They reached a clearing where the stream had been dammed by branches. Brown pools spread amid gnawed stumps and piles of wood-chips. The air was fresh with the tang of tree-blood.
‘Beaver,’ they said together.
Bale gave a lopsided smile, and Renn’s unease lessened. If the Hidden People allowed beavers on their island, then maybe Torak . . .
Again that redstart.
Renn froze. ‘Torak?’ she called softly. ‘Is that you?’
Bale raised his eyebrows, and she explained that it was a signal they sometimes used.
Once more she called. The Forest tensed. Her heart raced.
‘Maybe it’s our weapons,’ said Bale in a low voice. ‘He’ll be wary.’
Renn stared at him. ‘Not of us!’
‘Renn. He’s been outcast a long time. Let’s set them aside; and we should move into the trees. If it is him, he won’t come into the open.’
Propping their weapons against a stump, they left the clearing and re-entered the Forest.
‘Torak!’ Renn breathed to the watching pines.
‘We came to help you,’ whispered Bale.
They hadn’t gone far when they rounded a boulder and found their weapons neatly laid on a lingonberry bush – except for Renn’s bow, which hung from a birch tree.
‘Couldn’t let it get wet,’ said Torak.
There was no time for greetings.
Torak jerked his head at them to follow, and headed into the trees. ‘Got to get deeper in, or she’ll see us.’
‘She’s here?’ cried Renn and Bale together.
‘Up on the north cliff,’ muttered Torak, ‘that’s her eyrie. I don’t think she’ll risk the island because of the wolves.’
Renn’s skin prickled. ‘You’ve actually seen her?’
‘She lured me there. She thought I was going to help her. I – I got away.’
‘How?’ said Bale.
Torak’s face closed. ‘Even the Viper Mage has to sleep.’
‘Not for long,’ said Renn.
Torak didn’t answer. His expression was taut and unsmiling, and he kept turning to listen for sounds of pursuit. There was a bruised look about his eyes that told of broken nights and not enough food. And Renn noticed with a pang that he no longer wore the rowanberry wristband.
She couldn’t tell if he was glad to see them. She couldn’t tell what he was feeling. She tried to overcome the awful sense that he’d become a stranger.
And he looked so different! He’d been a skinny boy when he left, but now he was as tall as Bale, and the veins on his arms stood out like cords. There was a scab on his chest where the mark of the Soul-Eater had been, and some puzzling scratches on his shoulders; and although he still wore the headband, it only reminded her of the outcast tattoo beneath, and of all the dangers he’d survived on his own. Without her.
They found a fallen pine and hid behind it while Bale shared out dried duck meat from his food pouch. Torak ate fast, like a wolf. He didn’t say much about the past two moons, just told them briefly about Wolf joining a pack. Bale told how they’d met the Otter Clan and wrecked the boat, but to Renn’s relief, he didn’t mention her attempt at Magecraft. Throughout, Torak spoke mostly to his kinsman, and avoided looking at her.
Silence fell and she plucked up courage. ‘You got rid of the Soul-Eater mark.’
He nodded. ‘I did the rite, but I’m not sure it worked. I got sick. A kind of madness.’
‘Soul-sickness,’ said Bale.
‘Is that what it was?’ said Torak. ‘Well. I got better.’
‘How?’ said Renn.
‘I don’t know. I just did.’
There was a whirring of wings, and a raven flew down onto Torak’s shoulder. Wincing, he lifted it off. ‘I told you not to do that!’
Renn and Bale exchanged startled glances.
Another raven alighted on a juniper bush. Torak gave each bird a scrap, and they flew to a nearby tree, where they eyed the newcomers suspiciously.
Renn was astonished. Ravens are supremely wary birds, but with Torak they behaved with perfect ease.
‘Where did they come from?’ said Bale.
‘There was a hailstorm,’ said Torak. ‘They fell out of their nest, and I – I had to look after them. It’s odd, but after that I got better.’
Bale caught Renn’s eye and smiled.
She didn’t smile back. She didn’t want to be good at Magecraft. And she was a bit envious of the ravens.
‘I call the bigger one Rip,’ said Torak. ‘The smaller one’s Rek. Watch your gear, because they like to steal; and what they can’t steal, they shred. And when Wolf’s around, don’t make a fuss of them. He gets jealous.’
Feeling self-conscious, Renn bowed to the ravens. ‘Well met, little grandfathers, and thank you.’
Rek flapped her wings and croaked, ‘Well met well met!’ and Rip lifted his tail and spattered the ferns with droppings.
Torak glanced at Renn in surprise, but she didn’t speak. Let him think the ravens had come to him by chance.
Bale stood up and said he was going to hide the skinboat, and suddenly Torak and Renn were alone and the awkwardness was worse.
Torak frowned. ‘Renn . . . ’
‘What?’
‘That elk. The one that attacked you-’
‘I know,’ she said quickly.
‘Do you?’ His frown deepened. ‘I was so worried. That’s why I went back to camp, to see if you were all right.’
‘I know. Torak – ’
‘She made me do it!’ he burst out. ‘She made me do terrible things! Attacking you, then Aki – the Boor Clan Boy . . . ’
‘Aki?’ Renn snorted. ‘He’s all right!’
He stared at her. ‘He is?’
‘Broken arm, but it’s on the mend.’
‘He’s alive.’
‘Actually, I wish it’d been a bit worse. Bale said that when he left, Aki was trying to get his clan to come after you.’
Torak wasn’t listening. He had both hands to his temples, and he looked younger and more vulnerable.
Renn said, ‘Maybe you haven’t changed as much as I thought.’
He blinked. ‘You’re the one who’s changed.’
‘Me?’
He touched his cheek, to show that he’d noticed her moon-bleed tattoo. ‘You seem older.’
She was embarassed. ‘I hate sharing with Saeunn. She grinds her gums in her sleep. First time I heard it, I thought someone was sharpening a knife. But it went on all night.’
His lip curled. ‘Does she smell?’
‘Like a three-day-old carcass.’
He grinned. And suddenly he wasn’t a stranger any more.
Bale returned, looking worried. ‘I should have hidden the skinboat earlier, she might’ve spotted it.’
‘Whatever you do,’ said Torak, ‘she’ll soon know you’re here. She knows everything.’
Renn went cold.
‘But what does she want?’ said Bale.
‘She wants to crush the Lake into submission,’ said Torak. ‘She wants me to help her find the last piece of the fire-opal. She wants to rule.’
‘How would she get you to help her?’ said Renn, feeling breathless.
Torak hesitated. ‘That pebble I made for you? She has it.’
Renn shut her eyes. She’d been dreading this.
‘But – I still got away,’ he said uncertainly. ‘And I fought off the soul-sickness. And when she made me spirit walk in the viper, I fought back.’
No you didn’t, thought Renn. The ravens woke me in time. Out loud she said, ‘She’ll make you do it again, Torak. Or she’ll think of something else. She’s like a snake. If she meets an obstacle, she slithers around it.’
Torak stood up. ‘Then we’ll have to find the fire-opal before she does. Come on. We’ll be safer with the wolves.’
Everything was happening too fast, Torak couldn’t take it in.
First his flight from Seshru: scrambling down the rockface
, splashing through reeds, crashing into the Forest. Fearing at any moment to feel a viper’s fangs sinking into his calf; to come face to face with that all-seeing, all-powerful gaze.
And now suddenly, Renn and Bale.
He should have been elated, but he was too churned up. Renn looked so different! The birch-seed freckle was still there at the corner of her mouth, but the red bar on her clan-tattoo made her seem older, less like his friend. It was a stark reminder that the life of the clans had gone on without him; that he’d been left behind.
It was a shock, too, to see her with Bale. As they moved through the Forest, he saw how easily they fell into step together. He watched Bale hold a branch out of the way of her bow, and felt a twist of jealousy. The Seal boy had taken his place.
Renn, though, didn’t seem to notice. She wanted to know everything Seshru had said and done when he’d been with her at the spring, and she listened with the same intense concentration which she brought to hunting.
‘She’ll find some way to get you,’ she said. ‘If only we knew what she was doing.’
Bale watched Rip alight in a pine. ‘Torak could spirit walk in a raven, and find out.’
‘I thought of that,’ said Torak, ‘but I can’t. In the Far North, I promised the wind I’d never fly again.’
‘How she’d laugh if she knew that,’ Renn said bitterly.
The light was failing as they reached the water lily lake. The denning place was quiet.
Torak gave two short barks. I am here!
No answer.
He ran to search the Den.
No cub-watcher. No cubs.
‘They’ve gone,’ he said in disbelief. ‘The pack is gone.’
Renn stood with her hands on her hips, looking about her. ‘Where would they take the cubs?’
Torak thought for a moment. ‘When they get big enough, the pack takes them to a new place, to learn to hunt.’ He breathed out. ‘Yes, that must be it.’
‘Will it be far?’ said Bale, his voice strained.
‘A day’s lope, maybe more.’
‘So – it’ll be off the island?’ said Renn.
‘Yes,’ said Torak. ‘But Wolf will come back for me, or we’ll find each other by howling – ’
‘Torak,’ cut in Bale, ‘don’t you see what this means? If the wolves have left the island, it means – ’
‘Yes,’ said the Viper Mage, ‘it does.’
THIRTY-ONE
She sat cross-legged on the boulder above the Den, gazing down at them with her mocking sideways smile. ‘The wolves are gone,’ she told Torak. ‘I sent them all away.’
‘Don’t listen to her,’ said Renn.
‘Why, what harm can I do?’ said the Viper Mage without taking her eyes off Torak. ‘It’s three against one, and I have no weapons.’ Her voice was as smooth as water that wears away stone, and she made him feel as if she spoke to him alone: as if they were the only ones here in this hot, airless dusk. ‘No weapons,’ she murmured, ‘not even a knife.’
Torak felt the sweat starting out between his shoulder blades. He darted a glance at his friends. Bale stood transfixed, his axe forgotten in his hand. Renn gripped bow and arrow, but did not take aim.
‘Not even a knife,’ repeated the Viper Mage, drawing his gaze back to her. At her breast the medicine pouch softly rose and fell. In the failing light her eyes were black, unblinking as a snake’s. ‘You lied to me,’ she told him. ‘You deceived me and ran away. I thought you were braver than that.’
Torak swayed. ‘You can’t make me go with you,’ he said with an effort.
‘Ah, but I can.’ She touched the pouch. You know I can. I have your stone, caught fast in the coils of the green clay serpent. You cannot defy me!
‘Don’t listen to her,’ snarled Renn again.
‘So this is Renn,’ said Seshru, leaning back on her hands and regarding her with amusement. ‘What a little vixen! It was you who helped him resist me, wasn’t it? You must have some small talent for Magecraft.’ She paused. ‘But of course you do! And we both know why.’
Shakily, Renn nocked an arrow to her bow.
Torak grabbed her arm. ‘Renn, no!’
‘You can’t, she’s not armed!’ cried Bale.
Seshru laughed, baring her white throat. ‘Oh, she won’t shoot! She can’t. Can you, Renn?’
Trembling from head to foot, Renn lowered her bow.
‘I knew she wouldn’t,’ said the Viper Mage with contempt. She turned her gaze on Bale. ‘To kill a weaponless woman . . . who could do such a thing? Could you?’
Her beauty caught him in its web, and his axe slid from his grasp.
‘I didn’t think so,’ she said. ‘That would be the mark of a weak man, and you’re not weak. You’re a Seal Clan hunter. You’re strong.’
Bale shook himself and drew a deep breath, as if coming up for air. But his arms hung limp at his sides.
The Viper Mage withdrew her gaze from him, and again Torak felt its force. It was like staring at the sun.
‘Don’t look at her,’ said Renn. ‘Don’t listen to her!’
Torak gripped his knife-hilt till his knuckles were white. This knife had belonged to Fa. Fa had had the strength to resist the Soul-Eaters. So must he. ‘I – won’t go with you,’ he said at last. ‘I won’t help you find the fire-opal.’
‘Oh, but you will,’ said Seshru, and her lips parted in noiseless laughter. ‘When you know the truth, you will!’
‘No.’
‘You see,’ she continued as if he hadn’t spoken, ‘I can make you leave your friends – I can cut you out from your safe little herd – just as easily as snapping my fingers.’
‘No,’ whispered Torak.
‘She’s lying,’ said Renn in an odd, pleading tone. ‘That’s what she does, Torak, she lies! She takes credit for things she didn’t do; she denies the crimes she did. You can’t believe anything she says!’
‘Some things you can,’ Seshru told Renn, her voice tinged with venom. ‘We both know that, don’t we, Renn? Although I must say, I’m surprised that you never told him. If he’s your friend – if you care for him as much as he cares for you – and he does care, he really does . . . Not to have told him! Such a mistake! But then,’ she added slyly, ‘you already know it was a mistake. Don’t you, Renn?’
Torak saw that Renn’s face had gone chalk-white. ‘Renn?’ he said. ‘What’s wrong?’
Renn’s eyes were shadowy hollows, her expression unreadable. ‘I was going to tell you,’ she said in a strangled voice. ‘But I could never . . . It was never the right time.’
He began to feel cold. ‘Tell me what?’
‘Haven’t you guessed?’ said Seshru, leaning forwards and watching him with the fixity of a snake closing on its prey.
‘Guessed what?’ said Torak. ‘Renn, what is it?’
Seshru smiled her carrion smile. ‘Tell him, Renn. Tell him!’
Renn opened her mouth, but no sound came.
‘What?’ shouted Torak.
The Viper Mage licked her black lips and hissed, ‘She is my daughter!’
THIRTY-TWO
Renn wished Torak would say something – anything – but he just stood there, staring at her. And that was worse.
‘I wanted to tell you,’ she said. ‘It was never the right time.’
He looked as if he’d been kicked in the chest. He looked as if he didn’t know who she was.
She said, ‘I couldn’t tell you in the beginning. You would never have been friends with me.’
‘Two summers,’ he said quietly. ‘You hid this for two whole summers.’
She felt cold: a deep inner cold that went beyond shivering. ‘I thought maybe you’d guessed. When you spirit walked in that elk. And the viper. I thought you were angry.’
‘No. You hid it too well.’
She flinched. ‘You – you hid things too,’ she faltered. ‘You didn’t tell me about the Soul-Eater tattoo. But I got over it. I understood.’
‘That
was for two moons. Not two summers.’ He took a few steps away, then turned and confronted her. The blood had left his face. His lips had a greyish tinge. ‘The first time I met you,’ he said slowly. ‘I felt there was – something. I didn’t trust you.’ He paused. ‘Turns out I was right.’
‘How can you say that?’ she burst out. ‘Of course you can trust me!’
He was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘Two whole summers. I was your friend and you lied to me, every single day.’
‘You’re still my friend!’ she cried. ‘I’m still Renn! Still the same person!’
Bale stepped between them. ‘Torak. She never meant to hurt you.’
‘What do you know?’ snapped Torak. ‘Keep out of this, it’s got nothing to do with you!’
‘Torak, please,’ said Renn. ‘I know I should’ve told you . . . ’
‘Get away from me!’ His face worked. ‘I never want to see you again! Just – get away!’
She turned and fled.
‘Renn, come back!’ shouted Bale. ‘No – Torak – don’t you go too! Renn! We’ve got to keep together! This is just what she wants!’
Renn tore through the bracken, not caring where she went. As she ran, she saw that the Viper Mage was gone from the boulder. She had scattered them just as she’d said she would: as easily as snapping her fingers.
Torak’s only thought was to be on his own. He could hear Bale crashing after him, but the Seal boy was no match for him in a darkened Forest, and he was soon left behind.
At last, Torak reached the shore and had to stop. The reeds stood deathly still, like a thicket of spears. He hardly saw them. It was a hot, still night and the sweat was pouring off him, but he was shaking with cold.
Images from the past flashed before him. Renn’s talent for Magecraft. Her reluctance to practise it. Her refusal to explain why.
She and the Viper Mage even looked alike! The same pale skin and high-boned, regular features. Why hadn’t he seen it?
But what hit hardest and hurt the most was that she’d kept this from him for so long. That she could be capable of such deception. It turned her into someone else, someone he didn’t know. And that was the worst, because it meant that he’d lost her. He was alone again, just like when Fa was killed.
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Page 76