Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 41

Kyo spoke to Tiu. 'There's that little bay to the south-west of their camp. We could put in there, and they'd never know.'

'And I could give her seaworthy clothes,' said a woman, 'and purify her for the journey. Tiu, she's just a girl, we can't leave her here on her own.'

Tiu sighed. 'You're asking a lot,' he told Renn.

'I know,' she replied.

She was about to go on, when behind a juniper bush she spotted a gleam of eyes. Amber eyes watching her.

Her heart leapt.

Excitedly she turned to Tiu. 'And I'm about to ask even more.'

'What?'

'There's someone else who needs to come too.'

The sh.o.r.e rang with laughter.

The Sea-eagles might be fleeing their camp, having left behind two dead and one mad with sickness, but the sight of a young wolf covered in fulmar spit made everyone smile.

'You won't need to purify him,' someone remarked. 'It looks as if he's done that by himself!'

Fulmar spit or no, Renn wanted to fling her arms around Wolf but she contented herself with greeting him quietly, and scratching his flank.

Feebly, Wolf wagged his tail. He looked miserable. He'd taken a faceful of foul-smelling oil, then made it worse by trying to rub it off in the sand. He'd learned the hard way about not bothering fulmar chicks.

'I thought you liked strong smells,' Renn told him.

Wolf rubbed his face against her jerkin in a vain attempt to rid himself of the troublesome oil.

Tiu hurried past them with a bundle in his arms. 'If you can get him in my canoe,' he said over his shoulder, 'you can bring him. If not, you'll have to leave him behind.'

'I'm not leaving him,' said Renn.

'Then be quick! We're leaving!'

'Come on, Wolf,' said Renn, running down to the canoe.

Wolf didn't move. He stood with his big paws splayed and his hackles up, eyeing the canoe rocking in the shallows.

Renn's heart sank.

You didn't need to speak wolf talk to know what he was saying.

I am not going in that. Not ever, ever, ever.

TWENTY-ONE.

Torak dreamed of Wolf again, but this time Wolf was warning him. Uff! Uff! Danger! Shadow! Hunted!

What shadow? asked Torak. Where?

But Wolf was getting further and further away and Torak couldn't run after him, because someone was holding him back.

'Let me go!' he shouted, lashing out with his fists.

'Wake up!' said Bale.

'What?' Torak opened his eyes. He was in the Seal shelter, and daylight was streaming in through the door-flaps.

A day had pa.s.sed since he'd spoken to Tenris on the Crag. A whole day of waiting, while the Seal Mage persuaded Islinn not to send him to the Rock, and Midsummer drew nearer, and in the Forest the sickness . . .

'Who's Wolf?' Bale said abruptly.

'What? No-one. I don't know what you mean.'

Bale wasn't fooled. 'You're not even awake and you're telling lies,' he said in disgust.

Torak did not reply. The dream lay heavy on him. Shadow. Hunted. What did that mean? Was it a warning against the Follower, or something else?

'Get up,' said Bale, kicking him in the thigh.

'Why? Are we setting off for the Heights?'

'That's tomorrow. Today I've got to teach you skinboating.'

'You? Why you?'

'Ask Tenris, it's his idea.' From his tone he didn't like it any more than Torak. 'Get some daymeal and meet me on the sh.o.r.e. I'll fetch the boats.'

'But why Bale?' Torak asked the Seal Mage when he found him on the rocks, gathering seaweed. 'Why can't it be someone else?' Anyone else, he thought.

The Seal Mage gave him a lopsided smile. 'And this is the thanks I get for keeping you off the Rock.'

'But Bale of all people, he -'

'- happens to be the best at skinboating,' said Tenris. 'Here, hold the basket and watch, you might learn something.'

'But -'

'This is kelp,' said Tenris, grasping a long stem of leathery brown weed. 'If you dry it, it goes hard, like this,' he tapped the hilt of his knife. 'If you wash it in sweet water, then soak it in seal oil, you can make rope. Did you see how I cut it? Always leave the holdfast on the rock so that it can grow back. That's important.'

When Torak stayed stubbornly silent, the Seal Mage paused. 'You're going to need Bale,' he said. 'And you'll need Asrif, too, he's the best at rock-climbing. Detlan will go along to lend some muscle.'

'All three of them?'

'Torak, you can't do this on your own.'

'I know. But I thought you'd be coming. You were the one who found the root before. Why not now?' He liked the Seal Mage. Tenris reminded him of Fin-Kedinn, only kinder and less remote.

With a sigh the Seal Mage touched the scarred side of his face. 'The fire that did this didn't only burn me on the outside. It scorched my lungs.' He tossed the kelp in the basket. 'I'd be no use to you on the Heights.'

Torak was abashed. 'I didn't know. I'm sorry.'

'So am I,' Tenris said mildly. 'But there's another reason I'm sending them. They're your kin, Torak. Whether you like it or not, you need to win their trust.'

'I don't care about that,' said Torak.

'Well you should.' The Mage's voice was gentle, but the undertow of strength was unmistakeable. 'Concentrate on Bale. If you win him over, the others will follow. And Torak.' His mouth twitched. 'It'll help if you're a quick learner.'

'No, no, no!' cried Bale, paddling closer to Torak's skinboat with infuriating ease. 'Brace your legs against the sides you're tilting, shift your weight no, not that much, you'll capsize!'

Reaching over, he yanked the skinboat upright. 'I told you! Don't use the paddle to steady yourself, that's not what it's for! You balance with your hips and your thighs, not your hands. If you're out hunting, you might need to drag a seal aboard, and then you'd need both hands free.'

'It'd help if it didn't wobble so much,' muttered Torak.

With its shallow draught and knife-edged hull, his skinboat was in constant danger of capsizing. He felt like a beetle struggling to stay afloat on a twig.

'That's not the boat's fault,' said Bale, 'it's yours.'

'Why does it have to be so shallow?'

'If the sides were any higher, you'd waste your strength fighting the wind. Try again. No! I told you! Don't slap the water, slice it! You need to be silent, completely silent!'

'I'm trying,' said Torak between clenched teeth.

'Try harder,' snapped Bale. 'Don't you have canoes in the Forest?'

'Of course we do!' Torak thought with longing of the dugouts of the Boars, and the Ravens' dependable deer-hide crafts. 'But they're good and solid, and we never -'

'Good and solid won't get you far on the Sea,' said Bale derisively. 'A round-bottomed boat would make bubbles that'd warn the seals you were coming from fifty harpoon throws away; and a hull that couldn't twist would break up in the first heavy swell. No, no, over the waves, not through them! You've got to skim the surface like a cormorant . . .'

A big wave buffeted Torak's prow, drenching him.

On the sh.o.r.e, children laughed. The smallest were playing at skinboats in holes in the sand lined with sc.r.a.ps of seal hide. The bigger ones were splashing about in beginners' crafts. Unlike Torak, they didn't have to worry about rolling over, as their boats were fitted with cross-bars that were steadied at either end by gutskin sacks filled with air.

When Bale had threatened Torak with a beginner's boat, he'd been outraged; but now after an exhausting day, he was tempted. Bale was an unforgiving teacher, driving him relentlessly. Clearly he was hoping to be able to tell Tenris that Torak was a failure.

It was beginning to look as if he'd get his wish. Torak was soaking wet, and his head was throbbing with sun-dazzle. His thighs and shoulders were screaming for rest, his arms shaking with fatigue. He could hardly hold his paddle, let alone keep his balance.

It didn't help that Bale handled his own skinboat superbly. He could bring it about with a flick of his wrist, and stand up in it as easily as if he were on dry land. He wasn't even showing off. He was simply so at home on the water that he didn't need to think about it.

Now, as the wind got up and Torak floundered to stay afloat, the older boy came alongside him, deftly steadying his own craft by sticking one end of his paddle in a cross-strap, which left the other blade in the Sea, and both hands free. 'You'll have to do better than this,' he said as he leaned over and started scooping out the water in Torak's boat with a baler.

'Or what?' said Torak. 'You'll leave me behind?'

'Yes, that's what I'm hoping.'

'Give me a chance. I've only had a day. You've been doing this since you were what, about six?'

'Five.' He glanced at the beginners in the shallows, and a shadow of sadness crossed his face. 'My brother started even younger.'

'Just give me a chance,' said Torak.

Bale thought for a moment. 'Head off over there,' he said, 'I'll follow. This time, don't think about each stroke. Just keep your eyes on the Sea, and go as fast as you can.'

Torak brought his boat about, and started to paddle.

For a while all he managed was his usual floundering, with the skinboat bucking like a hare in spring-time, and the waves slapping him stingingly in the face.

Then something happened. Almost without noticing, he seemed to find a rhythm with the paddle. The blades cut the water without splashing, and with each stroke he felt the power of the Sea beneath him beneath him, not against him. Faster and faster he went and suddenly the skinboat gave a surge, and he was skimming over the waves, as fast and free as a seabird.

'I've got it!' he cried.

Bale came up beside him, watching with unsmiling concentration.

'Beautiful!' shouted Torak. 'It's beautiful!'

Bale nodded slowly. Now he was biting back a grin.

A gust of wind caught Torak's skinboat and spun him round, sending him straight towards the older boy.

'Turn away!' yelled Bale. 'Hard! Hard! You're going to ram me!'

Fighting the wind, Torak dug in his paddle but it gave a jerk that nearly pitched him overboard and when he brought it out of the water, he saw that the blade had snapped clean off.

'Watch out!' shouted Bale as Torak careened towards him.

'I can't turn it!'

Bale dug in his paddle and shot ahead just in time to avoid a collision while Torak's boat slewed round and capsized.

His clothes dragged him down, and it was a relief when Bale came about and caught him by the neck of his jerkin.

'What were you doing?' he yelled. 'You could have sunk us both!'

'It was an accident!' spluttered Torak.

'An accident? You tried to ram me!' Furious, he wrenched Torak's boat upright, then held its prow while Torak scrambled aboard.