Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 57

Besides, no trace of them had been found. Since the sickness last summer, Fin-Kedinn had spoken to every clan in the Open Forest, and had sent word to the Deep Forest and the Sea and Mountain clans. Nothing. The Soul-Eaters had gone to ground like a bear in winter.

And yet Wolf was still gone.

Torak felt as if he were walking in a blizzard of ignorance and fear. Raising his head, he saw the great bull Auroch high in the sky. He felt the malice of its cold red eye, and fought a rising tide of panic. First he'd lost his father. Now Wolf. What if he never saw Wolf again? What if he was already dead?

The trees thinned. Before them glimmered a frozen river, criss-crossed with hare tracks. On its banks, the dead umbels of hemlock reached spiked fingers towards the stars.

A herd of forest horses took fright and clattered off across the ice, then turned to stare. Their manes stood stiff as icicles, and in their moon-bright eyes, Torak glimpsed an echo of his own fear.

In his mind he saw Wolf as he'd looked before he vanished: magnificent and proud. Torak had known him since he was a cub. Most of the time he was simply Wolf: clever, inquisitive, and fiercely loyal. Sometimes he was the guide, with a mysterious certainty in his amber eyes. Always he was a pack-brother.

'What I don't understand,' said Renn, cutting across his thoughts, 'is why take Wolf at all?'

'Maybe it's a trap. Maybe they want me, not Wolf.'

'I thought of that, too.' Her voice dropped. 'Maybe whoever took Wolf is after you because,' she hesitated. 'Because you're a spirit walker, and they want your power.'

He flinched. He hated being a spirit walker. And he hated that she'd said it out loud. It felt like a scab being torn off.

'But if they were after you,' she persisted, 'why not just take you? Two big strong men, we'd have been no match for them. So why '

'I don't know!' snapped Torak. 'Why do you keep on? What good does it do?'

Renn stared at him.

'I don't know why they took him!' he cried. 'I don't care if it's a trap! I just want him back!'

After that, they didn't speak at all. The forest horses had trampled the trail, and for a while it was lost, which at least gave them an excuse to split up. When Torak found it again, it had changed. For the worse.

'They've made a sled,' he said. 'No dogs to pull it, but even without, they'll be able to go much faster downhill.'

Renn glanced at the sky. 'It's clouding over. We should build a shelter. Get some rest.'

'You can if you want, I'm going on.'

She put her hands on her hips. 'On your own?'

'If I have to.'

'Torak. He's my friend too.'

'He's not just my friend,' he retorted, 'he's my pack-brother!'

He could see that he'd hurt her.

'And how,' she said between her teeth, 'is blundering about missing things going to help him?'

He glared at her. 'I haven't missed anything!'

'Oh no? A few paces back, one of them turned aside to follow those otter tracks '

'What otter tracks?'

'That's what I mean! You're exhausted! So am I!'

He knew she was right. But he didn't want to admit it.

In silence they found a storm-toppled spruce, and dug out the snow at its base to make a makeshift sleeping-s.p.a.ce. They roofed it with spruce boughs, and used their snowshoes as shovels to pack on a thick layer of snow. Finally they dragged more boughs inside, and laid their reindeer-hide sleeping-sacks on top. When they'd finished, they were trembling with fatigue.

From his tinder pouch Torak took his strike-fire and some shredded birch bark, and woke up a fire. The only deadwood he'd found was spruce, so it smoked and spat. He was too exhausted to care.

Renn wrinkled her nose at the smoke, but didn't remark on it. She took a coil of elk-blood sausage from her pack and cut it in three, then put one piece on the roof of the shelter for the clan guardian, and tossed Torak another. Tucking her own share in her food pouch, she picked up her axe and waterskin. 'I'm going to the river. There's more meat in my pack, but don't touch the dried lingonberries.'

'Why not?'

'Because,' she said crossly, 'I'm saving them for Wolf!'

After she'd gone, Torak forced himself to eat. Then he crawled out of the shelter and made an offering.

Cutting a lock of his long dark hair, he tied it round a branch of the fallen spruce. Then he put his hand on his clan-creature skin: the tattered sc.r.a.p of wolf fur sewn to the shoulder of his parka. 'Forest,' he said, 'hear me. I ask by each of my three souls by my name-soul, my clan-soul, and my world-soul I ask that you watch over Wolf, and keep him from harm.'

It was only when he'd finished that he noticed a lock of dark-red hair tied to another branch. Renn had made her own offering.

That made him feel guilty. He shouldn't have shouted at her.

Back in the shelter, he pulled off his boots, wriggled into his sleeping-sack, and lay watching the fire, smelling the mustiness of reindeer fur and the bitter tang of spruce.

Far away, an owl hooted. Not the familiar 'bvoo-bvoo' of a grey Forest owl, but the deep 'oo-hu, oo-hu, oo-hu' of an eagle owl.

Torak shivered.

He heard Renn's footsteps crunching through the snow, and called to her. 'You made an offering. So did I.'

When she didn't answer, he added, 'Sorry I snapped at you. It's just . . . Well. Sorry.'

Still no answer.

He heard her crunch towards the shelter then circle behind it.

He sat up. 'Renn?'

The footsteps stopped.

His heart began to pound. It wasn't Renn.

As quietly as he could, he wriggled out of his sleeping-sack, pulled on his boots, and reached for his axe.

The footsteps came closer. Whoever it was stood only an arm's length away, separated by a flimsy wall of spruce.

For a moment there was silence. Then very loud in the stillness Torak heard wet, bubbling breath.

His skin p.r.i.c.kled. He thought of the victims of last summer's sickness. The murderous light in their eyes; the slime catching in their throats . . .

He thought of Renn, alone by the river. He crawled towards the mouth of the shelter.

Clouds covered the moon, and the night was black. He caught a whiff of carrion. Heard again that bubbling breath.

'Who are you?' he called into the dark.

The breathing stopped. The stillness was absolute. The stillness of something waiting in the dark.

Torak scrambled out of the shelter and stood, clutching his axe with both hands. Smoke stung his eyes, but for a heartbeat he glimpsed a huge form melting into the shadows.

A cry rang out behind him and he spun round to see Renn staggering through the trees. 'By the river!' she panted. 'It stank, it was horrible!'

'It was here,' he told her. 'It came close. I heard it.'

Back to back, they stared into the Forest. Whatever it was, it had gone, leaving only a whiff of carrion and a dread memory of bubbling breath.

Sleep was now impossible. They fed the fire, then sat up together, waiting for dawn.

'What do you think it was?' said Renn.

Torak shook his head. 'But I know one thing. If we'd had Wolf with us, it would never have got that close.'

They stared into the fire. With Wolf gone, they hadn't only lost a friend. They'd lost someone to keep them from harm.

THREE.

They heard nothing more that night, but in the morning they found tracks. Huge, man-like but without any toes.

The tracks were nothing like the booted feet of the men who'd captured Wolf, but they headed the same way.

'Now there are three of them,' said Renn.

Torak didn't reply. They had no choice but to follow.

The sky was heavy with snow, and the Forest was full of shadows. With each step they dreaded seeing a figure lurching towards them. Demon? Soul-Eater? Or one of the Hidden People, whose backs are hollow as rotten trees . . .

The wind picked up. Torak watched the snow drifting across the tracks, and thought of Wolf. 'If this wind keeps up, the trail won't last much longer.'

Renn craned her neck to follow the flight of a raven. 'If only we could see what it can.'

Torak gave the bird a thoughtful stare.

They began their descent into the next valley through a silent birchwood. 'Look,' said Torak. 'Your otter's been here before us.' He pointed to a line of webbed prints and a long, smooth furrow in the snow. The otter had bounded down the slope, then slid on its belly, as otters love to do.

Renn smiled, and for a moment, they pictured a happy otter taking a snow-slide.

But the otter had never reached the frozen lake at the bottom of the hill. In the lee of a boulder twenty paces above the sh.o.r.e, Torak found a scattering of fish-scales and a shred of rawhide. 'They trapped it,' he said.

'Why?' said Renn. 'An otter's a hunter . . .'

Torak shook his head. It didn't make sense.

Suddenly, Renn tensed. 'Hide!' she whispered, pulling him behind the boulder.

Through the trees, Torak caught movement on the lake. A creature snuffling, swaying, searching for something. It was very tall, with a s.h.a.ggy pelt and a trailing, matted mane. Torak smelt carrion, and heard a wet bubbling of breath. Then it turned, and he saw a filthy one-eyed face as rough as bark. He gasped.

'It can't be!' whispered Renn.

They stared at one another. 'The Walker!'

The autumn before last, their paths had crossed with this terrifying, mad old man. They'd been lucky to escape with their lives.

'What's he doing so far from his valley?' breathed Torak as they shrank further behind the boulder.

'And how do we get past without being seen?' hissed Renn.

'Maybe we don't.'

'What?'

'Maybe he saw who took Wolf!'

'Have you forgotten,' she said in a furious whisper, 'that he nearly killed us? That he threw my quiver in the stream, and threatened to snap my bow?' It was unclear which she considered worse: threatening them, or her bow.

'But he didn't, did he?' countered Torak. 'He let us go.

And Renn. What if he saw something?'

'So you're just going to ask him, are you? Torak, he's mad! Whatever he says, we couldn't believe him!'

Torak opened his mouth to reply . . .

. . . and around them the snow exploded.

'Give it back!' roared the Walker, brandishing his green slate knife. 'She took his fire! She tricked him! The Walker wants it back!'

'The Walker has tricked the tricksters!' he bellowed, pinning them against the boulder. 'Now they must give it back!'