Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

by Michelle Paver

  At last they reached the rapids, and went ashore to carry the canoes around them. Wolf was already trotting purposefully up the Blackwater.

  ‘How far to the Deep Forest?’ asked Torak as they set down the second canoe.

  ‘A day,’ said the Raven Leader, ‘maybe more.’

  Torak ground his teeth. ‘If he reaches it, we’ll never find him.’

  ‘We might,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘He’s taking his time.’

  ‘I wish we knew why,’ said Renn. ‘Maybe it is a trap. And even if it isn’t, he’ll soon know he’s being hunted.’

  Fin-Kedinn nodded, but did not reply. All day he’d been distant and uncommunicative, and every so often he narrowed his eyes, as if the Blackwater revived memories that cut too deep.

  Renn didn’t like it, either. She didn’t know this river, as Fin-Kedinn had never led the Ravens to camp on its banks, but she thought it was well-named. It was shadowed by dank trees, and so murky that she couldn’t see the bottom. When she leaned over, it gave off a sour smell of rotting leaves.

  Once they had the canoes in the water again, she insisted on sitting in front. She was sick of staring at Torak’s back, wondering what he was thinking. No doubt it was about finding Thiazzi. Although what, she wondered, would he do if he did? Clan law forbade killing a man without warning, so he’d have to challenge the Oak Mage to a fight. Her mind shied away from that. Torak was strong and quite good at fighting, but he wasn’t yet fifteen summers old. How could he challenge the strongest man in the Forest?

  ‘Renn?’ he said, making her jump.

  She twisted round.

  ‘When someone’s asleep, can you tell if they’re dreaming? I mean, by watching them?’

  She stared at him. His mouth was set, and he avoided her gaze. ‘If you’re dreaming,’ she told him, ‘your eyes move. That’s what Saeunn says.’

  He nodded. ‘If you see me dreaming, will you wake me up?’

  ‘Why? Torak, what did you see?’

  He shook his head. He was like a wolf; if he didn’t want to do something, it was impossible to make him.

  She tried anyway. ‘What is it? Why can’t you tell me?’

  He opened his mouth, and for a moment she thought he would. Then his eyes widened and he grabbed her hood, yanking her down so hard that she bashed her temple on the rim of the canoe.

  ‘Ow!’ she yelled. ‘What are you – ’

  ‘Fin-Kedinn, get down!’ shouted Torak at the same time.

  As Renn struggled to right herself, something hissed over her head. She saw Fin-Kedinn reach for his knife and slash; she saw Wolf yelp as if stung by a hornet and leap into the air. She saw a line as thin as a thread of gossamer snap and trail harmlessly in the water.

  There was a breathless silence. Renn sat up, rubbing her temple. Torak steered the canoe into midstream and caught the end of the line. ‘It was taut as a bowstring,’ he said.

  He didn’t need to say more. Canoes powering towards a strong line of sinew stretched between trees on opposite banks. At head height.

  Renn’s hand went to her neck. If Torak hadn’t pulled her down, it would have cut her throat.

  ‘He knows he’s being hunted,’ said Fin-Kedinn, bringing his canoe alongside theirs.

  ‘But – maybe he doesn’t know it’s Torak,’ said Renn.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ said Torak.

  ‘If he knew it was you,’ she said, ‘would he risk killing you? He wants your power.’

  ‘Maybe, maybe not,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘Thiazzi is arrogant. Above all things, he believes in his own strength. And he has the fire-opal. He may not think he needs the power of the spirit walker. And if that’s right,’ he added, ‘it means he doesn’t care who he kills.’

  SIX

  The sinew had cut across Wolf’s foreleg. It was scarcely bleeding and he wasn’t in pain, but Torak insisted on rubbing in a salve of yarrow leaves in marrowfat which he made Renn produce from her medicine pouch.

  ‘He’ll only lick it off,’ she told him, and Wolf immediately did.

  Torak didn’t care. It made him feel a bit better, even if it didn’t do much for Wolf.

  He’d nearly missed that sinew. What if he had, and Renn or Fin-Kedinn had suffered for his mistake? The mere thought made his belly turn over. It only takes one mistake, just one, and you’ve got to live with the consequences for the rest of your life.

  Squatting on the bank, he mashed a handful of wet soapwort to a green froth, and washed his hands.

  He glanced up to find Fin-Kedinn watching him. They were alone. Wolf was drinking in the shallows, and Renn was already in the canoe.

  Fin-Kedinn emptied the waterskin over Torak’s hands. ‘Don’t worry about me,’ he said.

  ‘But I do,’ said Torak. ‘Saeunn meant what she said.’

  The Raven Leader shrugged. ‘Omens. You can’t live your life by what might happen.’ He shouldered the waterskin. ‘Let’s go.’

  They followed Wolf up the Blackwater until long into the night, then slept under the canoes, and headed off before dawn. As the afternoon wore on, the Forest closed in. Wakeful spruce thronged the banks, dripping with beard-moss, and even the trees not yet in leaf were vigilant. Last autumn’s oak leaves rattled in the wind, and ash buds glinted like tiny black spears.

  At last, the hills bordering the Deep Forest rose into view. Torak had reached them two summers before, but then he’d been further north. Here they were steeper, stonier: sheer walls of grey rock, hacked and slashed as if by a giant axe. The hammering cries of black grouse echoed like falling stones.

  As the light began to fail, Wolf leapt into the river and swam across. Once on the north bank, he gave himself a good shake, and set off. Then he doubled back, snuffing the mud.

  They edged into the shallows, and Torak got out to examine the mess of tracks. No wonder Wolf was puzzled: they were almost unreadable, as a boar had recently taken a wallow.

  ‘This isn’t only Thiazzi,’ said Torak. ‘See that heel print? It’s not as heavy, and the weight’s more to the inside of the foot.’

  ‘So someone was with him?’ said Renn.

  He chewed his thumbnail. ‘No. Thiazzi’s tracks are darker, and a beetle crawled over the other’s but not over his. Whoever it was, they came before.’

  Wolf had smelt something. Leaving the canoes, they went after him, into a gully cut by a stream feeding into the Blackwater.

  Twenty paces up, Torak stopped.

  The footprint shouted at him from the mud. Bold, mocking. Here I am. Thiazzi stamping his mark for all to see.

  ‘The Oak Mage,’ said Fin-Kedinn.

  It told Torak a lot more than that. A single footprint is a landscape which can tell a whole story if you know how to read it. Torak did. And before leaving the Seal Island, he’d studied Thiazzi’s tracks till he knew every detail.

  He found more. He made the gully reveal its secrets. ‘He left his dugout in the shallows,’ he said at last, ‘then climbed up here. He was carrying something heavy on his left shoulder, maybe his axe. Then he retraced his steps, got into his dugout, paddled away.’ He clenched his fists. ‘He’s well fed and rested, moving fast. He’s enjoying this.’

  ‘But why come here?’ said Renn, looking about her.

  ‘I don’t like it,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘Remember that sinew. Let’s go back to the boats.’

  ‘No,’ said Torak. ‘I want to know what he was doing.’

  Fin-Kedinn sighed. ‘Don’t get too far ahead.’

  Warily, they advanced: Torak and Wolf first, then Renn, with Fin-Kedinn at the rear.

  The trees thinned, and Torak clambered between massive, tumbled boulders, while Wolf bounded lightly ahead. The trail veered to the right. The trees ended.

  Torak found himself on a huge, desolate hill of bare rock. A hundred paces above, the crown was streaked black, as if by fire. Before him, the slope was a chaos of fallen trees thrown there by a flood, with boulders jutting through like broken teeth. Below, the Blackwater co
iled round the base of the hill and disappeared between two towering rocks that leaned crazily towards each other. Beyond these great stone jaws rose the looming oaks and jagged spruce of the Deep Forest.

  Wolf pricked his ears. Uff! he barked softly.

  Torak followed his gaze. Under the willows overhanging the river, he saw the flash of a paddle.

  Wolf bounded down the slope. Torak ran after him, nearly losing his footing as a tree-trunk shifted under his boot.

  ‘Torak!’ Renn whispered behind him.

  ‘Slow down!’ warned Fin-Kedinn.

  Torak ignored them. He couldn’t let his quarry escape now.

  Suddenly there he was, not fifty paces away: driving the dugout with long, powerful strokes towards the Deep Forest.

  Wobbling and lurching over the fallen trees, Torak pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it to his bow. He no longer heard the others. All he heard was the splash of Thiazzi’s paddle, all he saw was that long russet hair lifting in the breeze. He forgot clan law, he forgot everything except the need for revenge.

  A log rolled beneath him. Something snagged his ankle. He kicked himself free. Behind him, a loud snap. He glanced round. In one frozen heartbeat he took in the trip-line lashed to the trigger log, its end sharpened to a point and smeared with mud to hide the fresh-cut wood.

  The hill of logs began to move. You fool. Another trap.

  Then the logs were crashing towards him and he was yelling a warning to the others and leaping for the nearest boulder, flinging himself into the tiny hollow beneath it; and logs were bouncing over him, smashing into the river, sending up plumes of water. Huddled under his boulder, Torak heard laughter echo from hill to hill. He pictured Thiazzi’s dugout sweeping between the great stone jaws, disappearing into the Deep Forest.

  Then the whole hillside was giving way, and Fin-Kedinn was shouting, ‘Renn! Renn!’

  SEVEN

  Silence boomed in Torak’s ears. Dust clogged his throat. ‘Renn?’ he called.

  No answer.

  ‘Fin-Kedinn? Wolf?’

  The rocks threw back the sound of his terror.

  He was squashed under a tangle of saplings which had fallen on top of his boulder. A surge of panic. He was trapped. Wildly, he struggled. The saplings shifted. He pushed his way out and greedily gulped air.

  ‘Renn!’ he shouted. ‘Fin-Kedinn!’

  Wolf appeared on the crown of the hill and ran down to him, his claws clicking on rock. Torak didn’t need to say anything. A terse nose-nudge, and they began to search. Tree-trunks shifted and creaked ominously. Someone was whimpering. ‘No no, not them, please not them.’ It took Torak a moment to recognize the voice as his own.

  A flurry of wings, and Rek lit onto a branch ten paces away. Wolf raced towards her and barked. Torak wobbled after them.

  Through the branches he saw a shock of dark-red hair. ‘Renn?’

  He tore at the branches, dragged saplings out of the way. Thrusting his arm through a gap, he grabbed her sleeve.

  She moaned.

  ‘You all right?’

  She coughed. Mumbled something that might have been yes.

  ‘There’s a gap, I’ll make it bigger. Give me your hand, I’ll pull you through.’ Being Renn, she pushed her bow through first – then wriggled out. Her eyes were huge, but apart from scratches, she was unhurt.

  ‘Fin-Kedinn,’ she said.

  ‘I can’t find him.’

  The blood drained from her face. ‘He saved my life. Threw me out of the way.’

  Wolf stood below them in a wreck of dead spruce, looking down between his forepaws. His ears were pricked. Eagerly he glanced at his pack-brother.

  The spruce lay on top of a larger beech, itself aslant more spruce. Under the beech lay Fin-Kedinn.

  ‘Fin-Kedinn?’ Renn’s voice shook. ‘Fin-Kedinn!’

  The Raven Leader’s eyes remained closed.

  Frantically, they tugged at branches and tree-trunks. There was a creak, and the whole pile shuddered. They didn’t speak, for fear of bringing down disaster.

  The sun set, and they worked on. At last they cleared a way to the beech. It wouldn’t budge. Torak wedged a sapling underneath and pushed with all his might. The beech shifted slightly.

  ‘We’ll have to drag him out,’ said Renn.

  It took both of them to haul him free. Still he didn’t move. Renn held her wrist to his lips to feel for breath. Torak saw her throat work.

  Half-carrying, half-dragging him, they finally made it to solid rock. On the hill’s eastern flank, facing the Deep Forest, Torak found an overhang. The ledge beneath it was big enough to shelter them, although not high enough to stand up in.

  Renn knelt beside her uncle, twisting her hands. Rip and Rek flapped their wings and cawed. Wolf sniffed the Raven Leader’s temple. Then he whined, so high that Torak could hardly hear. He went on whining.

  Fin-Kedinn’s eyelids flickered. ‘Where’s Renn?’ he murmured.

  By taking the weight of the other trees, the beech had saved his life, but it had crushed the left side of his chest.

  Renn set to work, pulling off his parka and cutting the laces on his jerkin. She was as gentle as she could be, but the pain was so bad that he nearly passed out.

  ‘Three ribs broken,’ she said as she probed his back with her fingers.

  Fin-Kedinn hissed. His eyes were closed, his skin clammy and grey. He was breathing shallowly, and Torak could see that every breath, in and out, was a knife in his side.

  ‘Will he live?’ Torak said in a low voice.

  Renn glared at him.

  ‘Is he bleeding inside?’ he whispered.

  ‘I don’t know. If he bleeds from his mouth . . . ’

  Fin-Kedinn’s lips twisted in a wry smile. ‘Then it’s over. Saeunn was right. I won’t reach the Deep Forest.’

  ‘Don’t talk,’ warned Renn.

  ‘Hurts less than breathing,’ said her uncle. ‘Where are we?’

  Torak told him.

  He groaned. ‘Ah, not here! Not the hill!’

  ‘We can’t move you, not tonight,’ said Renn.

  ‘This is a bad place,’ muttered Fin-Kedinn. ‘Haunted. Evil.’

  ‘No more talk!’ admonished Renn, cutting strips from the hem of her jerkin for bandages.

  Wolf lay beside her, his muzzle between his paws. Rip and Rek stalked up and down at a stiff raven walk. Torak watched Fin-Kedinn turning his head from side to side. He’d never felt so powerless.

  Renn told him to fetch wood for a fire, and he ran off. His hands were shaking and he kept dropping sticks. He thought, if that beech had fallen just a little differently, it would have crushed his breastbone, and we’d be putting on Death Marks. It would be my fault. I could have killed us all.

  From where he stood, the hill sloped down to the Blackwater. A deer trail wound along its bank, past one of the stone jaws and into the Deep Forest. He pictured the Oak Mage vanishing into the shadows. He had been so close.

  Back at the ledge, Fin-Kedinn had slipped into an uneasy doze, and Renn was on her knees with a handful of birch-bark tinder, grimly trying and failing to get a spark with her strike-fire. ‘Well, go on then,’ she said without looking up.

  ‘What do you mean?’ said Torak.

  ‘Go after him. That’s what you want.’

  He stared at her. ‘I’m not leaving you.’

  ‘But you want to.’

  He flinched.

  ‘It’ll take days to get Fin-Kedinn back to the clan,’ she said, still failing to get a spark. ‘And all the time, Thiazzi’s getting away. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?’

  ‘Renn – ’

  ‘You never wanted us to come!’ she burst out. ‘Well, here’s your chance to be rid of us!’

  ‘Renn!’

  They faced each other, white and shaking.

  ‘I won’t leave you,’ said Torak. ‘In the morning I’ll bring round the canoes. Then we’ll work out what to do.’

  Savagely,
Renn struck a spark. Her lips trembled as she blew life into it.

  Torak went down on his knees and helped feed the fire with kindling, then sticks. When it was fully awake, he took her hand, and she gripped so hard that it hurt.

  ‘He’s beaten us,’ she said.

  ‘For now,’ he replied.

  Night deepened, and the sliver of moon fled across the sky. Renn said they should take comfort from it; it would grow stronger, and so would Fin-Kedinn. Torak thought she was trying very hard to persuade herself.

  While she tended Fin-Kedinn, he fetched their gear from the canoes, then used branches to turn the ledge into a rough shelter, leaving a gap for the smoke. He’d found a clump of comfrey near the river, and Renn pounded its roots into a poultice, while Torak made the leaves into a strengthening brew in a swiftly fashioned birch-bark bowl. Together, they bandaged Fin-Kedinn’s ribs. The binding had to be tight, to help set the broken bones. When it was done, all three of them were sweating and pale.

  After that, Renn fed the fire with juniper boughs and wafted some of the smoke into the shelter to drive off the worms of sickness. Torak tucked a slip of dried horse meat in a crack in a boulder to thank the Forest for letting his foster father live. Then, as they were both famished, they shared more meat. Fin-Kedinn did not eat at all.

  The moon set, and his restlessness increased. ‘Don’t let the fire die,’ he murmured. ‘Renn. Draw lines of power around the shelter.’

  Renn gave Torak a worried look. If his wits were wandering, it was a bad sign.

  Torak noticed that the ravens hadn’t settled to roost, but were hopping warily among the rocks, while Wolf lay at the mouth of the shelter, watching the dark beyond the firelight. Torak had the uneasy sense that they were on guard.

  Renn took her medicine pouch and went to draw the lines.

  ‘Don’t go far,’ warned Fin-Kedinn.

  Torak fed the fire another stick. ‘You said this was a bad place. What did you mean?’

  Fin-Kedinn watched the flames. ‘Nothing grows here now. Nothing has since – the demons were forced back into the rocks.’ He paused. ‘But they’re close, Torak. They want to get out.’

  Torak dipped a clump of moss in the cup and cooled his foster father’s brow. Renn would be angry if he let Fin-Kedinn talk, but he had to know. ‘Tell me,’ he said.