Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 79

A sudden honking of geese overhead. Thrusting her arms into her sleeves, she drew her bow from its seal-hide carrier.

Too late. They were out of range.

'Stupid!' she berated herself. 'You should've been ready! You should always be ready!'

She sat and waited for more prey. She watched till her eyes hurt. At last, her head began to nod.

The demon was so close she could smell it. Its tongue flickered out to taste her breath. Its glare drew her down into seething black flame . . .

With a cry she jolted awake. 'Get away from me!' she shouted.

A flock of gulls lifted off from a nearby ice mountain. She fumbled for her bow but the gulls were gone.

Somewhere behind her, the demon cackled.

'There will be more gulls,' she told it. There would have to be more gulls.

None came.

Her hand crept to her medicine pouch. Inside, nestling in her dwindling supply of herbs, lay the pebble on which Torak had painted his clan-tattoo last summer; she wondered if he even knew she'd kept it. And here was the grouse-bone whistle for calling Wolf. She longed to blow it. But even if he heard, he couldn't swim out this far. She'd only be endangering him.

Her thoughts drifted to the previous autumn, when Torak had tried to teach her to howl, in case she ever lost the whistle. She hadn't been able to keep a straight face, and he'd got cross and stalked off; but when she'd tried to summon him back with a howl, she'd sounded so odd that he'd laughed till he cried.

Now she attempted a wobbly howl. It wasn't loud enough to summon Wolf, but it made her feel a bit better.

If any more gulls came, she ought to be ready. She checked the fletching on her best flint arrow, then took all the lengths of sinew thread from her sewing pouch, knotted them together, and tied the line to the arrowshaft. Next she oiled her bow and bowstring by rubbing them with the seal meat, resisting the temptation to gobble the lot. As she worked, she seemed to see Fin-Kedinn's rough hands overlaying her own. He'd made this bow for her, and it held not only the endurance of the yew from which it came, but some of his strength, too. It wouldn't let her down.

With the arrow nocked in readiness, she pushed up her visor, and settled down to wait.

Behind her the demon clawed the ice to distract her. Her lip curled. Let it try! Fin-Kedinn had taught her to concentrate. When she was hunting, nothing could distract her; like Torak when he was tracking.

In the distance, she heard the strange, neighing cries of guillemots. They were coming her way.

Doubts flooded her mind. They're too far away, the line isn't long enough. Your hands are frozen, you can't shoot straight . . . She ignored the demon, and concentrated on the prey.

They were flying low, as guillemots do, beating the air with their stubby black wings. Renn chose one, and fixed her eye on it, waiting out the gusts of wind.

The arrow flew straight, and the guillemot plopped into the Sea. With a shout of triumph, Renn hauled it in on the line.

Her shot had only caught the tail, and the bird was struggling. Murmuring thanks and praise, she slipped her hand beneath its wing and held its heart between her fingers, to still it. Then she cut off the wings, and gave one to the Sea Mother and one to the wind, to thank them for not killing her yet. The head she threw to the end of the floe for her clan-guardian, and she thanked her bow by smoothing on a little of the fat.

Finally, she slit the belly, drew out the warm purple breast, and crammed it in her mouth. It tasted oily and wonderful. The guillemot's strength became hers.

She plucked the carca.s.s, keeping the feathers for fletching, and tied it to her belt. The demon had fled. She spat out a fleck of guillemot down, and grinned. Clearly it preferred her hungry and miserable to well-fed and defiant.

A raven swooped low, s.n.a.t.c.hed the guillemot's head, and flew away. Renn felt a surge of pride. Ravens are one of the few birds tough enough to winter in the Far North. She was proud to be its descendant, a member of its clan.

Drawing back her hood, she rubbed snow on her hair to wipe away the last traces of Tanugeak's black stain. She was herself again. Renn of the Raven Clan.

She was trying so hard to spot the coast that she nearly missed it.

One moment the ice floe was slowly turning, and the next there was a crunch that nearly tipped her into the Sea, and it ground to a halt.

Back on her feet, she saw that she'd been looking the wrong way. Her floe had crashed into a jumble of pack ice. Then the fog parted and the ice river towered above her.

The floe had become stuck at its northern edge. Before her stretched a glaring expanse of landfast ice, and beyond that, a swathe of jagged, shadowy hills which cowered beneath the vast blue cliffs of the ice river.

If she could get across the pack ice, if she could reach that landfast ice . . .

But what then? The ice river had only to twitch, and those cliffs would fall on her and crush her like a beetle.

She'd think about that later. Right now, she had to get ash.o.r.e.

Shouldering her bow, she clambered off the floe and onto the pack ice. It rocked alarmingly, and she had to leap to the next bit, and the next, keeping always to the white ice, and never pausing, as Inuktiluk had taught her. The pack ice was riven with gaps one misplaced step, and she'd be in the Sea. She was sweating by the time she reached what felt like landfast ice.

She bent double, too dazed to feel relief. It was hard to stay upright, as her legs still swayed to the rhythms of the Sea.

To the south, from deep within the ice river, she heard pounding. Eerie, grinding groans. She straightened up.

The wind hissed over the ice. The cold was so intense that her eyelashes stuck together. Her hand crept to her clan-creature feathers. This place didn't feel right. This dead cold. Those fanged hills at the foot of the cliffs, so sunk in gloom that they looked almost black.

With a start she realized that it wasn't shadow that was making them look black, it couldn't be, the cliffs faced west, and the low sun shone directly onto them. Those hills were black. And at their heart yawned a chasm. A chasm of black ice.

She felt strangely drawn to it.

Stumbling over the landfast ice, she made her way towards the black hills. As she got nearer, the ice beneath her boots turned black: brittle black ice that crackled at every step.

She stooped for a shard, and crushed it in her mitten. It melted, leaving nothing but black specks. She stared at her palm. Those black specks . . . they weren't ice, but stone. Stone from some buried mountain, crushed fine by the might of the ice river.

Her hand dropped to her side, and water dripped sadly from her mitten. Now she understood why the Sea had carried her here, to the dark underbelly of the ice river. She'd done the impossible. She'd found a way of burying the fire-opal in stone.

But the only life she could give it was her own.

THIRTY-FIVE.

Beneath his mitten, Torak felt Wolf becoming restless.

He hoped desperately that the scent trail Wolf had caught was Renn's, but he couldn't be sure. So much wolf talk isn't in the voice but in gestures: a glance, a tilt of the head, a flick of the ears. Being blind made it much harder to know what Wolf was saying. And although Torak's sight was slowly coming back, Wolf was still only a dark-grey blur.

The wind was restless too, moaning in his ears and tugging at his parka. High, thin voices reached him, just at the edge of hearing. Demons? Soul-Eater spies? Or Renn, calling for help?

Wolf stopped so abruptly that Torak nearly fell over him. He felt the tension in Wolf's shoulders; the dip of his head as he sniffed the ice. His heart sank. Another tide crack. They'd crossed three already, and it wasn't getting any easier.

Without further ado, Wolf wriggled out of Torak's grip and leapt. Torak heard the whisper of paws landing on snow, then an encouraging bark. Come!

Torak unslung the sleeping-sacks and the side of seal ribs which he'd cut from the carca.s.s, and threw them towards the shadow that was Wolf. He was rea.s.sured to hear a thud rather than a splash.

Now for the hardest part. He couldn't make out the crack, it could be anything from a hand's breadth to two paces wide. Too risky to kneel and feel its edge with his mittens; his weight might break it. He'd just have to jump, and trust that Wolf who could leap three paces with ease would remember that his pack-brother couldn't.

Another bark, and an impatient whine. Come!

Torak took a deep breath and jumped.

He landed on solid ice, wobbling wildly. Wolf was there to steady him. He retrieved his gear, then put his hand on Wolf's scruff, and they headed off.

By mid-afternoon, and despite Wolf's impatient nudgings, he had to rest. While Wolf ran in anxious circles, he huddled on the ice, sawing meat from the seal ribs. His sight was improving all the time, and he could see the meat now. Well, he could make out a dark-red blur against the pinkish blur of the ice. He fumbled for his owl-eyed visor, and put it on.

To his surprise, Wolf gave a low growl.

Maybe he didn't like the visors.

'What's wrong?' mumbled Torak, too tired to speak wolf.

Another growl: not hostile, but uneasy. Maybe it wasn't the visor. Maybe he didn't like it that Torak had brought the meat: a draw for any ice bear within two daywalks. But he had no choice. Unlike Wolf, he couldn't devour half a seal, then go hungry for days.

An impatient nose-nudge. Come on!

Torak sighed, and heaved himself to his feet.

The day wore on, and he felt the cold deepening as the sun went down. Suddenly he couldn't take another step. He found a snow hill and hacked out a rough shelter, lined it with one of the sleeping-sacks, and crawled into the other.

Wolf crawled in too, and lay against him: heavy and beautifully warm. For the first time in days, Torak felt safe. With Wolf beside him, no demon or Soul-Eater or ice bear could get near. He fell asleep to the mothwing tickle of whiskers on his face.

He woke to darkness and no Wolf.

He knew he hadn't slept long, and when he crawled outside, he saw a vast black sky glittering with stars.

He saw! The snow-blindness was gone!

He stood with upturned face, drinking in the stars.

As he watched, a great spear of green light streaked across the sky. Then a shower of arrows streamed upwards, and suddenly, rays of green light were rippling across the darkness: shimmering, melting, silently reappearing.

Torak smiled. At last. The First Tree. From the dark of the Beginning it had grown, bringing life to all things: river and rock, hunter and prey. Often in the deep of winter it returned, to lighten hearts and kindle courage. Torak thought of Fa, and wondered if he'd completed the Death Journey, and found his way safely into its boughs. Maybe even now, he was looking down on him.

Far in the distance, an eagle owl called.

Torak's skin p.r.i.c.kled.

Then much closer he heard a slithering on the ice.

Crouching, he drew his knife.

'Drop it,' said Thiazzi.

'Where is the fire-opal?'

'I haven't got it.'

A blow to the head sent him flying. As he landed, his chest struck an ice ridge with winding force.

'Where is it?' bellowed the Oak Mage, yanking him upright.

'I haven't got it!'

The huge fist drew back again but Nef hobbled forwards and grabbed his arm. 'We need him alive, or we'll never find it!'

'I'll beat it out of him!' roared the Oak Mage.

'Thiazzi!' cried Seshru. 'You don't know your own strength! You'll kill him!'

The Oak Mage snarled at her but lowered his fist, and let Torak fall.

He lay panting, trying to take in what was happening. With Wolf unaccountably gone, they must have crept up on him in the night. A few paces away, he saw two skinboats lying on the ice, their hulls patched with seal-hide. He couldn't see Eostra; but ten paces away, an eagle owl perched on a fang of ice, fixing him with fierce orange eyes.

As he stared at the murky forms of the three Soul-Eaters, he sensed the discord between them: threads of tension stretched between them like a spider's web.

Of course, he thought. They didn't complete the sacrifice, so they're not fully protected from the demons. He wondered if he could make use of that.

'Search him,' said the Viper Mage. 'It's got to be somewhere.'

Thiazzi and Nef seized Torak's parka and dragged it over his head, then ripped off his jerkin and the rest of his clothes, till he stood naked and shuddering on the ice.

The Oak Mage took malicious pleasure in making the search a slow one: shaking out mittens and boots, snapping the snow-knife in two, emptying Torak's medicine horn, so that its precious earthblood blew away on the wind.

'It isn't here,' said Nef in surprise.

'He's hidden it,' said Seshru. Drawing closer, she studied Torak's face, and her pointed tongue flickered out to moisten her lips. 'Those are Wolf Clan tattoos. "The Wolf lives". Who are you?'

'I t-told you,' he stammered, 'I haven't got the fire-opal!'

Nef stooped for Fa's knife. 'Get dressed,' she told Torak without looking at him.

Clumsy with cold, he pulled on his clothes, then scrambled for what remained of his gear. His tinder pouch had been emptied, and his mother's medicine horn had lost its stopper; but in a corner of his medicine pouch, he found the remaining fragment of the Soul-Eaters' black root. He slipped it inside his mitten, closing his fist around it. He didn't know why, but he sensed that he might need it.

Just in time. Thiazzi seized his wrists and bound them behind him with a length of rawhide rope. The binding was cruelly tight, and Torak cried out. The Oak Mage laughed. Nef flinched, but made no move to stop him.

Torak noticed that Thiazzi's left hand was heavily bandaged in bloodstained buckskin, and missing two fingers. Good, he thought savagely. At least Wolf got his revenge.

'Where did you get this?' Nef said in an altered voice. She was standing very still, staring at the knife in her hands. Fa's knife.