Oath Breaker

by Michelle Paver; Geoff Taylor

  "There's no one here," he said. "I think they've all crossed to attack the camp."

  Hastily they dried themselves with grass, stuffing more down their boots and inside their clothes, to warm

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  up. Torak cut some horsetail and scrubbed the green stain off their headbands, while Renn tended her poor, soaked bow.

  Wolf found the scent and started south, away from the river and into a boggy woodland of alders rising from brown pools. Renn thought of traps and curse sticks and invisible hunters, and said a prayer to the guardian.

  It was difficult country. They had to jump from one clump of alders to the next, and edge along fallen tree trunks squelchy with moss. The water was clogged with frogspawn. Renn fell in and came out beslimed.

  She tried to convince herself that this was a forest just like the one where she'd grown up. She saw a spruce tree whose fissured trunk was studded with cones jammed in by woodpeckers, so they could peck at the seeds. Open Forest woodpeckers did that, too. She spotted a pile of leaves near a badger's sett; the badgers had been cleaning up after the winter, and had dragged out their old bedding. All familiar, she told herself.

  It didn't work. The trees murmured that she didn't belong. The woodpeckers were black.

  Torak had found something.

  Beneath an ash tree, the earth had been scraped to make a muddy wallow. It was five paces across, far bigger than even an auroch would make. Wolf snuffed it eagerly. Torak pushed his muzzle aside to examine a huge, round hoof print. "Some kind of giant auroch?" he said.

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  Renn nodded. "Fin-Kedinn says there are creatures here that survived the Great Cold. I think they're called bison."

  He frowned. "So they're prey?"

  "I think so. But sometimes they charge."

  In the distance, an owl hooted:oo-hu, oo-hu.

  Renn caught her breath. In her mind, she saw the dread wooden face of the Eagle Owl Mage.

  Torak was thinking the same thing. "Could they be working together?" he said in a low voice. "ThiazziandEostra?"

  Renn hesitated. "I'm not so sure. He's selfish. He'll want the fire-opal for himself. Besides, Saeunn told me--she can't be certain, but she thinks Eostra is in the Mountains."

  "And yet her owl is in the Deep Forest," said Torak.

  Renn was silent. She watched him rise to his feet and look about. She could see from his expression that whether Eostra was here or not, he was undeterred. He would find Thiazzi.

  "Torak," she said, "what happened at the Auroch camp? What did you do?"

  Briefly, he told her how he'd set the two clans against each other. It was clever, but his ruthlessness shocked her. "But--people might have been killed." "That might have happened anyway."

  "Maybe. Or maybe the Forest Horses were only

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  scouting, you don't know."

  "I warned you. I said I'd do whatever it takes to get Thiazzi."

  "Starting fights? Getting people killed?"

  Wolf glanced doubtfully from one to the other.

  Torak ignored him. "Last spring," he said, "everyone was hunting me. This time,I'mdoing the hunting. I swore an oath, Renn. So yes. I am ruthless. And if you can't take that, don't come with me!"

  They went on in silence. Renn resolved not to be the first to speak.

  The ground climbed steadily, and black spruce gave way to beech. They waded through waist-high nettles and clambered over rotting tree trunks blistered with poisonous mushrooms. Renn noticed that the trees were taller than in the Open Forest, which would make them harder to climb; and the wood-ants didn't build their nests only on the south sides of the trunks, but all around, which would make it easier to get lost.

  No sign of people.

  And yet...

  Behind her a branch swayed, as if someone had edged out of sight.

  She put her hand to her knife-hilt.

  The branch stilled. If it were Forest Horse hunters, she thought, we'd know it by now.

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  Torak had gone ahead, and was kneeling to talk to Wolf. She ran to catch up. "I saw something!" she panted.

  "And Wolf smelled something," said Torak. "He says it smells like the Bright Beast."

  "That means fire."

  "It also means ash. The one who took my hand ... it felt hot."

  Their eyes met.

  "Whatever grabbed my hand," said Torak, "it's followed us across the river."

  As the light began to fail, they decided to strike camp under a yew tree.

  They'd reached a valley where beavers had dammed a stream to make a narrow lake. Renn saw the beavers' lodge in the middle: a sturdy pile of branches, some streaked yellow where they'd gnawed off the bark. She guessed it was still occupied, as a few willows remained along the shore. Fin-Kedinn said that beavers liked to eat all the willows before moving on.

  Thinking of Fin-Kedinn hurt. She tried to imagine him safely back with the Ravens, busy with the salmon run, but her mind showed him gray faced, hunched in the canoe. Maybe the worms of sickness were already eating into his marrow. And no Renn to chase them away.

  Torak went scouting with Wolf, so to take her mind

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  off Fin-Kedinn, she left her gear under the yew and went to forage.

  At least the plants were familiar. She gathered handfuls of succulent saxifrage and sharp-tasting sorrel; and as they couldn't have a fire, she dug up spear thistle and silverweed roots, which they could eat raw.

  Rip and Rek flew down, fluttering their wings and making famished gurgles, so she tossed them a couple of roots. Over the winter, she'd persuaded them to come when she called, but they would not yet perch on her shoulders, as they did with Torak.

  Feeling slightly better, she went to refill the waterskins. The lake was sheened a dusty yellow with pollen, and around it, the trees leaned over to peer at their namesouls in the water. Renn held the skins down deep, to avoid scooping them up. It had never bothered her before, but here ...

  While the skins filled, she watched the ripples smoothing out, and wished Torak would come back and be Torak again: play tug-the-hide with Wolf, tease her about the freckle at the corner of her mouth. For the first time, it struck her that his mother's father had been Oak Clan--which meant he was kin with Thiazzi. She wished she hadn't thought of that.

  The waterskins were full. As she pulled them out, her name-soul stared back at her: an inscrutable, clay-headed Auroch.

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  A figure appeared behind it.

  In one nightmare heartbeat, Renn took in clenched fists and a shock of long, pale hair. With a cry she spun around. Nothing. Just a stirring of willows, very close. She whipped out her knife.

  A branch creaked. Claws clattered on bark. She thought of tokoroths scurrying down trees, agile as spiders. She raced back to camp.

  Torak hadn't returned, but the ravens perched high in the yew, cawing in distress. Her gear had been savagely attacked. Her quiver was slashed, its moss padding flung about, and most of her arrows had been snapped. Luckily, she'd hung her bow on the yew, and the attacker had missed it, but her sleeping-sack had been trampled into the dust, her tinder pouch cut to pieces, and her strike-fire smashed under a rock. Malice and rage throbbed in the air like sickness. And over everything lay a scattering of fine gray ash.

  Drawing her axe, Renn backed against the yew. "I'm not scared of you," she told the shadows. Her voice sounded reedy and unconvincing. Moments later, Torak and Wolf returned. Wolf raced to snuffle furiously at Renn's things. Torak's jaw dropped.

  "I saw something at the lake," she told him. "Then this."

  "What did you see?"

  "It had pale hair. It looked angry." He flinched. "Do you know what it is?" she said.

  "No, I--no." He started searching for tracks, but the light was almost gone, and he didn't find any. "Either it knows how to cover its tracks," he said, "or it doesn't leave any."

  "What do you mean? Torak, what isit?"

  He chewed his lip. T
hen he stood up. "Whatever it is, we're not sleeping on the ground."

  The yew didn't like being climbed. It choked them in clouds of pollen and tried to evade their grip by shedding bark. Twice, a branch whipped around and tried to throw them off. They were scratched and exhausted by the time they'd settled in its arms.

  "The wind's getting up," said Torak. "We'd better tie ourselves to the trunk."

  Renn hung their damp, gritty sleeping-sacks to dry, and peered down into the gloom. She saw Wolf silently pacing. She said, "Let's hope Wolf and the ravens warn us of danger."

  Wolf ran in circles around the yew, bristling with disapproval. He hatedit when the taillesses climbed trees. Why did they do this?

  Normal wolves do not climb trees. And normal wolveslikethe Dark, it's their best time, when they run about

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  and play. They do not curl up and sleep forever.

  Wolf hated it here. The Forest felt different. The trees were too alert and the smells were all mixed up. Some of the trees smelled of earth, while the taillesses who lived here smelled of trees. They were angry and scared, and although each pack had quite a big range, they fought; Wolf didn't know why. Worse still, Tall Tailless and the pack-sister had changed their overpelts and even their smells, so that Wolf hardly knew them.

  His sleeps were troubled by the scratching of demon claws and the cries of eagle owls, and sometimes when he woke up, he caught the nose-biting scent of the tailless who smelled of the Bright Beast. This tailless worried Wolf a lot, because its mind was broken, so he couldn't sense what it wanted.

  The scent of the broken-minded tailless was thick in Wolf's nose as he prowled the yew's roots, but he sensed that the tailless itself was gone. Maybe it also climbed trees. Wolf decided to stay close, in case it came back.

  In the Up, the Bright White Eye was half open, sleepily watching over her many little cubs. Wolf stalked a weasel, but it got away. He caught a moth, but it made him sneeze, so he spat it out. And still the taillesses slept.

  Suddenly, Wolf pricked his ears. Farther down the valley, the ravens were cawing. They'd found a roe deer which was Not-Breath; they wanted Wolf to come and rip 113

  it open, so that they could feed.

  Wolf wondered what to do. He had to stay and guard the taillesses.

  But he was hungry.

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  THIRTEEN

  As night deepened, the other inhabitants of the Forest .emerged. Bats flitted from hollows in the yew. A gray owl settled on the end of Torak's branch, its body swaying, its moonlit eyes fixed on his. He stared back till it flew away. It was a blustery night and the trees were wideawake.

  So was he.

  Who--or what--had attacked Renn's gear? Was it Bale's vengeful spirit, or something else?An ash-haired hunter burning inside.Saeunn's prophecy could mean anything.

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  Straining at the rope that bound him to the trunk, he twisted around to see if Renn was awake on the other side. She was curled up like a squirrel, fast asleep. He ached to be on the move. Somewhere in these secret valleys, Thiazzi was hiding; and the trail was getting cold. Not even Wolf could follow it much longer.

  On the ground, branches rustled as something large pushed its way through. Torak couldn't see anything, but as the creature drew nearer, he heard munching and huffing breath. Then a darkness like a walking boulder passed beneath him. He glimpsed massive, humped shoulders--an enormous head with short, half-moon horns.

  Bison. He watched the creature lean against the yew's trunk and give itself a luxuriant scratching that made the whole tree shiver. Then, with a deep, satisfied grunt, it ambled off.

  Soon afterward, Torak caught the familiar tail-swish of horses. As the herd moved beneath him, he glimpsed a wobbly foal duck beneath its mother's belly to suckle; a young mare nibble-grooming the mane of an older one whose scarred rump showed her to be the survivor of many a hunt. He felt a settling of awe. Unlike the duncolored horses of the Open Forest, these were as black as a moonless night.

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  Renn mumbled in her sleep, and the lead mare jerked up her head. The sacred herd melted into the darkness like a dream.

  The Forest felt lonely after they'd gone. Torak wished Wolf and the ravens would return.

  The wind strengthened, and the trees creaked and moaned. He wondered what they were saying. If he knew their speech, they could tell him where to find Thiazzi. The thought dropped into his mind like a pebble into a Forest pool.Become one of them. Spirit walk.

  He wondered if he dared. Trees are the most mysterious of beings. They harbor fire and give life to all, yet eat only sunlight. Alone among creatures, they grow a new limb when one is lost. Some never sleep, while others slumber naked through the crudest winter. They witness the scurrying lives of hunters and prey, but keep their own thoughts hidden.

  Torak wrenched open his medicine pouch and sought the piece of black root he'd kept secret even from Renn. Saeunn had given it to him.For when you need it,she'd said.

  He chewed fast. Bitterness flooded his mouth. The root was potent. Before he'd swallowed it, a sharp pain pierced his guts. Waves of cramp took hold, and he doubled up, the rope cutting into his midriff. He began to be afraid. He should wake Renn. But the rawhide held him. He couldn't reach.

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  The cramps were coming faster, a relentless tide sucking at his souls. He opened his mouth to call Renn's name ...

  ... and his voice was the groaning of bark and the roaring of branches. His twig-fingers knew the chill moonlight and the wind's screaming caress, his boughs the scratch of wasp and the weight of sleeping boy and girl. Deep in the earth, his roots knew the burrowing moles and the soft, blind worms, and all was good, for he was tree,and he rejoiced in the wildness of the night.

  Lost in the coursing tree-blood, the speck of spirit that was Torak begged it to tell him where to find Thiazzi. The yew gave a sigh and lifted him out into the night. Helpless as a spark borne by a rushing wind, Torak was carried through the Forest on a soughing sea of voices, from yew to holly, from seedling to sapling to mighty oak, faster than wolf can lope or raven fly. Terror seized him. Too far, he thought, you'll never get back!

  When at last he came to rest, his tree-fingers knew the icy winds sweeping down from the High Mountains. He was in the golden tree-blood of another yew, but this one was old beyond imagining, ancient as the Forest itself. His boughs speared stars, his roots split stone and trapped demons in the Otherworld. His limbs sheltered owl and marten, squirrel and bat. To the creatures who dwelled in him, he was the world, but to the Great Yew their lives were as brief as the trembling of a leaf, and

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  long after they were gone, he would endure.

  Lost in the vast awareness, Torak felt the prick of tokoroth claws on his bark. He heard demons howling for the fiery stone that was almost within their reach. Flames seared his branches. He sensed the Oak Mage circling, chanting spells.

  The Oak Mage raised his arms to the sky.I am the truth and the Way. I am master of fire. I am ruler of the Forest!

  The wind rose and the voice of the Great Yew rose with it. Torak was drowning in voices, all the trees of the Forest rising, swelling to an obliterating roar, tearing him apart....

  "Torak!" whispered Renn. "Torak! Wake up!"

  His head turned, but she could see that he didn't know her. His eyes were empty and unseeing, no souls inside.

  No souls.He was spirit walking.

  He had woken her by wrenching himself free from the rope, and now he knelt on his branch, swaying, muttering. She was terrified that he would step into nothingness and break his neck.

  She edged around to his side of the trunk. He was out of reach. She stayed where she was, afraid of startling him.

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  At last he spoke, in a hollow voice that was not his own. "I am the Great Yew," he told the rushing wind. "I am older than the Forest. I began amid the roots of the First Tree. I was seedling when the last snows of the Long Cold melted int
o the earth; sapling at the coming of the Wave. I have never known sleep. But I have known anger...."

  Renn didn't know what to do. Her Magecraft wasn't strong enough to call back his souls. Praying to the guardian, she stretched out her hand. Torak rose on his branch and began to walk.

  Pain jolted him awake: a raven beak, tugging at his earlobe.

  He was dizzy. The wind was blowing in his face, the trees roaring in his head.

  "Torak!" Renn's voice came to him from far away. "Torak, look at me. Only at me.Don't move!"

  The raven lifted off his shoulder and he staggered. Beneath him, the ground swayed.

  Not the ground.The branch.He stood on the end of the branch, his hands clawing empty air.

  "Look at me," commanded Renn. She crouched near the bole of the tree, one hand gripping the rope that circled the trunk, the other straining toward him."Do not look down."

  He looked down. A dizzying drop. Far below, on the yew's snakelike roots, something squatted. He saw ashen hair and a pale, upturned face. He swayed. Renn's voice called him back. "Torak. Come-- to--me." Her dark eyes drew him. He sank to his knees and crawled toward her. "You don't rememberanything?"said Renn.

  Torak shook his head. He was shaking and sick, worse than she'd ever seen him. It had been all she could do to get him down from the tree. "Not untying the rope or crawling onto the branch? Nothing?"

  "Nothing," he mumbled.

  At last she got the waterskin open. "Here. You'll feel better."

  He didn't respond. He sat with his back against the yew, staring into its branches.

  The wind had dropped, and dawn was coming. Rip and Rek perched in the lower boughs, sleeping off the horse meat Renn had given them to say thank you. She doubted if Torak even saw them. There was a strange, shattered light in his eyes, and when she looked closer, she saw that they were no longer a pure light gray. In their depths were tiny flecks of green.

  "I saw him," he said. "I saw Thiazzi. He's near the Mountains. Making spells. He thinks he can rule the