But he had. She faced the long, dangerous journey without him.
And she was quite sure that he would never get near Thiazzi. How could he, when the Oak Mage held the Deep Forest in his fist? Thiazzi would kill him. She would never see Torak again.
A reed tapped her on the shoulder, and the willows murmured a warning. Better get away from here, fast.
Biting her lower lip hard, she squelched towards the nearest dugout. She got behind it and pushed, but the heavy pine didn’t budge. Slithering in the mud, she gave it another heave, and the boat jerked loose and splashed into the shallows.
Swiftly she tossed in quiver, bow and boots, and jumped in after them. But as she made the first stab with her paddle, the dugout tipped sharply, nearly throwing her out. She paddled frantically.
Shadowy hunters dragged her back to land.
‘You helped the outcast get away,’ said the Forest Horse Leader.
‘Yes.’
‘Where did he go?’
‘B-back to the Open Forest.’
‘You’re in league with him.’
‘He’s my friend.’
‘You’re in league with him against the Deep Forest.’
‘N-no.’ Her teeth were chattering – the chill of the river was seeping into her marrow – but they wouldn’t let her ashore. Scarred faces loomed over her, engulfing her in a stink of tallow, wet wovenbark and hate.
‘You poisoned us with Magecraft,’ said the Forest Horse Leader.
‘No.’
‘You put a sleeping-draught in our water.’
So she’d guessed rightly. But who had done it, and why?
‘You put a spell on us!’
Renn hesitated. Taking credit for others’ deeds had been her mother’s skill. ‘I warned you I was a Mage,’ she said coldly. ‘None of you was hurt. And none will be – if you take me to the Auroch Mage.’
The air crackled with fear and hatred. Renn prayed that their fear would prove the stronger.
‘Why would we do that?’ said the Forest Horse Leader.
‘The Auroch Mage has the respect of all,’ Renn said haughtily. ‘I will speak only to him.’
‘You’re in no position to bargain,’ hissed the Leader.
Renn thought fast. ‘Is this how the Forest Horses respect the truce?’ she said. ‘By scorning the Auroch Mage? What do the Aurochs say about that?’
It was the turn of the Forest Horse Leader to hesitate.
The shelter of the Auroch Mage squatted like a toad in the lee of a fallen spruce.
The Aurochs had brought her here blindfold – by river, then overland – and she had no idea where she was, although she knew by the smell that she was close to the burnt lands.
‘Our Mage is old and frail,’ they’d warned her as they slipped off the blindfold, ‘you mustn’t tire him. And remember, you’re only seeing him because he wishes it.’ Then they’d vanished into the Forest, leaving her alone before the shelter.
She stood with her hands tied behind her back, in a tangle of deadnettle still damp with dew. Above her towered the tree’s root disc, smelling of earth and rotting wood. It was pitted with the nests of bats and owls, and hung with auroch horns incised with spirals. From these and the encircling pines, slender ropes of red wovenbark trailed into the shelter’s smoke-hole. Renn guessed they were spirit ladders, to help the Mage climb to the spirit world.
The shelter itself appeared oddly homely. A fragrant haze curled from the smoke-hole, and the wovenbark cloth across the doorway was decorated with a border of trotting aurochs.
‘Come inside,’ said a faint voice.
Awkwardly because of her bound hands, Renn got down on her knees, nosed aside the wovenbark, and shuffled in.
The fire was small, but welcoming. Above it, the red tails of the spirit ladders dangled through the smoke-hole, dancing in the heat. On the other side of the fire, Renn saw her bow and the stolen arrows lying beside a mound of leaves.
It shifted. ‘I’ve sent my people away,’ wheezed a voice as quiet as a summer breeze in a sapling. ‘When two Mages meet, it’s best if they’re not overheard.’
Renn bowed respectfully. ‘Mage.’
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw that the Mage was entirely covered in leaves. Layer on layer of fresh foliage – holly, birch, spruce, willow – feathered his robe in every shade of green. On his breast hung chunks of grass-coloured amber knotted on a nettlestem string. His hood was drawn low over his face – Renn couldn’t see his eyes – but she felt his scrutiny.
‘Why do you disturb my prayers?’ he murmured, although without reproach.
Renn wondered how to begin. If the Auroch Mage was as fair as people said, and if he hadn’t fallen wholly under Thiazzi’s spell, she had a chance. If not . . .
‘There’s a Soul-Eater in the Deep Forest,’ she blurted out.
‘A Soul-Eater?’
‘His name is Thiazzi. He set the Aurochs against the Forest Horses and now he’s making them attack the Open Forest.’ She gulped. It was a huge relief to get it out.
The green robe rustled as the Mage reached for a stick and prodded the embers. Willow leaves at the hem curled in the heat, and Renn saw a beetle scramble for safety. ‘This is grave news,’ whispered the Mage. ‘Who is this – Thiazzi?’
A small amber bead fell from a fold in his robe and rolled to the edge of the fire. Renn wondered if she ought to pick it up. ‘He’s the Oak Clan Mage,’ she said. ‘He killed the Forest Horse Mage. He took the place of their new Mage. The Mage you’ve been speaking to . . . he’s not who you think.’
‘No?’ He sounded bemused. ‘And – you’ve made all this out by yourself?’
‘Yes,’ Renn lied.
‘Who are you?’
‘I’m Renn. A Mage of the Raven Clan. I tried to warn the others, but they wouldn’t listen.’
‘And you came here to defeat the Soul-Eaters.’
‘With your help, Mage.’
‘Ah,’ sighed the Mage, his chest gently heaving with each breath.
In the fire, the amber bead sizzled and flared. Renn caught a familiar tang. That’s not amber, she thought. It’s spruce-blood.
‘To defeat the Soul-Eaters,’ said the Mage, who seemed to be growing, filling the shelter. His chest heaved with laughter as he threw back his hood and shook out his russet mane. ‘And how,’ said Thiazzi, ‘do you intend to do that?’
TWENTY-EIGHT
The Oak Mage was in no hurry to kill her.
Reaching into the sleeve of his robe, he brought out a handful of spruce-blood pellets and shook some into his mouth. Renn watched his yellow teeth grinding them to nothing. She saw a golden speck caught in the tangle of his beard. The truth settled upon her like snow. Thiazzi was the Auroch Mage and the Forest Horse Mage. He’d killed them both and taken their place, making use of the Forest Horse mask and the Auroch’s solitary vigils. Soon one of them would disappear, and the other would rule alone.
Only Renn knew his secret. And he knew that she knew.
The yellow teeth went on grinding. The green eyes watched her lazily.
Kneeling before him with her hands tied behind her back, she was utterly in his power. He spat a crumb at the fire and smiled to see her cringe. ‘I suppose you’re going to swear to me that you won’t tell anyone.’
She tried not to tremble. ‘No point,’ she said.
His eyes gleamed. ‘And no point pretending you’re not terrified.’
She did not reply.
With awesome speed for so huge a man, he crossed to her side of the fire, engulfing her in rustling leaves and a stinging smell of spruce. His hand circled her throat: his three-fingered hand. Rough stumps searched her flesh till they found the vein. He grinned to feel her terror hammering under her skin. He could snap her neck like kindling. One twist, and it was the end.
Her thoughts darted like minnows. Say something. Anything. ‘The – the fire-opal,’ she gasped.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw h
is free hand move to his chest. Had she imagined it, or did a shadow cross his face? But what could the Oak Mage possibly fear?
She took a leap in the dark. ‘You haven’t told her,’ she said.
‘Told who?’ he replied a shade too quickly.
‘ – Eostra,’ she whispered, and the name turned her voice as cold as the breath of a bone-mound. ‘You haven’t told her you’ve got it. But she knows. Oh, yes. The Eagle Owl Mage always knows. She’s coming after you.’
His red tongue slid out and licked his lips. ‘You can’t possibly know that.’
‘But I do. I have my mother’s gift.’
‘Your – mother?’
‘Can’t you see?’ She met his gaze. ‘The Viper Mage. I bear her marrow in my bones . . . I know what Eostra intends.’
‘How could you know? You’re not a Mage!’
‘I know that the spirit walker has escaped,’ she said, feeding on his unease. ‘I know that your plans have gone awry. What’s gone wrong? Who’s turned against you?’
He threw her from him, and she hit her head on the doorpost. Dazed, she struggled upright. She heard him laugh.
‘Yes,’ he mused, ‘maybe this way is better. Maybe live bait will be more effective than dead.’
From his sleeve he drew a jagged flint knife as long as Renn’s forearm. She shrank from him, but he barely noticed. No time for pleasure now, he was intent on his work. Yanking a handful of spirit ladders through the smoke-hole, he severed them and used the rope to bind her ankles, then gagged her with bruising force.
He brought his face close to hers. ‘You’ve got something to do before you die,’ he breathed. ‘You’re going to give me the spirit walker.’
Wildly she shook her head.
‘Oh yes. You’re going to bring him to me at the sacred grove.’
After a brief, brutal search, he found her beaver-tooth knife and her grouse-bone whistle, cut the medicine pouch from her belt, and tossed all three on the fire. The last thing he did before casting his hood over his face was to take her bow in his hands and snap it in two.
TWENTY-NINE
Torak thought he saw Wolf on the bank, but when he called, he did not appear. Nor did the ravens. It was as if they knew what he’d done, and condemned him for it.
‘But I didn’t abandon her,’ he said. ‘She left me.’
A gust of wind ruffled the river, and the alders stirred reproachfully. A gnarled oak scowled at him as he paddled by.
He could not believe that Renn had left him and gone back to the Open Forest. Surely she would change her mind and come after him? But when he listened for the sound of a dugout, all he heard was the gurgle of water and the sighs of slumbering trees.
She’ll be all right, thought Torak. She can look after herself.
Oh, of course she can, Torak. Why would she need your help, hunted by hostile clans in the heart of the Deep Forest, with a Soul-Eater on the loose?
As dawn broke, he stopped for a rest and something to eat. Everything reminded him of Renn. The early morning sun trembled in a patch of wood strawberries. If she’d been with him, she would have dug up a couple of roots and chewed them to clean her teeth. As he groped in the shallows for reed stems and crunched them raw, he remembered a day last summer when she’d tried to feed one to Wolf, and it had turned into a game of tag. All three of them had ended up in the water, Torak and Renn helpless with laughter, while Wolf splashed about, worrying his prize and play-growling as if it were a lemming.
‘Enough!’ said Torak.
On the opposite bank, an otter raised her sleek head and stared at him, then went back to munching the trout in her forepaws.
Rek flew down, grabbed the otter’s tail in her beak, and tugged. The outraged otter spun round, snarling at the intruder, and while her back was turned, Rip swooped and snatched the fish from her paws.
Both ravens alighted near Torak and demolished the fish. Sharing it, he noted, just as he and Renn shared everything. He struck the earth with his fist.
When nothing was left of the trout but bones, Rek flew onto Torak’s shoulder and gently tugged his ear. Rip walked towards him and gazed at the medicine pouch at his belt: the swansfoot pouch which had been Renn’s until she’d given it to him last spring.
‘Not you too,’ Torak told the ravens irritably.
Rip waggled his tail and stared at the pouch.
Without knowing why, Torak opened it and took out his medicine horn. Both ravens tilted their heads, as if listening.
Moodily, Torak turned the horn in his fingers. It was carved with spiky marks which looked like spruce trees. Fin-Kedinn had once told Torak that this had been his mother’s sign for the Forest, which was how he’d recognized the horn as hers. Now, Torak saw what he’d forgotten. Twisted round the tip of the horn was the strand of Renn’s hair which he’d found in her sleeping-sack when he was outcast.
Slowly, he unwound it. Rip hopped onto his knee, took the hair in his beak, and ran it through his bill as delicately as if he were preening a feather.
Torak heaved a sigh. Renn had sent the ravens to help him last summer when he was soul-sick. And he’d abandoned her.
Just as he’d abandoned Bale.
The thought made him go cold. It was happening again. He’d quarrelled with Bale, and Bale had died. Now Renn . . .
His fist closed over the strand of hair. He would go back and find her. He would make her come with him. Vengeance must wait a little longer.
Jumping into the dugout, he turned it around and started downriver.
This time, the ravens flew with him.
Now Wolf was confused as well as worried. What was Tall Tailless doing?
Ever since the Bright Beast had eaten the Forest, Wolf had followed, and not understood. He’d prowled about the great Dens of the taillesses and watched them snarl at each other, then tear the strips of hide from their heads. Then they’d dragged in his pack-brother, and Wolf had been about to leap to his aid when Tall Tailless had snarled at them. That terrible, snarling blood-hunger . . . It was not-wolf. Wolf didn’t understand it. It frightened him.
Then he’d followed Tall Tailless and the pack-sister to the Fast Wet, where they had snarled at each other, and then – Tall Tailless had abandoned her. A wolf does not abandon his pack-sister. Was Tall Tailless sick? Was his mind broken?
After that, Wolf had kept to the Dark as he’d followed his pack-brother up-Wet. Tall Tailless had called, but Wolf hadn’t gone to him. Wolf hated hiding from his pack-brother, but he knew – with the certainty which came to him at times – that he could not go to him.
Although he didn’t yet know why.
THIRTY
There must have been a storm in the Mountains, because the Blackwater bore Torak swiftly back to the Deep Forest camp.
Masking the dugout with leafy branches, he lay flat, trusting the reeds to conceal him. He was lucky. Everyone was hard at work, painting trees. He saw women, men and children laboriously smearing on earthblood.
What madness, he wondered, made them blindly follow orders? Couldn’t they see that Thiazzi was stealing their freedom, like a fox raiding a carcass?
When the camp had drifted out of sight, he took up his paddle. The afternoon wore on. The west wind carried the stink of the wasteland. And still he found no sign of Renn.
As he rounded a bend, he saw that the north bank was muddied, as if by dugouts. The boats were gone, but something flashed on a willow branch. A lock of dark-red hair.
Landing the dugout, Torak made his way warily up the bank.
A swathe of men’s tracks led into the Forest. Among them he found Renn’s. She’d been re-captured. Why had they brought her here?
Forcing himself to concentrate, he worked out that the men had returned a short while later and paddled away. Had they taken Renn with them? He didn’t think so.
Further in, he found another strand of her hair, tied to a twig. Then another. The tightness inside him unclenched a little. She must have been all right
if she’d been able to do that. And she’d wanted him to follow.
Drawing his knife, he headed into the Forest.
Dusk was falling when he reached a small shelter in the lee of a fallen spruce. He saw slender scarlet ropes strung from trees, and auroch horns carved with sacred spirals. He guessed this was the prayer shelter of the Auroch Mage. But it had the peculiar stillness of an abandoned camp.
The doorway was barred by two crossed branches: one oak, one yew. Filled with misgiving, Torak stepped over them and went inside. The fire was dead white embers, crumbly as bones, but something lay across it. His belly turned over. It was the remains of Renn’s bow.
In disbelief he took up the black, broken pieces of yew on which she had lavished so much care. He remembered a day last summer when he’d found her grinding hazelnuts to oil it. The sun had blazed in her red hair, and he’d wondered what would it feel like to wind it round his wrist. She’d turned and met his eyes, and his face had flamed. Wolf had nosed past him after the hazelnuts, and Renn had batted his muzzle away, ‘No, Wolf, not for you!’ But she’d soon relented and given him a handful.
Kneeling in the embers, Torak gripped the remains of the bow. He smelt ash, and the tang of spruce. By his knee, he saw a tiny amber pellet. He picked it up. Yes, spruce-blood. Beside it, a handprint. The hand of a large man. Missing two fingers.
Everything fell into place, and Torak spiralled down, down from a great height. Thiazzi was the Auroch Mage. Thiazzi was the Forest Horse Mage. They were one and the same.
And Thiazzi had Renn.
Lurching to his feet, Torak stumbled from the shelter. Moonlight washed the clearing in icy blue. He thought of Renn being forced to watch Thiazzi snap her bow in two. How the Soul-Eater must have enjoyed that. And he’d wanted Torak to know it. He’d left the bow as a sign, with his three-fingered handprint. Thiazzi did this.
It was Thiazzi, not Renn, who had left those strands of her hair on the trail: leading Torak here, making sure that he took the bait. And those crossed branches . . . Proclaiming where he’d taken her.
Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Page 94