In a grating whisper, she uttered, one by one, the names of the Unquiet Dead.

The shock was so great that Torak nearly fell. At last he understood what she meant to do. And he couldn't stop her. He could only huddle on his perch like a pigeon about to be s.n.a.t.c.hed by a hawk.

His medicine pouch dug into his hip. The horn was empty, it couldn't help him now.

And yet.

At the cost of her life, his mother had made a pact with the World Spirit. The World Spirit had made him the spirit walker. He owed it to her to use his gift one final time.

Dashing the sweat from his eyes, he called to the Soul-Eater. 'You think you've got me! You think I can't reach you! You're wrong!' His voice sounded reedy and frightened.

Climbing to where the upward and downward fangs fused, Torak straddled the join. Now, though his legs hung down, the pack couldn't reach. Swiftly, he lashed himself to the stone with his belt. Then he took Saeunn's black root from his pouch and crammed it in his mouth.

Pain clawed his innards. He cried out . . . . . . and his voice was the rasp of the Soul-Eater, summoning the Unquiet Dead.

Through her eyes and her slitted mask, Torak peered at the senseless body of the spirit walker. His flesh was grey; and grey the flames that leapt on the altar. All was grey, save the cold red heart of the fire-opal.

Deep in her freezing marrow, Torak's spirit strove to make her grasp a rock and shatter it, but her will was the strongest he'd ever known. Her will turned his to stone. This was her strength: that she felt no pleasure, no pain, nothing save the hunger for eternal life. Her tokoroths were not tortured children possessed by demons, but creatures created to do her will. Her dogs were merely weapons to be used and flung aside like broken flints. The boy on the rock was the husk of the power she craved; tear away that husk and the power became hers. This was evil and it was cold, cold. Torak's spirit drowned in it.

Abruptly, Eostra's voice ceased. The tokoroths' rattles stilled.

In the silence, the Masked One cast a rawhide shield across the fire, and its light was quenched. In the darkness, she spoke.

Sleek as the seal . . . the cunning one, Tenris . . . Come forth!

Almost imperceptibly, the cavern filled with the lapping of waves. Behind the altar, smoke thickened coalesced and formed the figure of a man. Through the eyes of the Soul-Eater, Torak perceived a handsome, ruined face; he heard a voice as smooth and strong as the Sea.

Tenris is come.

Chanting, the Masked One raised the rawhide from the altar. Smoke billowed, flames leapt. She quenched them again.

Mighty as oak, the strongest one, Thiazzi . . . Come forth!

A rustling of leaves. A hulking shadow loomed.

Thiazzi is come.

Again Eostra chanted. Again she quenched and revived the fire.

Swift as the bat, the twisted one, Nef . . . Come forth!

The leathery rustle of bat wings. Swirling motes came together and made the limping one.

Nef is come.

Cowering in Eostra's marrow, Torak could only witness her summoning the Unquiet Dead; and they were hers to command, bound by the power of the fire-opal.

In the darkness of her mind, Torak saw her vision of what was to be. On Mountain and Ice, in Forest and Lake and Sea, the clans cower in dread before Eostra, who rules the living and the dead . . . Eostra, who lives for ever.

Eostra was invincible. Everything Torak had fought for over three long winters had been for nothing.

The Soul-Eaters were back.

THIRTY-SIX.

Deep in the Mountain, Wolf heard the rustling of leaves.

Leaves?

He slewed to a halt. That didn't fit.

Was this another trick of the Hidden Ones? They hated him being here, they hated anyone in the Mountain, they kept scattering sounds and smells, so that he couldn't tell where they were coming from.

Wolf raced on, though he didn't know where he was going. He'd been running for ever through this terrible, winding Den. He'd lost the scent of the pack-sister; all he could smell was wet rock and frightened Wolf. He was thirsty, his flanks hurt from the cub-demons' claws, and he still couldn't find Tall Tailless.

He reached a place where the Den widened and the breath of the Mountain ruffled his fur. He found some Wet in a dip and snapped it up, ignoring the stone bones lying nearby. They were just another trick; he'd tried one before, and nearly broken a fang.

Suddenly, he jerked up his head. A faint scent brushed his nose. Trembling with eagerness, he took deep sniffs to make sure. Yes! His pack-brother!

The scent was trickling from above. Rising on his hind legs, Wolf placed his forepaws on the rock. Too dark to see, but he felt the breath of a tiny Den. He leapt scrabbled he was in.

The Den was so small he had to flatten his ears and crawl on his belly. It sc.r.a.ped his sides and squeezed till he couldn't breathe. Then it spat him out and he fell, bashing his nose on a rock.

A torrent of smells whirled around him. The demon stink; the Not-Breath smell of the Stone-Faced One; the rich scent of the tailless whom Wolf now remembered from long ago. And the scent of his pack-brother.

Wolf flew through the dark. The tunnel was narrow and twisty as guts, but he caught the snarls of the pack. They had a hollow sound which told Wolf he was heading for a very big Den indeed.

He heard the familiar whine of the pack-sister's Long-Claw-that-Flies, and the swish of owl wings. He quickened his pace.

Hunting demons was what he was for.

The mouth of the tunnel was drawing nearer, and Renn quickened her pace.

'Not so fast!' warned Dark.

She ignored him. She could hear the clink of bones and the death-rattle chant of the Soul-Eater.

By power of bone By power of stone By power of demon eye Eostra summons the Unquiet Dead Eostra binds them to her!

Renn tried to remember a severing charm to counter the spell, but Eostra's icy will froze her thoughts. None can hinder the Masked One.

Renn reached the mouth of the tunnel.

Dark yanked her back.

The tunnel opened dizzyingly high, near the roof of the cave. There was no way down.

Biting back a cry, Renn sank to her knees and peered over the edge. Through a thicket of huge stone teeth, she saw that the cave was split by a chasm that zigzagged across it like black lightning. On the near side, a fire burned on an altar wreathed in smoke. Below this, shadows prowled at the base of a pillar whose top she couldn't see. Even from far away, she felt their hatred, and knew that this was Eostra's pack. There was no sign of Torak.

Eostra summons the Unquiet Dead . . .

Renn flung down her weapons. Her axe and bow were unhurt, but her quiver had been squashed when she'd squeezed through a gap, and only three arrows remained intact.

Eostra binds them to her!

The smoke parted, and Renn caught a fleeting glimpse of the Masked One. She saw a livid hand pa.s.s over the mace that held the fire-opal. She saw its scarlet light bleeding through a shadowy network of cords criss-crossing the crimson stone. She grabbed an arrow. Eostra sensed the threat and cloaked herself in smoke.

'Can you feel them?' whispered Dark, kneeling beside her.