Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

by Michelle Paver

  ‘To hunt what?’ said Torak. ‘Back at the lake I saw hare tracks, but there’s nothing here.’

  For the first time, Inuktiluk looked at him with approval. ‘So you noticed those? I hadn’t thought a Forest boy would.’ He pointed straight down. ‘This prey is under the ice. We do as the ice bear. We hunt seal.’

  Renn shivered. ‘Do ice bears eat people?’

  ‘The Great Wanderer eats anything,’ said Inuktiluk, sticking the antler in the ice to tether the dogs. ‘But he prefers seal. He’s the best hunter there is. He can smell a seal through an arm’s length of ice.’

  ‘Why have you stopped?’ said Torak.

  ‘I’m going hunting,’ said the White Fox.

  ‘But – you can’t! We can’t stop to hunt!’

  ‘Well what are you going to eat?’ replied Inuktiluk. ‘We need more blubber, and meat for the dogs!’

  That shamed Torak into silence; but inside, he burned with impatience. It was six days since Wolf had been taken.

  Inuktiluk unhitched his lead dog, and slowly paced the ice. Soon the dog found what it sought. ‘A seal’s breathing-hole,’ Inuktiluk said quietly. It was tiny: a low molehill with a hole in the top about half a thumb wide, its edges grooved, where the seal had gnawed to keep it open.

  From the sled, Inuktiluk took a piece of reindeer hide and laid it with the furry side on the ice, downwind of the hole. ‘To muffle the sound of my boots, like the ice bear’s furry pads.’ He laid a swan’s feather across the hole. ‘Just before the seal surfaces, it breathes out – and the feather moves. That’s when I’ve got to act fast. The seal only takes a few gulps of air before it’s gone again.’

  He motioned them back to the shelter of the sled. ‘I must stand and wait, like the ice bear, but in those clothes you’d freeze. Stay out of the wind, and stay still! The slightest tremor will warn the seals.’ He took up position, standing motionless, with his harpoon raised.

  As Torak crouched behind the sled, he began to unpick the knots that fastened his pack to the runners.

  ‘What are you doing?’ whispered Renn.

  ‘Getting out of here,’ he said. ‘Are you coming?’

  She started untying her pack.

  They were behind Inuktiluk, so they were able to shoulder their packs and sleeping-sacks without being seen; but as they rose, he turned his head. He didn’t move or speak. He just looked.

  Defiantly, Torak stared back. But he didn’t stir. This man had opened a vein to save them. He was a hunter, like them. And they were about to spoil his hunt.

  ‘We can’t do this,’ breathed Renn.

  ‘I know,’ replied Torak.

  Slowly, they unhitched their packs.

  Inuktiluk turned back to the breathing-hole.

  Suddenly the feather twitched.

  With the speed of a striking heron, Inuktiluk thrust in the harpoon. The harpoon head came off the shaft, and stuck like a toggle under the seal’s hide. With one hand Inuktiluk hauled on the rope tied to the head, and with the other he used the shaft of the disarmed harpoon to enlarge the breathing-hole.

  Dropping their packs, Torak and Renn ran to help. One tremendous pull – and the seal was out, and dead of a blow to the head before it hit the ice.

  ‘Thanks!’ panted Inuktiluk.

  They helped him haul the streaming silver carcass away from the hole.

  The dogs were in a frenzy to get at it, but Inuktiluk silenced them with a word. Easing the harpoon head from the wound, he stitched it shut with a slender bone that he called a “wound plug”, so as not to waste blood. Then he rolled the seal onto its back, and tilted its snout into the hole. ‘To send its souls down to the Sea Mother, to be born again.’ Taking off his mitten, he stroked the pale, spotted belly. ‘Thank you, my friend. May the Sea Mother give you a fine new body!’

  ‘We do the same thing in the Forest,’ said Renn.

  Inuktiluk smiled. Slitting the seal at just the right place, he slipped in his hand and brought out the steaming, dark-red liver.

  Behind them a bark rang out, and they saw a small white fox sitting on the ice. It was shorter and fatter than the red Forest foxes, and it was watching Inuktiluk with inquisitive golden-brown eyes.

  He grinned. ‘The guardian wants his share!’ He threw it a piece, and the fox caught it neatly, and downed it in a gulp. Inuktiluk handed chunks of liver to Torak and Renn. It was firm and sweet, and slid down easily. The White Fox man tossed the lungs to the dogs; but Torak noticed that they only sniffed them, and seemed too restless to eat.

  ‘We were lucky,’ said Inuktiluk through a mouthful of liver. ‘Sometimes I wait a whole day for a seal to come.’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘I wonder if you’d have the patience to wait that long.’

  Torak thought for a moment. ‘I want to tell you something.’ He paused. Renn nodded. ‘We came north to find our friend,’ he went on. ‘Please. You have to let us go.’

  Inuktiluk sighed. ‘I know now that you mean well. But you must understand, I can’t do this.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Renn.

  On the other side of the sled, the dogs were whining and tugging at their tethers.

  Torak went to see what was troubling them.

  ‘What is it?’ said Renn.

  He didn’t reply. He was trying to make out the dogs’ talk. Compared to wolf talk, it was much simpler, like the speech of puppies. ‘They can smell something,’ he said, ‘but the wind’s gusting, so they’re not sure where it is.’

  ‘What is it they smell?’ said Renn, reaching for her bow.

  Inuktiluk’s jaw dropped. ‘Do you – does he understand them?’

  Torak never got the chance to reply. A ridge of ice to his left suddenly rose – and became a great white bear.

  TWELVE

  The ice bear raised its head on its long neck, and tasted Torak’s scent.

  With an effortless surge, it reared on its hind legs. It was taller than a tall man standing on the shoulders of another, and each paw was twice the size of Torak’s head. One swat would snap his spine like a willow twig.

  Swinging its head from side to side, it slitted its hard black eyes, and snuffed the air. It saw Torak standing alone on the ice; Renn and Inuktiluk moving to take cover behind the sled. It smelt the bloody snow beyond them, and the half-butchered carcass of the seal. It heard the dogs howling and straining at their tether in their foolish lust to attack. It took in everything with the unhurried ease of a creature who has never known fear. The power of winter was in its limbs, the savagery of the wind in its claws. It was invincible.

  The blood roared in Torak’s ears. The sled was ten paces in front of him. It could have been a hundred.

  In silence the ice bear dropped to all fours, and a ripple ran through its heavy, yellow-white pelt.

  ‘Don’t run,’ Inuktiluk told Torak quietly. ‘Walk. Towards us. Sideways. Don’t show it your back.’

  Out of the corner of his eye, Torak saw Renn nocking an arrow to her bow; Inuktiluk gripping a harpoon in either hand.

  Don’t run.

  But his legs ached to run. He was back in the Forest, running from the wreck of the shelter where his father lay dying, running from the demon bear. ‘Torak!’ shouted Fa with his final breath. ‘Run!’

  Summoning every shred of will, Torak took a shaky step towards the sled.

  The ice bear lowered its head and fixed its gaze upon him. Then – at a lazy, inturned walk – it ambled between him and the sled.

  He swayed.

  The ice bear made no sound as it set down each foot. Not a click of claws on ice. Not a whisper of breath.

  Hardly knowing what he did, Torak slid his hand out of his mitten and felt for his knife. It wouldn’t come free of its sheath. He pulled harder. No good. He should have heeded Inuktiluk’s advice, and kept it inside his parka. The leather sheath had frozen solid.

  ‘Torak!’ called Inuktiluk softly. ‘Catch!’

  A harpoon flew through the air, and Torak caught it in one hand. The sl
ender bone point looked feeble beyond measure. ‘Will it be any use?’ he said.

  ‘Not much. But at least you’ll die like a man.’

  The ice bear breathed out with a rasping ‘hssh’ – and Torak caught a flash of yellow fangs, and knew with a cold clutch of terror that the harpoon had been a mistake. This bear would not be intimidated; but it could be goaded to attack.

  He caught a flicker of movement. Renn pushing up her visor to take aim. ‘Don’t,’ he warned. ‘You’ll only make it worse.’

  She saw that he was right, and lowered her bow. But she kept the arrow nocked in readiness.

  The dogs were barking and snapping at their traces. The bear twisted its head on its long neck, and snarled: a deep, reverberating thunder that shook the ice.

  It locked eyes with Torak – and the world fell away. He couldn’t hear the dogs, couldn’t see Renn or Inuktiluk, couldn’t even blink. Nothing existed but those eyes: blacker than basalt, stronger than hate. As he gazed into them he knew – he knew – that to the ice bear, all other creatures were prey.

  His hand on the harpoon shaft was slippery with sweat. His legs wouldn’t move.

  The bear champed its great jaws, and slammed the ice with its paw. The force of the blow shuddered through Torak. Somehow he stood his ground.

  A Forest bear snarls if it means only to threaten; but if it’s hunting in earnest, it comes on in lethal silence. Did the same hold true on the ice?

  No.

  The ice bear leapt for him.

  He saw the scarred black hide of its muzzle, the long, purple-grey tongue. He felt hot breath burning his cheek . . .

  With fearsome agility the bear swerved – reared – and pounded the ice with both forepaws.

  Torak’s knees buckled and he nearly went down.

  Now the ice bear was turning from him, rounding on the sled, clouting it out of the way as easily as if it were birch bark. Inuktiluk dived to one side, Renn to the other – but as the sled crashed down, it caught her on the shoulder and she fell with a cry, one arm trapped beneath a runner, directly in the path of the bear.

  Torak launched himself forwards, waving his harpoon and yelling, ‘Here I am! Not her, me! Me!’

  Inuktiluk, too, was shouting and making stabbing feints with his harpoon – and in the instant the bear turned towards him, Torak wrenched the sled off Renn and grabbed her arm, half-dragging her out of its path. At that moment, one of the dogs snapped its trace and flew at the bear. A great paw batted it away, sending it flying through the air, to land with a sickening crack on the ice. As Torak and Renn threw themselves down, the bear leaped clean over them, bounded to the seal’s carcass – and snatched its head in its jaws. Then it raced off across the ice, carrying the seal as easily as if it were a trout.

  ‘The dogs!’ shouted Renn. ‘Hold them!’

  The puppy was cowering under the sled, but the others were reckless in their blood-lust and hampered only by their traces – and now, as they strained together, they snapped them and hurtled off in pursuit, ignoring Inuktiluk’s shouted commands. The trailing traces snagged his boot, and Torak and Renn watched in horror as he was dragged across the ice.

  The dogs were strong and fast, too fast to catch. Torak put his hands to his lips and barked: the loud, sharp command that in wolf talk means: STOP!

  His voice cut like a whiplash, and the dogs obeyed at once, cowering with their tails clamped between their legs.

  Far away, the ice bear vanished among the blue hills.

  Torak and Renn ran to where Inuktiluk was already sitting up, rubbing his forehead.

  He recovered fast. Grabbing the traces in his fist, he drew his knife and with its hilt, dealt the dogs punishing blows that made them squeal. Then, breathing hard, he nodded his thanks to Torak.

  ‘We should thank you,’ Renn said shakily. ‘If you hadn’t distracted it . . .’

  The White Fox shook his head. ‘We only lived because it let us live.’ He turned to Torak. The distrust was back in his face. ‘My dogs. You can speak to them. Who are you? What are you?’

  Torak wiped the sweat off his upper lip. ‘We need to get going. That bear could be anywhere.’

  Inuktiluk studied him for a moment. Then he gathered his remaining dogs, shouldered the body of the dead one, and limped back to the sled.

  Torak dropped his harpoon with a clatter, and bent double with his hands on his knees.

  Renn rubbed her shoulder.

  He asked if she was all right.

  ‘Hurts a bit,’ she said. ‘But at least it’s not my draw arm.

  What about you?’

  ‘Fine. I’m fine.’ Then he sank to his knees and started to retch.

  The sinking sun burned golden on the dark-blue ice as the dogs flew towards the White Fox camp.

  Night fell. The slender moon rose. Torak kept glancing at the sky, but not once did he catch sight of the First Tree: the vast, silent green fires that show themselves in winter. He longed for it as never before; he needed some link with the Forest. But it didn’t come.

  They passed dark, fanged ice hills, and heard distant cracks and groans. They thought of demons hammering to break free. At last, Torak spotted a speck of orange light. The weary dogs scented home, and picked up speed.

  As they neared the White Fox camp, Torak saw a large, humped snow shelter with three smaller ones linked to it by short tunnels. All were honeycombed with light shining through the blocks. Around them, many little humps sprang to life, scattering snow and barking a noisy welcome.

  Torak stepped stiffly from the sled. Renn winced and rubbed her shoulder. They were too numb with exhaustion to feel apprehensive of what lay ahead.

  Inuktiluk insisted that they beat every flake of snow from their clothes and even pick the ice from their eyebrows, before crawling into the low entrance tunnel that was built like a dog-leg to keep out the wind. On hands and knees, Torak smelt the bitter stink of burning seal oil, and heard a murmur of voices, abruptly cut short.

  In the smoky lamplight, he saw whalebone racks around the walls with many boots and mittens hung up to dry; a glittering haze of frozen breath; and a circle of round faces glistening with blubber.

  Swiftly, Inuktiluk told his clan how he’d found the interlopers in the storm, and everything that had happened since. He was fair – he mentioned that Torak had saved him from being dragged across the ice – but his voice shook when he told how the “wolf boy” had spoken the tongue of dogs.

  The White Foxes listened patiently, asking no questions, and studying Torak and Renn with inquisitive brown eyes not unlike those of their clan-creature. They didn’t seem to have a leader, but four elders huddled close to the lamp, on a low sleeping-platform piled with reindeer hides.

  ‘It’s them,’ shrilled one, a tiny woman, her face dark as a rosehip shrivelled by frost. ‘These are the ones I saw in my vision.’

  Torak heard Renn’s sharp intake of breath. Placing both fists on his heart in sign of friendship, he bowed to the old woman. ‘Inuktiluk said that in your vision, you saw me about to do evil. But I haven’t. And I won’t.’

  To his surprise, laughter ran through the shelter, and all four elders gave toothless grins.

  ‘Who among us,’ said the old woman, ‘knows what evil we will or won’t do?’ Her smile faded, and her brow furrowed with sadness. ‘I saw you. You were about to break clan law.’

  ‘He wouldn’t do that,’ said Renn.

  The elder didn’t seem annoyed at this interruption; she merely waited to see if Renn had finished, then turned back to Torak. ‘The fires in the sky,’ she said calmly, ‘never lie.’

  Torak was bewildered. ‘I don’t understand! What was I going to do?’

  Pain tightened the ancient face. ‘You were about to take an axe to a wolf.’

  THIRTEEN

  ‘Attack Wolf?’ cried Torak. ‘I’d never do that!’

  ‘I saw it too,’ Renn blurted out. ‘In my dream, I saw it!’ She couldn’t help herself. But as soon as she’d
said it, she wished she hadn’t.

  Torak was staring at her as if he’d never seen her before. ‘I could never hurt Wolf,’ he said. ‘It isn’t possible.’

  The White Fox elder spread her hands. ‘The Dead don’t lie.’

  He opened his mouth to protest, but the old woman spoke first. ‘Rest now, and eat. Tomorrow we send you south, and this evil will pass.’

  Renn thought he’d fight back, but instead he went quiet, with that stubborn look which always meant trouble.

  The White Foxes bustled about, taking food from niches cut in the walls. Now that their elders had spoken, they seemed happy to prepare a feast, as if Torak and Renn had simply happened by for a night of storytelling. Renn saw Inuktiluk regaling the others with the tale of how the ice bear had stolen his seal, which made everyone roar with laughter. ‘Don’t worry, little brother,’ someone cried, ‘I managed to hang onto mine, so we still get to eat!’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ said Torak. His face was taut, but she could see that beneath his anger he was badly shaken.

  ‘I was going to,’ she said, ‘but then you told me about your dream, and –’

  ‘Do you really believe I could hurt Wolf?’

  ‘Of course not! But I did see it. You had an axe. You were standing over him, you were going to strike.’ All day she’d carried the dream inside her. And it wasn’t the everyday kind which didn’t always mean what it appeared to; it was the kind with the glaring colours, which she had maybe once every thirteen moons. The kind which came true.

  Someone passed her a chunk of frozen seal meat, and she discovered that she was ravenous. As well as the seal, there was delicate whale skin with a chewy lining of blubber; sour pellets of ground-up willow buds from the gizzards of ptarmigans; and a delicious sweet mash of seal fat and cloudberries, her favourites. The shelter rang with talk and laughter. The White Foxes seemed extremely good at forgetting their worries and enjoying themselves. But it was disconcerting to have Torak sit beside her in glowering silence.