Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 90

So why had it attacked? Sickness? A wound gone bad? She'd seen no sign of either. Demons? No. It didn't feel like that. And yet there was something.

More earth trickled onto her face, and she spat out gritty crumbs. With infinite care, she pushed herself up and peered over the edge.

Early sunlight speared the bracken. A breeze woke the willows. The river murmured on its way to the Sea. So peaceful . . .

There. Beside that clump of burdock: the edge of a huge, splayed hoof; a fetlock dark with sweat.

The blood roared in her ears.

The elk lowered its head and its long tongue curled out, moistening its nose to sharpen its sense of smell. Its large ears tilted towards her.

She froze.

It knew she was there. One eye was blind red jelly, punctured by a rival's antler the previous rut. The other was fixed on hers.

She caught her breath. She sensed the spirit behind that stare.

'It can't be,' she whispered.

The elk pawed the burdock.

It's an elk, she told herself. Nothing to do with Torak.

And yet, she knew with the certainty which came to her at times and which Saeunn called her inner eye she knew that Torak's souls were in that elk. He was spirit walking. He was attacking her.

'This can't be,' she whispered again. 'Why would he attack me?'

Feeling dizzy and sick, she gripped the handle of her axe. There was no way out. Whatever happened next, one of them would die.

Wolf stood guard while Tall Tailless huddled in the reindeer pelt, twitching and moaning in his sleep.

The scent of the Otherness which Wolf had caught in the Dark was gone, but he sensed that it hadn't gone far. It was a new smell, but it reminded him of something. Something bad.

Ordinarily he would have raced off to find it, but Tall Tailless had said never to leave him. This puzzled Wolf a lot. He left Tall Tailless all the time. To hunt, to roll in scat, to gobble up delicious rotten carca.s.ses which his pack-brother unaccountably disliked. But it didn't matter how long Wolf was away, because he always came back.

Wolf hated not understanding. But he couldn't get his jaws around the answer.

Then he heard howling.

Wolves. Many lopes off, although he couldn't tell exactly where, because they were howling with their muzzles all pointing different ways. Wolf understood this. It was the time when the Lights get longer, eating up the Darks: the time when wolf cubs are born. This pack had cubs. It didn't want others to find its Den. The pack that Wolf had run with on the Mountain had used the same trick.

Wait! He sprang to his feet. This was the Mountain pack! He knew the leader's howl!

Lashing his tail, he howled an answer. I'm here! Here! In his head he saw the pack standing close together, muzzles lifted to the Up, eyes slitted in the joy of the howl. He was seized with longing to go to them.

The pack fell silent.

Wolf's tail stilled.

He wished Tall Tailless would wake up. But he went on twitching and moaning in his sleep.

A little later, Wolf heard a frantic yip-and-yowling in tailless talk. It was the pack-sister. He didn't understand what she was saying, but he could hear that she was in trouble.

Wolf pawed Tall Tailless to wake him.

His pack-brother didn't stir.

Wolf snapped at his overpelt and tugged at the long dark fur on his head. When that didn't work, he barked in his ears. That never failed.

It did now.

Wolf's pelt tightened as he realized that what lay here, curled in the reindeer hide, was only the meat of Tall Tailless. The bit inside the breath that walked was gone.

Wolf knew because it had happened before. Sometimes he would see the walking breath leave his pack-brother's body. It was the same size and shape and smell as Tall Tailless, but Wolf knew not to get too close.

Wolf ran in circles. The scent trail told him that the walking breath of Tall Tailless had gone to find the pack-sister. That was what Wolf must do, too.

He flew through the Forest. He startled a mare and her foals, and nearly trod on a sleeping piglet, annoying its mother, but he was gone before she'd lumbered to her feet. Weaving between the alders at the edge of the Fast Wet, he loped towards the pack-sister's howls. He smelt her fierce resolve. He smelt fresh blood and angry elk.

In mid-yowl, the pack-sister's voice broke off.

Wolf quickened his pace.

Suddenly the wind swung round, carrying a new scent to his nose: the scent of Otherness.

Wolf slewed to a halt. The Otherness was heading for Tall Tailless' defenceless body.

Wolf hesitated.

What should he do?

NINE.

Torak woke with a struggle, as if fighting his way up from the bottom of a lake. Something had happened in the night something terrible but he couldn't in the night something terrible but he couldn't remember what.

He was lying in his sleeping-sack with the early sun in his eyes. His mouth tasted as if he'd been eating ash, and the wound in his chest hurt savagely.

Then he saw the strand of dark-red hair in his hand, and everything flooded back. Bracken whipping past his antlers, mud squelching beneath his hooves. Flint flashing, red hair flying. Then nothing.

What had he done?

In a heartbeat he was out of the sleeping-sack, startling Wolf.

The pack-sister! Torak said in wolf talk. Is she all right?

Don't know, came the reply. A lick on the muzzle. Are you?

Torak didn't answer. He never spirit walked in his sleep. And it couldn't have been the drink he'd made for the rite, Renn had told him it wouldn't make his souls wander. Besides, he'd daubed the sign of the hand on his cheek, like she'd said. With his fingers he searched his face, but the earthblood was gone. He must have rubbed it off while he slept.

How could this have happened? He glanced at the crusted scab on his chest. The mark was gone but the power of the Soul-Eaters was great. Maybe while he slept, they had forced him to do this: to attack the person he cared about most.

It took him the whole morning to reach the clearing. He had some idea of where it lay, having noticed the badger sett and the stump on previous hunts; and Wolf helped, too. But when they got there, Torak didn't recognize it. The bracken and willowherb had been flattened as if by a hailstorm, the oak kicked to splinters. Here and there he saw scarlet spatters on green leaves.

The world tilted. He tasted bile. He fought to stay calm, to piece together what had happened.

In the churned mud near the stump he found a print of Renn's boot; a red hair snagged at one of the entrances to the sett. On the riverbank he found drag-marks where canoes had been drawn up. A mess of men's footprints, deeper on their way back to the boats. They'd been carrying something heavy.

Maybe they had arrived in time, killed the elk and taken it with them in the boats.

Maybe it was Renn they'd carried away.

Torak's mind refused to work. His tracker's skill deserted him.

I did this, he thought. There is something inside me that I can't control.

Wolf nudged his thigh, asking when they were going. Torak asked him if he'd tried to help the pack-sister, and Wolf replied that he'd wanted to, but then he'd smelt "Other".

What do you mean? said Torak, but Wolf's answer was unclear. Wolves don't only talk with grunts and whines and howls, but with subtle movements of the body: a tilt of the head, a flick of the ears or tail, the fluffing up or sleeking down of fur. Not even Torak knew every sign. All he could gather was that Wolf had caught a bad scent making for his pack-brother, and raced to his defence, but whatever it was had gone by the time he'd arrived.

Torak stared at the desolation around him. He should get under cover; at any moment a canoe might slide into view. He didn't care. He had to go to the clan meet and find out what had happened to Renn.

Dusk was coming on by the time he reached the river mouth where the clans were gathered. At this time of summer, the night wouldn't get any darker. Which made what he was doing even more dangerous.

Apart from the headband, he hadn't stopped to disguise himself, simply smearing wood-ash on his skin to put off the dogs. For the rest, he would rely on his hunter's ability to stay out of sight, and the fact that he'd persuaded Wolf with some difficulty not to come too.

He found a stand of juniper and pine well back from the camp, hid his sleeping-sack in some brambles to retrieve later, and crouched down to plot his next move.

Around the mouth of the Whitewater, fires glowed orange in the deep blue dusk. Before them, black figures reached stick-limbs towards the sky, like paintings on a rock. So many people! For a moment Torak was small again, just short of his eighth birthnight, and proud to be going with Fa to the clan meet by the Sea.

The Mountain Hare Clan had built their reindeer-hide shelters on the rocks above the sh.o.r.e, perhaps because this reminded them of home. The Rowan Clan's turf domes squatted in the meadows, while the Salmon Clan had pitched their fish-skin tents on the foresh.o.r.e, and the Sea-eagles, who didn't seem to care, had made their untidy stick piles wherever they'd found s.p.a.ce. The Open Forest clans had camped nearest the trees, but Torak couldn't see the Ravens' open-fronted shelters.

'They say the Wolf Clan's headed south,' said a man's voice, startlingly close.

Torak froze.

'Good riddance,' snorted another man. 'I never feel easy with them around.'

A m.u.f.fled curse as one of them tripped over a root.

'Still, they should've stayed,' said the first man. 'It's a clan meet, that's what it's for.'

'What about the Deep Forest clans?' said his companion. 'No sign of them, either.'

'I hear there's trouble between the Aurochs and the Forest Horses . . . '

Their voices faded as they headed towards the river and Torak breathed again.

It was some time before he dared move. Keeping to the edge of the Forest, he came to a pine-ringed hollow where a throng of people crowded round a large fire. Smells of baked salmon and roasting meat mingled with the music of voice, pipe and drum.

The fire was made of three pine logs burning along their length. A Raven long-fire. He'd found them.

Dry-mouthed, he hid in a clump of yews beyond the light.

He saw Fin-Kedinn deep in talk with the Salmon Clan Leader as they cut hunks off a glistening side of red deer and filled peoples' bowls.

He saw Saeunn and two other Mages a little way off, by a smaller blaze which gave off a heady scent of juniper. One Mage cast handfuls of bones and watched how they fell, while a second read the smoke snaking into the sky. Saeunn rocked back and forth, spitting spells.

Above Torak's head, a branch creaked and a raven peered down at him with bright, unforgiving eyes. He begged it not to betray him.

The guardian spread its wings and flew, swooping low over the Mages' fire. Saeunn raised her head to follow it. Then she turned and looked straight at Torak.

She can't see you, he told himself. But in the firelight, the stare of the Raven Mage was red with secret knowledge. Who knew what she could see?

Just when Torak couldn't bear it any longer, Saeunn turned back to her spells.

Shaky with relief, he scanned the firelit faces. He saw the Boar Clan Leader jabbing his finger at the Whale Leader to emphasize a point, Aki sitting nearby, watching his father with an odd mix of fear and longing.

Then Torak saw her.

Renn sat cross-legged at the front of the throng, scowling into the flames. She was pale, and her right forearm was bound in soft buckskin, but apart from that, she appeared unhurt.

The tightness in his chest loosened as if a rawhide strap had snapped.

She's all right.

A dog padded over to him; luckily, one he knew. He shooed it away.

Next time, he might not be so lucky. He had to get away before they found him.

He stayed where he was.

Maybe it was seeing Renn again. Maybe it was the wild hope that with the mark of the Soul-Eater cut out, he could simply step into the light, and everyone would welcome him back.

He stayed.

And that changed everything.

The moon made its way across the sky, and still Torak watched.

He saw men, women and children dipping beakers in pails of brewed birch-blood. He saw them stepping into the s.p.a.ce around the long-fire to offer a story, a song.