Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 47

Torak thought that too obvious to need a reply.

The selik root had taken hold in a sunbaked 'earth' of rotten wood and eagle pellets, and it didn't want to let go. Sweat poured down Torak's sides as he chipped away at the base of the plant with Fa's blue slate knife. The rim of the cleft on which he knelt was crumbly, and as he worked, more fragments broke off and bounced into nothingness. Desperately he grasped a clump of selik root by the stems, and rocked it loose.

'Hurry!' cried Asrif. 'I'm running out of stones!'

At last the plant came free. The root was small, no bigger than his forefinger: a pale, mottled green. For a moment Torak stared at it, unable to believe that so insignificant a thing could deliver the clans from the sickness.

'I've got it,' he called to Asrif. Tucking the root inside his jerkin and re-sheathing his knife, he started back down the cleft towards the ledge where his harness waited.

Beneath his foot, the rim cracked and gave. He flung himself back, clutching at rock. 'Look out!' he yelled, as a sheet of rock almost as big as he was broke off and hurtled down the cliff taking his harness with it.

Torak clung to the rockface, watching in disbelief as the harness tangled with the rock narrowly missed Asrif and floated almost lazily down, striking the boulders with a distant thump a few paces from Detlan and Bale.

The noise of the seabirds fell away. All Torak could hear was his own breath, and the trickle of pebbles.

Above him the eagles spiralled higher. They knew that he would trouble their nestlings no more.

Below him, Asrif raised his head and met his eyes.

Both knew what this meant, but neither wanted to say it. Torak now had no way off the cliff except to attempt the long climb down without a harness, which would almost certainly kill him.

Asrif licked his lips. 'Climb down to my ledge,' he said.

Torak thought about that, and shook his head. 'No room,' he said.

'There might be. We could share my harness.'

'It'd never take the two of us. We'd both be killed.'

Asrif did not reply. He knew Torak was right.

'You take the root,' Torak said abruptly.

Asrif opened his mouth to protest, but Torak talked over him. 'It makes sense, you know it does. You can get down from there. You can take it to Tenris, he can make the cure. For everyone.'

He sounded very sure, but his heart was fluttering like a fledgling. Part of him could not believe what he was saying.

Leaning down as far as he could, he lowered his arm, then let fall the root. Asrif caught it and tucked it inside his jerkin. 'What will you do?' he said.

Torak felt surprisingly clear-headed as he thought over his choices. Maybe that was the cliffwort; or maybe he simply hadn't taken in what was happening.

The stretch of rocks where Bale and Detlan stood was directly beneath him. It was narrow, and behind it lay the Sea. If he jumped, he might hit that instead.

'You could try climbing down,' said Asrif, his face young and scared.

'With you below me?' said Torak. 'And what about Detlan and Bale? If I fell, I might kill you all.'

Asrif swallowed. 'But what else -'

'Watch your head,' said Torak, and launched himself off the cliff.

TWENTY-SEVEN.

Torak was falling through glowing green water through glowing green light and he wasn't scared at all, just hugely relieved that he hadn't hit the rocks.

After the heat of the cliffs, the water was so cold it was a kick in the chest, but he hardly felt it, because now he was falling into a Forest.

Golden, sun-dappled kelp shimmered and swayed to the rhythms of the Sea. Its roots were lost in darkness, and through its undulating fronds the silver capelin sped like swallows.

And here through the kelp came the guardian, shooting towards him with one thrust of her flippers, then rolling over to gaze at him upside-down. With her big round eyes and bubble-beaded whiskers, she was so friendly and inquisitive that he wanted to laugh out loud.

The swell carried him sideways into colder water and suddenly a sharp pain stabbed his gut. No time to wonder what was happening no time to be afraid. Besides, the pain was fleeting, it had already gone. And now he wasn't cold any more, he was wonderfully warm, and weightless, and so at home in this beautiful, soft green world that he didn't ever want to leave.

And yet he had to have air.

Reluctantly he kicked towards the surface. Up he spiralled, shooting through the water in a stream of silver bubbles. But when he put out his head, the world above the waves was so jagged and hard that he shut his nostrils tight, and flipped over again, back into the beautiful green light. Down he dived, faster than he'd ever thought possible, back into the kelp.

Something was floating down there in the kelp. Curious, he swam closer to take a look.

It was a boy: limp, unconscious, the current rolling him to and fro as the kelp entwined him. Torak wondered if Asrif had fallen in, or maybe Detlan or Bale. But the long, waving hair was darker than that of the Seal boys and as it parted, he glimpsed a thin face with staring grey eyes; and on both cheekbones, the blue-black tattoos of the Wolf Clan.

With a surge of terror he realised that he was looking at himself.

His thoughts teemed like frightened fishes. What's happening? Am I dead? Is that why the guardian has come, to take me on the Death Journey?

Then he came to his senses. Don't be stupid, Torak, this guardian's a seal, and you're Wolf Clan! Your guardian would be a wolf!

But if I'm not dead, he thought as he stared in horrified fascination at the floating boy, then what's happening?

He dived closer towards himself, then came to a sudden halt by spreading his front flippers to push back the water.

His flippers?

And they were his flippers, there was no doubt about it. He could open and close them like hands and as he did so, he saw their short grey fur waving gently in the water.

He rolled over and swam upside-down, and found to his astonishment that he could see far down into the dark, to where purple starfish made their p.r.i.c.kly way across the bottom. He could hear the tiny, hard, biting sounds of fish nibbling kelp; the brittle clink of crabs feeling their way over rocks.

But most of all, he could feel through his whiskers. His whiskers were so keen that they could pick up the rippling tracks of the smallest fish as it darted through the water. The Sea was webbed and criss-crossed with thousands of invisible fish trails. And he felt, too, the strong, slow tremors which the kelp sent back through the water; and the waves echoing off the rocks. He hung upside-down, trying to make sense of this bewilderment of trails.

Then faint and far away, he heard singing.

Long, eerie shrieks; a furious hailstorm of clicks. A song of anger and loss, coming to him from the open Sea.

A shudder ran through him from the tips of his whiskers to the end of his stubby tail. And now he felt the huge disturbance in the water as the creature came closer at incredible speed . . .

His mind flooded with dreadful certainty.

The Hunter is coming.

Another sickening jolt another sharp pain in his gut and suddenly he was Torak. He was bitterly cold and desperate for air, and he couldn't see much at all, he was too far down but out of the corner of his eye he saw a flash of silver flippers as the guardian fled for the shelter of the deeps.

The Hunter is coming!

With all his might, Torak kicked for the surface. His limbs were dream-heavy and he moved with infuriating slowness, but at last he broke free of the waves.

Gasping, coughing, he got a choppy view of limpet-crusted boulders and saw with enormous relief that the current had carried him close to the claw of rock which jutted from the cliffs. Desperately he struck out for it. Maybe he could reach it before the Hunter . . .

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that Asrif had managed to get down off the cliffs, and was jumping up and down, shouting frantically. Then, to Torak's horror, he saw Bale and Detlan setting out in their skinboats setting out to rescue him. Didn't they know that they were far more at risk than he? He at least had a chance of reaching the claw but in their boats they would be utterly exposed to the wrath of the Hunter.

'No!' he yelled. 'Get back! Get out of the water!'

They couldn't hear. Or did they think he was calling for help?

Swimming as fast as he could, he yelled again. 'Get out of the water! The Hunter's coming! The Hunter's coming!'

This time Bale heard him but instead of turning his skinboat about, he paddled faster towards Torak, shaking his head in puzzlement. And Torak saw with consternation that the Sea around him was treacherously calm, with not a black fin in sight. Bale didn't understand the warning because he couldn't see the Hunter. He didn't know it was coming.

'Get back!' yelled Torak again. 'The Hunter is coming!'

Now Bale understood and plunged in his paddle and brought his skinboat about, shouting at Detlan to do the same. 'Back! Back!'

The waves threw Torak against the claw, and he grabbed seaweed and hauled himself out just as a loud, throaty 'kwoosh!' erupted behind him, and a shower of spray shot high into the air.

As he collapsed on the rocks he caught a fleeting glimpse of a great black back arching out of the water then a towering, notched fin. He was so close that he saw the wave curling back from its edge; and as the huge blunt head powered past him, he met the dark, unknowable eye of the Hunter. Then it was gone, sweeping past him, making straight for the skinboats.

They had heeded his warning too late. Bale was nearly at the rocks, where Asrif was reaching out to him and yelling encouragement but Detlan was further behind, and Notched Fin was gaining on him.

Torak scrambled to his feet and ran towards them, leaping over skinboats, slipping on seaweed. But the Hunter was many times faster than him, and he watched in horror as it closed in on Detlan swerved, and slammed its enormous tail, catching the stern of the skinboat and sending it flying.

Detlan landed with a scream on the rocks, then slid back into the water. Asrif and Bale ran to his aid as the black fin raced towards him then, at the last moment, twisted round and disappeared beneath the waves.

Asrif and Bale pulled Detlan's limp body from the water and laid him on the rocks.

Breathless and shaken, Torak scanned the Sea but saw nothing. Only white foam rocking on the waves where the Hunter had been, moments before.

Then, far in the distance, he saw a black fin heading out to Sea. Whatever whoever Notched Fin was seeking, it hadn't found them here. Torak turned and ran towards the others.

Asrif was on his knees, wrenching out the plug of a waterskin with his teeth. Bale was shaking the contents of a medicine pouch onto the rocks. Detlan lay with his eyes closed. His face was frighteningly pale, his lips blue with shock; but as Torak got nearer, he saw to his relief that the Seal boy was breathing.

Bale shot Torak a glance. 'You all right?' he said.

Torak nodded. Then to Asrif, 'Do you still have the root?'

Asrif touched his jerkin, but didn't speak.

Detlan's skinboat was shattered, and so was his leg. Torak could see the white gleam of shinbone poking through b.l.o.o.d.y flesh.

'Why me?' gasped Detlan. 'Why was it after me?'

Bale put his hand on his friend's shoulder. 'I don't think it was,' he said. 'If it had been, you'd be dead by now.'

'The Cormorants were right about one thing, though,' muttered Asrif, putting the waterskin to Detlan's lips. 'It's after someone.'

'But who?' said Bale.

Then he turned to Torak, and asked the question that Torak was already asking himself. 'And how in the name of the Sea Mother did you know it was coming?'

TWENTY-EIGHT.

Renn thought Torak looked pale as he knelt by the injured boy.

Hiding among the boulders thirty paces away, she trilled her signal: the song of a redstart. She'd chosen a redstart because they are Forest birds, so he'd be sure to notice.

He didn't. That astonished her. For Torak not to notice something like that he must be shaken indeed.

It was a hot, sticky night, with the breathless feel that comes before a storm, and she'd been sweating by the time she'd found her way through the rowans and boulders at the foot of the cliffs. She'd arrived just after the Hunter had attacked.

Neither Torak nor the Seal boys seemed to know why it had attacked; but she did. She could still smell the carrion stink, still hear Wolf's famished champing. He'd been so intent on his food that when she'd left the beach, he'd hardly glanced up.

As the sun sank lower and the blue midsummer glow descended, she waited among the boulders, desperate to tell Torak about the slaughtered Hunter but almost as desperate not to be seen by the Seals.

Then another Seal arrived in a skinboat: a man in a gutskin parka with a terribly burnt face, who took charge of everything. The short, slight Seal boy drew something from inside his jerkin, and the man put it carefully in a little pouch at his neck; Renn guessed it must be the selik root. Then, using pieces of the wrecked skinboat, the man splinted the wounded boy's leg, while giving orders to the others.

Renn was surprised at how Torak's face lit up when the burnt man came; and she felt a small stab of jealousy when the man told him to fetch wood for a fire, and he instantly obeyed.

'Is it all right if it's from ordinary trees instead of driftwood?' he asked, his voice carrying over the rocks.

The burnt man nodded, and Torak started moving across the rocks.

Renn forgot her jealousy. Maybe he'd heard her signal after all.

She watched him stoop for a stick of driftwood, then wander down to the Sea; then turn and start towards the boulders.