Fin-Kedinn coughed, and Torak held his shoulders. When it was over, the skin around the Raven Leader’s eyes had a bluish tinge. ‘Many summers ago,’ he said, ‘this hill was thick with trees. Birch, rowan, in cracks between the rocks. Holding the demons inside.’ He shifted position and winced. ‘Soul’s Night. Long past. People came to let them out.’
Renn returned and knelt beside him. ‘But the demons couldn’t get out, could they?’ she said. ‘I feel them under the rocks, very close.’
‘One man stopped them,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘He set a fire on the hill. Banished the demons back into the rocks. But the fire escaped.’ He licked his lips. ‘Terrible . . . It can leap into a tree faster than a lynx, and when it does – when it gets into the branches – it goes where it likes. You wouldn’t believe how fast. It ate the whole valley.’
Torak began to be afraid. ‘Was anyone hurt?’
Fin-Kedinn nodded. ‘Trapped. Terrible burns. One killed.’ He grimaced, as if he smelt charred flesh.
Torak peered into the dark. ‘What is this place?’ he whispered.
‘Don’t you know?’ said Fin-Kedinn.
The hairs on Torak’s arms prickled. ‘Is this where . . . ’
‘Yes. This is where your father shattered the fire-opal. Where he broke the power of the Soul-Eaters.’
Out in the night, a vixen screamed. From far away came the deep oo-hu, oo-hu of an owl. Torak and Renn exchanged glances. It was an eagle owl.
Renn said, ‘When I was drawing the lines of power, I felt a presence. Not only demons. Something else. Lost. Searching.’
‘There are ghosts here,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘The one who died.’
Flames leapt in Renn’s dark eyes. ‘The seventh Soul-Eater. ’
The Raven Leader made no reply.
An ember collapsed in a shower of sparks. Torak jumped. ‘Were you here that night?’ he said.
‘No.’ Pain contracted Fin-Kedinn’s features. Torak didn’t think it was caused by his broken ribs. ‘After the great fire,’ Fin-Kedinn went on, ‘your mother and father sought me. They begged me to help them get away.’
Renn put her hand on his shoulder. ‘You need to rest. Don’t talk any more.’
‘No! I must tell this!’ He spoke with startling force, and his burning blue gaze held Torak’s. ‘I was angry. I wanted revenge against him for – for taking your mother. I turned them away.’
Torak heard the click of raven talons on stone. He looked into the face of his foster father and wanted it not to be true, and knew that it was.
‘Next day,’ said Fin-Kedinn, ‘I relented. I went after them. But they’d gone. Fled to the Deep Forest.’ He shut his eyes. ‘I never saw them again. If I’d helped them, she might have lived.’
Torak touched his hand. ‘You couldn’t have known what would happen.’
The Raven Leader’s smile was bitter. ‘So you tell yourself. Does it help?’
Wolf leapt up with a growl and sped after a quarry only he could sense. An ember dislodged from the fire. Torak nudged it back with his boot. Suddenly, the light seemed a fragile shield against the dark.
‘Keep the fire bright,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘And stay awake. Demons. Ghosts. They know we’re here.’
The Chosen One watches the unbelievers sleep, and hungers to punish them and set the fire free.
The girl who woke the fire did it wrongly and without respect. She is an unbeliever. She does not follow the True Way.
The boy threw a branch at the fire and kicked it. He too has lost the Way.
The Master shall know of this. The Master honours the fire, and the fire honours him. The Master will punish the unbelievers.
The fire is sacred. It must be honoured, for it is the purity and the truth. The Chosen One loves the fire for its terrible glare and its hunger for the Forest, for its dreadful caress. The Chosen One longs to be one with the fire again.
The wind changes and the Chosen One moves to crouch in the breath of the fire, to drink its sacred bitterness. The Chosen One’s hand cups ash. The ash is acrid on the tongue, heavy in the belly. It is the power and the truth.
The injured man moans in painful dreams. The boy’s sleep is also troubled, but the girl slumbers as one dead. And over them, wolf and raven keep watch – while the fire sinks untended. Dishonoured.
Anger kindles in the breast of the Chosen One.
The unbelievers are evil.
They must be punished.
EIGHT
Torak woke before dawn. The fire had burned low. The others were still asleep. Renn lay on her side, one arm flung out. Fin-Kedinn was frowning, as if even sleeping hurt. Both looked disturbingly vulnerable.
Quietly, Torak wriggled out of his sleeping-sack and crawled from the shelter.
Below him on the slope, a wolverine rose on its hind legs to snuff his scent, then bounded off. This told Torak that Wolf must have gone hunting. If he’d been near, the wolverine would have stayed away. With a twinge of apprehension, Torak wondered what else might have managed to creep close.
Below him the valley of the Blackwater floated in mist. The Forest rang with birdsong, but the ravens were gone.
On the hill, he could see nothing except naked rock. He climbed to the crown. Nothing. Only an ancient tree stump on the western slope, its roots still clinging to the demon-haunted cracks. He thought of his father, who had sparked the events that had brought him to this place. He was shocked to realize that he could scarcely remember Fa’s face.
As light crept into the sky, he spotted a faint dew trail of booted feet. Drawing his knife, he followed it round to the overhang above the shelter. Near the edge, he found a small cone of fine grey ash. He frowned. Someone had poured it with care, like an offering. Someone who had watched them in the night.
He caught a flicker of movement in the mist by the river. His heart contracted.
Someone stood on the bank, staring up at him. The face was indistinct; the hair long, pale. An arm rose. A finger pointed at him. Accusing.
Torak touched the medicine pouch at his hip and felt the shape of the horn within. Sheathing his knife, he started down the hill. He dreaded coming face to face with Bale’s ghost. But maybe it would speak to him. Maybe he could say he was sorry.
The birds had stopped singing. On either side of the trail, hemlock floated in vaporous white.
Footsteps heading his way.
A wild-eyed man burst from the mist and blundered into him. ‘Help me!’ he gasped, clutching Torak’s parka and glancing back over his shoulder.
Staggering under his weight, Torak breathed the stink of blood and terror.
‘Help me!’ pleaded the man. ‘They – they – ’
‘Who?’ said Torak.
‘The Deep Forest!’ Blood sprayed Torak’s face as the man brandished his stump. ‘They cut off my hand!’
‘You’d be mad to go in there,’ snarled the man as Renn finished binding his stump. He’d stopped shaking, but whenever an ember cracked, he cringed.
He said his name was Gaup of the Salmon Clan. His parka and leggings were muddy fish-skin lined with squirrel fur, and one cheek bore the sinuous tattoo of his clan. Around his neck he wore a band of sweat-blackened salmon-skin, and small fish bones were braided into his fair hair, reminding Torak of Bale.
‘And it was Deep Forest people who did this?’ said Fin-Kedinn. He sat with his back against a rock, haggard, breathing through clenched teeth.
‘They swore that if they saw me again, it’d be my head.’
‘But they made sure you survived,’ said Renn. ‘They seared the wound with hot stone so that you wouldn’t bleed to death.’
‘So I should thank them?’ retorted Gaup.
‘How about thanking Renn for sewing up your stump?’ said Torak.
Gaup glared. He hadn’t thanked Torak either, for helping him to the shelter and giving him food and water. And Torak hadn’t missed the smear of ash on the heel of his boot.
Out loud, Torak said, ‘When you were
in the Deep Forest, did you see a man in a dugout? A big man, very strong.’
‘What do I care about that?’ snapped Gaup. ‘I was looking for my child! Four summers old, and they took her!’
Torak glanced at Renn. She’d had the same thought. Soul-Eaters took children as hosts for demons. To make tokoroths.
Fin-Kedinn shifted position. Torak could see that his thoughts were racing. ‘To cut off a hand,’ he said, ‘that’s a punishment from the bad times after the Great Wave. The clans forbade it long ago. Who did this to you?’
‘The Auroch Clan.’
‘What?’ The Raven Leader was incredulous.
‘I thought they were going to help me,’ said Gaup. ‘They gave me food. Told me to rest by their fire. Then they said I was in league with the Forest Horses. Accused me of stealing one of their children.’
More stolen children, thought Torak. Thiazzi’s flight to the Deep Forest seemed to be turning into something else.
‘They said the Forest Horses started it,’ Gaup went on. ‘The Forest Horses planted a curse stick, and claimed the land between the Blackwater and the Windriver as their range. The Aurochs burnt the curse stick. Then the Forest Horse Mage died of a sickness, and the new Mage found a dart in the corpse. Now all the clans have taken sides. Everyone has to wear a headband: green for Auroch and Lynx, brown for Forest Horse and Bat.’ He peered suspiciously at Torak’s buckskin headband.
‘When you were with the Aurochs,’ said Torak, ‘was there a big man among them?’
‘Why do you keep asking?’ said Gaup. Awkwardly, he crawled towards the doorway. ‘I’ve wasted enough time, I’m going to fetch my clan. We’ll make them give her back!’
‘Gaup, wait,’ commanded Fin-Kedinn. ‘We’ll go together. You and me.’
Renn and Torak stared at him. So did Gaup.
‘We’ll find your clan,’ said the Raven Leader, ‘and we’ll find mine. We’ll get your daughter back – without shedding more blood.’
‘How?’ demanded Gaup. ‘They won’t listen, they’re not like us!’
‘Gaup,’ Fin-Kedinn said firmly. ‘This is what we will do.’
Gaup’s shoulders sagged. Suddenly he was just an injured man who needed someone else to make the decisions.
After that, things happened fast. Torak fetched one of the canoes, and he and Renn helped Fin-Kedinn down to the river. Renn made him as comfortable as she could in the canoe, giving him willow bast to chew against fever, and hazelnuts to keep up his strength. Torak could see that she was sick with worry.
‘How will you manage?’ she asked her uncle when Gaup was out of earshot.
‘We’re heading downriver,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘The current will take us.’
‘And if Gaup gets ill and is too weak to paddle?’
‘He’ll be all right,’ Torak told her. ‘You’re a better healer than you think.’
‘You only say that because you want this,’ she retorted. ‘Because it leaves you free to hunt Thiazzi.’
Torak did not reply. She was right.
Renn threw him a look and marched up to the canoe. ‘I’m coming with you,’ she told Fin-Kedinn.
‘No,’ he said. ‘Torak needs you more.’
Torak was astonished. ‘You’d let her come with me? After I nearly got you killed when I didn’t see that trap?’
‘You made a mistake,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘Don’t make another.’
‘But you can barely walk!’ cried Renn. ‘What if something happens? What if . . . ’ She couldn’t bring herself to go on.
‘Renn,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘Can’t you see that there’s more at stake now than me or you or Torak? Thiazzi isn’t merely hiding in the Deep Forest, he’s up to something. It’s Torak’s destiny to stop him. He’ll need your help.’
He spoke in the tone that brooked no refusal, and Renn didn’t argue. But soon afterwards she ran off, unable to watch him leave.
‘What will you do?’ Torak asked his foster father when she’d gone.
‘Try to stop a war,’ said Fin-Kedinn.
War. Torak hardly knew what it meant. ‘You think it’s as bad as that?’
‘Don’t you? The Deep Forest clans no longer trust the Open, not after the sickness and the demon bear. If the Salmon Clan moves against them, it could be the spark that lights the tinder.’ A spasm of pain took hold, and he gripped the side of the canoe. ‘Listen to me, Torak. Find the Red Deer Clan. For your mother’s sake, they’ll help you. If you can’t find them, find the Auroch Mage. His clan acted savagely, but I’m certain he didn’t sanction it. I know him. He’s a good man.’
Gaup returned, impatient to be off, and Torak helped him into the canoe.
‘Find your mother’s clan,’ repeated Fin-Kedinn. ‘Till you do, stay hidden. Climb trees if you have to; Deep Forest people are like deer, they seldom look up. And do not harm any of the black forest horses. The black ones are sacred. It’s forbidden even to touch them.’ Then he did something he’d never done before. He grasped Torak’s hand.
Torak couldn’t speak. Fa had done the same thing as he lay dying.
‘Torak . . . ’ The blue eyes pierced his. ‘You seek vengeance. But don’t let it take over your spirit.’
With his paddle, Gaup pushed the canoe away from the bank, forcing Torak to let go of his foster father’s hand.
‘Vengeance burns, Torak,’ said Fin-Kedinn as the river bore him away. ‘It burns your heart. It makes the pain worse. Don’t let that happen to you.’
Renn had run up the slope towards the shelter. She couldn’t bear to watch the Blackwater take her uncle away.
Then she’d changed her mind and raced down again. She was too late. Fin-Kedinn had gone.
In a daze, she went back to the shelter. She shouldered her sleeping-sack, quiver and bow, and stamped out the fire. She told herself that Gaup would get Fin-Kedinn safely back to the clan. But the truth was anything could happen. Fin-Kedinn might succumb to a fever, or start bleeding inside. Gaup might abandon him. She might never see him again.
When she reached the river, Torak was gone, probably to fetch the other canoe. She couldn’t face doing nothing, so she dumped her sleeping-sack and stumbled along the trail that led to the Deep Forest.
She stopped well short of the gaping jaws. The mist had lifted, and the rocks glittered in the sun. To her left, a slope of alders and birch whispered secrets. To her right, the Blackwater snaked slyly past. Twenty paces ahead, the spruce trees of the Deep Forest warded her back. They were taller than their Open Forest sisters, and beneath their mossy arms, shadows shifted ceaselessly.
Torak had once reached the borders of the Deep Forest, but Renn had never been this close. It filled her with dread.
The Deep Forest was different. Its trees were more awake, its clans more suspicious; it was said to shelter creatures which had long since vanished elsewhere. And in summer, the World Spirit stalked its valleys as a tall man with the antlers of a stag.
Out of nowhere, Rip and Rek swooped, startling her. Then they were off, disappearing into the sky with caws of alarm.
Renn couldn’t see anything wrong, but just in case, she moved off the trail, behind a juniper bush.
At the edge of the Deep Forest, the shadows beneath the spruce trees coalesced – and became a man. Then another. And another.
Renn held her breath.
The hunters emerged without making a sound. Their wovenbark clothes were mottled brown and green, like leaves on the Forest floor; Renn found it hard to tell where men ended and trees began. Each hunter wore a green headband – she couldn’t remember whose side that was – and each head was obscured by a fine green net. These hunters had no faces. They were not human.
One raised his hand, his green-stained fingers flickering in a complex signal that meant nothing to Renn. The others headed up the slope to her left.
A hunter passed within a few paces of where she crouched. She saw his thin slate axe and his long green bow. She smelt tallow and wood-ash, and caught the
glint of eyes behind the net. She saw how it sucked in and out where the mouth should be.
From the Deep Forest, another faceless hunter emerged, this one carrying a spear. When he was five paces from Renn, he thrust it into the ground with such force that it quivered.
At head height, the spear-shaft bore a bundle of leaves which Renn recognized as poisonous nightshade. From this dangled something dark, the size of a fist.
The hunter shook the spear to make sure that it was firmly planted, and walked back into the Deep Forest.
Renn’s gorge rose.
The thing hanging from the spear was a fist. It was Gaup’s severed hand.
The meaning of the curse stick was clear. The way is shut.
Renn couldn’t take her eyes off the hand. She thought about living the rest of her life like Gaup. Unable ever to use her bow again . . .
A movement to her right.
Her heart lurched.
Torak was walking up the trail towards her.
NINE
Sweat slid down Renn’s sides.
Torak was walking up the trail, looking for her. He hadn’t seen the hunters on the slope, the trees blocked his view, and for the same reason, the hunters hadn’t seen him. But they would, in about fifteen paces, when he reached that patch of sunlight where a fallen birch had left a gap.
Quiet as cloudshadow, the hunters spread across the slope, melting into wind-tossed shade and sun-dappled leaves. Renn dared not shout or make the redstart warning call. She couldn’t throw a stone at Torak without standing up.
Suddenly, he stopped. He’d seen the curse stick.
Swiftly, he stepped off the trail; and kept moving, getting closer to the gap.
Renn had no choice. She had to warn him, despite the risk. She whistled the redstart call.
Torak vanished in the bushes.
She felt rather than saw the hunters turn towards her. Like well-aimed spears, their gaze converged on her hiding-place. How had they known it wasn’t a real bird? She’d added the uplift at the end which she and Torak used to distinguish it, but no-one else had ever noticed that. They must be unbelievably observant. And suspicious.
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Page 85