Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 88

Like a badger, he dragged armfuls of leaves into the shelter and snuggled under them, relishing the woody tang. After a prayer of thanks to the Forest, he shut his eyes. He was exhausted.

He was also wide awake.

Thoughts he'd been avoiding for a night and a day took hold. Like a burr in a wolf's fur, they wouldn't let go.

Outcast. Clanless.

How could he be clanless?

He thought of the garlic he'd put in the tree as an offering for the clan guardian. But if he had no clan, he had no guardian. No guardian. That made him feel breathless. How could anyone survive without a guardian?

His fingers touched the scar that cut through his 'clan-tattoo'. He couldn't remember getting it; scars weren't something you bothered about, everyone had them. He had one on his forearm from the night the bear attacked, and another on his calf from the boar's tusk. Renn had one on her hand from a tokoroth bite, and on her foot from stamping on a flint shard when she was three. Fin-Kedinn had lots from hunting accidents and fights when he was young, and the big, puckered scar on his thigh from the bear.

Scowling, Torak burrowed deeper into the leaves. Don't think about the Ravens. Think about Fa, and why he never told you. Think about your mother, and why she declared you clanless.

A gust of wind stirred the willows, and they moaned. In the distance, Torak heard the tuneless bellowing of an abandoned elk. In early summer, the Forest rang with their miserable cries. Their mothers, unable to look after last summer's young as well as a newborn calf, abruptly rejected the older ones, driving them away with savage kicks. For a moon or so, the young elk blundered about, seeking comfort from any large creature they met, until they were killed by hunters, or learned to fend for themselves.

I want my mother, bellowed the elk.

Torak squeezed his eyes shut.

He knew so little about his mother, and yet the thought of her had always been with him: a kernel of warmth, even through the bleakest times. He had loved her almost without thinking. He had believed that she had loved him. But to have declared him clanless . . .

It felt as if she'd abandoned him.

Where do I go now? he thought. Where do I belong?

Another gust, and the willows replied. You belong here. In the Forest.

Listening to them, he fell into sleep.

With a jolt, he fell out of it.

Voices. Above him on the slope.

He lay rigid, heart pounding.

Then he thought, if they were hunting, they wouldn't be talking.

Crawling out as quietly as he could, he shouldered his quiver and bow and dismantled his shelter, sweeping the area around it with crushed garlic leaves to mask his scent. He crept into the willows. Shadows were lengthening, but the first stars weren't yet out. He hadn't slept long.

The voices came nearer, then stopped fifty paces above him. Through the branches, he spotted a Viper hunting party on the elk trail he'd used earlier. No dogs. That was something. And he'd swept the trail clear of tracks. Hadn't he?

It wasn't only Viper Clan. A party of Ravens seemed to have met them on the trail. He saw Thull, Sialot, Fin-Kedinn. Renn.

It gave him a sick feeling to be peering at them like a stranger; to be unable to go to them.

He watched the younger Viper men wait respectfully for Fin-Kedinn to speak, then preen themselves as he admired their roe buck kill. He saw two Viper children shyly eyeing Renn, who pretended not to notice as she polished her bow with a handful of crushed hazelnuts.

Their voices reached him. They were talking about Aki.

'His wretched dogs nearly ruined our hunt!' complained a Viper man. 'If this goes on . . . '

'It won't,' said Fin-Kedinn. 'Aki won't catch Torak.'

'Still,' said the Viper. 'Those dogs are frightening the prey. The sooner the outcast is out of our range, the better.'

'Oh, he'll be long gone by now,' said Fin-Kedinn, his voice carrying in the still evening air. 'He wouldn't be such a fool as to stay around here, not with the clan meet coming up.'

The clan meet. Torak had forgotten all about the great gathering of the clans which took place every three summers, and which this summer would be held at the mouth of the Whitewater, not two daywalks from where he hid.

The hunters said their farewells and parted, the Vipers heading south for their camp on the Widewater, the Ravens west.

Don't go, Torak silently begged Fin-Kedinn. He felt hollow as he watched the broad-shouldered figure moving off into the trees with Renn. He watched till his eyes ached.

Long after they'd gone, he remained in the willows, while night deepened around him.

A twig cracked.

He froze.

Another twig. Loud. Deliberate.

'It's me!' whispered Renn. 'Where are you?'

Torak shut his eyes. He couldn't answer her. He'd only put her in danger.

'Torak!' Now she sounded angry as well as scared. 'I know you're in there! You left a sc.r.a.p of chewed bast on the trail. It was all I could do to pick it up before the others spotted it!'

He hated staying silent.

'Oh, all right then!' she breathed. 'Maybe this will change your mind!' More rustling. 'I've brought what you'll need for getting rid of the Soul-Eater tattoo. That's why I'm here, to tell you how to do it.' Another pause. 'If you don't come out right now, I won't!'

SIX.

'What do you think you're doing?' whispered Torak as he yanked Renn into the thicket. 'If anyone saw you!'

'They didn't,' she replied with more confidence than she felt. 'I've brought you some food and a sleeping-sack, but I didn't manage to steal an axe, so you'll '

'Renn. No. You can't get mixed up in this!'

'I already am. Have a salmon cake.'

When he didn't move, she added, 'Well if you don't want it, I'll have to leave it for anyone to find!'

That worked, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed it from her, demolishing it with fierce concentration. As she crouched beside him in the sour-smelling gloom, she wondered when he'd last eaten.

'There's lots more salmon cakes,' she told him. 'And blood sausage and dried auroch tongue, and a bag of hazelnuts. Should be enough for half a moon, if you're careful.'

She was talking too much, she knew that. But he looked so different. That headband made him seem older; and there was a tautness in his face. He kept glancing about, as if at any moment a hunter might leap from the shadows.

This, she thought, is what it is to be prey.

Out loud, she asked where Wolf was, and Torak told her that he'd gone to lure Aki off the scent. Then he asked how she'd got away from Fin-Kedinn, and she told him about turning back to "check some snares", then picking up the supplies she'd hidden earlier, along with a woodpigeon which she would take to camp as proof of the "snares". She didn't mention the tightness in her chest as she'd deceived Fin-Kedinn, or the pain in his eyes when he'd realized what she was doing.

'He guessed I was here, didn't he?' said Torak. 'What he said about the clan meet. He was warning me.'

'I think so. Maybe.'

She pa.s.sed him another salmon cake, and ate a couple of hazelnuts to keep him company. Then she said, 'I've been trying to understand how all this happened. Those red deer antlers, with Aki's mark rubbed out. Someone did that. Someone wanted you cast out.'

He glanced at her. 'The Soul-Eaters.'

She nodded. 'They'll have come south by now. And they know you're a spirit walker. They want your power.'

'They want the last piece of the fire-opal, too.'

'Wherever that is.'

In the deep blue night, young owls called to each other as they glided between the trees, and bats flitted over the bracken with a swift, light crackling of wings.

Torak wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. 'Renn,' he said. 'I'm sorry.'

'For what?'

'For all this. For not telling you about the mark. If only I'd told you. It just it never seemed the right time.'

Her throat closed. 'I know how that can be. It's never easy to tell things. Secrets, I mean.'

'Well. I'm sorry.'

They finished eating, then Torak strapped the sleeping-sack to his back and shouldered his quiver and bow, and Renn re-packed the food pouch and placed a morsel of salmon cake in a willow for the clan guardian. As soon as she'd done it, she wished she'd waited till later, so that Torak hadn't seen. He told her he didn't mind, but she could see that he did.

'It's strange,' he said. 'All my life I've been doing that. And I haven't got a guardian.'

'It's still an offering. For the Forest.'

'I suppose.' He paused. 'But how is it possible, Renn? How can I not have a clan?'

'I don't know.'

'I've got a clan-soul, I can tell right from wrong. So how?'

She shook her head. 'Saeunn says no-one's ever been clanless before.'

He looked appalled and she was furious with herself. Oh, very clever, Renn, that's really made him feel better. 'Anyway,' she went on quickly, 'I don't think I'd want to be part of that Wolf Clan. Those yellow eyes . . . ' She shuddered. 'I asked their Mage how they do it, and she said she puts something in the water. Once she got it wrong, and they turned pink instead.' She chewed her lip. 'I made that bit up. A joke.'

Torak forced a smile. She felt achingly sorry for him.

'But if I'm not Wolf Clan,' he said, 'what am I?'

She drew a breath. 'You're Wolf's pack-brother. You're my friend. And that's never going to change.'

Torak blinked. He rubbed a hand over his face and shouldered the food pouch, and coughed. 'Fin-Kedinn will be wondering where you are. You said you know how to do the rite?'

'- Yes,' said Renn.

He caught something in her tone. 'Are you sure?'

'Yes,' she repeated. In fact, she'd had to piece it together in s.n.a.t.c.hes gleaned from Saeunn, so she wasn't entirely sure. But it wouldn't help Torak to know that.

The rite didn't take long to describe, but when Renn came to the part about cutting out the tattoo, they both felt sick.

'Here,' she said shakily, untying her swansfoot medicine pouch from her belt. 'It's got most of what you'll need.'

Torak took it and stared at it.

'You must wait till the moon is full,' she went on. 'Until then, you'll have to find somewhere safe to hide.'

'Safe?'

'Well. Safer. We'd better decide where to meet.'

'What do you mean?'

'At the full moon. For the rite.'

'Oh, no. No.' To her dismay, he wore his stubborn look: the one that reminded her of Wolf refusing to get into a skinboat.

'Torak,' she said, 'You can't do this on your own. I only told you what's involved so that you can prepare yourself, but I'll be there to help.'

'No.'

'Yes.'

'But you hate Magecraft.'

'That doesn't matter! At least I know how to do it!'

He stood up. 'Listen, Renn. This isn't like those other times, when you ran off and Fin-Kedinn was angry for a while and then forgave you. This could get you killed.'