Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Chapter 120 : Food steadied her a bit. She made a stew of chickweed, bittercress and bramble shoots,

Food steadied her a bit. She made a stew of chickweed, bittercress and bramble shoots, with meaty spring mushrooms, and woodpigeon eggs and snails baked in the embers. The snails were particularly delicious, as they'd been feeding on crow garlic.

While they ate, Rip and Rek took their morning bath in the shallows, flicking water over themselves with their wings, and splas.h.i.+ng Wolf, who'd returned from hunting and lay on the bank, pretending not to notice.

Renn gave Rek a peeled egg and whispered her thanks. Then to Torak, 'Who were those people?'

'Aurochs, I think. Green headbands, and one had a horn amulet.' He asked her about the spear in the trail, and she told him it was a curse stick. 'If you pa.s.s it without the proper charm, you fall sick and die. You can't see the curse, but it's there. It draws fever demons like moths to a flame.'

He thought about that. 'Can you get us past?'

The knot in her belly tightened. 'Maybe.' In fact, she doubted it. The Deep Forest had the best mages of all. She would be no match for them. 'But they won't rely on curse sticks,' she added. 'They'll keep watch.'

He didn't reply. Often, when he was working up to say something, he would run his thumb over the scar on his forearm. He was doing it now. 'Renn . . . '

'Don't say it,' she broke in.

'What?'

'He wasn't my kin, I don't have to go with you, it's too dangerous, I might get killed.'

He set his jaw. 'It is too dangerous. And it's not just them, it's me. Look what happened to Fin-Kedinn. Next time it could be you.'

She began to protest, but he talked over her. 'There's something else. We were watched in the night. I found a trail and a pile of ash.'

'Ash?' She tried to conceal her alarm. 'Do you think it was Gaup?'

'I did at first. Now I'm not sure.'

She realized what he was doing. 'You're trying to put me off. Why must you always do this? Do you think it'll work? Do you think I'll say, Oh, well, in that case I'm going back to my clan?'

'That's what you should do. Yes.'

'Well I won't!'

He glared at her. In the morning light his face looked older. Ruthless. 'Renn. I warn you. I'll do whatever it takes to get Thiazzi.'

'Fine,' she retorted. 'Let's get started. We'll need a disguise. We're on the Aurochs' side of the river, so we'd better try to look like them.'

He gave a curt nod. 'Right,' he said.

'There,' said Renn. 'I defy even an Auroch to spot you now.' She was being very practical and brisk, but Torak wasn't fooled. She was as scared as he was.

Over the winter, Fin-Kedinn had taught them a few tricks about concealment. It had taken all afternoon to put them into practice. Renn turned out to be extremely good at it, which Torak found unnerving. She seemed to have a Mage's skill for making things appear other than what they were.

First, she'd made a greenish-brown stain of lichen and river clay, taking the clay from below the waterline, so that no-one would notice. She'd mixed it with wood-ash and the marrowfat salve, to mask their scent and make it waterproof. Then she'd unpicked her clan-creature feathers and tucked them inside her jerkin, and they'd daubed the stain on each other's faces, throats, hands and clothes, dappling it in blotches: some light, some darkened with charcoal.

They knew from clan meets that Aurochs daubed their scalps with yellow clay to resemble bark, so they tucked their hair inside their parkas and did the same. They didn't have time to make nets for their faces, so they simply stained Torak's headband green and made one for Renn. Next, they padded their quivers with moss to prevent the arrows rattling, and agreed a new warning signal. Finally, Torak cut them hogweed breathing tubes, in case they had to hide underwater.

When it was done, Wolf approached Torak cautiously, gave a tentative sniff, and jerked back in alarm.

It's me, Torak told him in wolf talk.

Wolf flattened his ears and growled.

It's me. Come here.

Warily, Wolf moved closer.

Torak breathed softly on his muzzle, talking in wolf talk and person talk. It took a while before Wolf was rea.s.sured.

'He didn't know you,' Renn said in a strained voice.

Torak tried to smile, but his face felt stiff beneath its disguise. 'Do I look so different?'

'You look frightening.'

He met her eyes. 'So do you.' Her smooth green face was disturbingly like her mother's. She even moved differently. Her body, her hands, seemed fraught with mysterious power. He thought that if he touched her, he might burn his fingers.

'Do you think it'll work?' she said.

He cleared his throat. 'At a distance, maybe. Not up close. The best defence will be '

'Not getting caught.' She flashed him her sharp-toothed grin, and was Renn again.

Dusk fell, and the half-eaten moon rose above the trees. Moths flitted among glowing white campions. High in a spruce tree, Torak heard the hungry cheeping of woodp.e.c.k.e.r nestlings.

'Now for the charm,' said Renn.

In the faint moonlight, Gaup's severed hand turned slowly on its cord. It should have been crawling with ants and flies, but there were none. Such was the power of the curse that no creature would touch it.

Torak stood watch with Wolf, while Renn approached the curse stick, keeping to the shadows and placing her feet on dock leaves to obscure her prints. She clutched a bundle of wormwood and rowan twigs, and as she squatted near the stick, she muttered the charm and struck the spear-shaft over and over with the bundle.

The river flowed more quietly. The trees stilled to listen. Torak felt the curse hanging heavy in the air. He worried that Renn was too close; that it might be seeping into her skin.

She broke off with a gasp. 'I can't,' she whispered.

'Yes you can!' he urged.

'I'm not strong enough.'

He waited.

She went on. At last, she heaved a ragged sigh, rose, and threw the bundle in the river.

'Did it work?' said Torak.

'I don't know. We'll soon find out.'

They withdrew, taking care to brush away their tracks. It seemed to Torak that a tension had leached from the darkness.

Wolf padded towards the curse stick and sat gazing up at the b.l.o.o.d.y hand. Without warning, he seized it in his jaws, worried it to make sure it was dead, and trotted off to eat in peace. Soon afterwards, they heard a flurry in the undergrowth and an irritable growl; then Rip and Rek flew off, each bearing a finger in their beaks.

Torak unclenched his fists. 'I think it worked.'

'Maybe,' said Renn.

They went to fetch their gear.

'We'll go in after moonset,' said Torak.

Renn didn't reply, but he knew what she was thinking. They still had no plan for getting past any watching Aurochs.

Above him in the spruce tree, the woodp.e.c.k.e.r nestlings called tirelessly for food. Torak saw that their parents had been clever, pecking the hole under a bracket mushroom which made a roof to keep off the rain, and choosing a hollow tree riddled with more holes, so they'd have lots of escape routes if a marten attacked. He remembered Fin-Kedinn's lessons on concealment. The first rule is to learn from other creatures.

The male woodp.e.c.k.e.r flew in with nightmeal for his children, spotted Torak, and sped to another tree some distance away, where he perched, calling loudly, kik-kik-kik! Not that tree, this one!

'I think,' said Torak, 'I've got an idea.'

The moon had set, the wind had dropped. The trees stood breathless. Waiting.

Torak knelt beside Wolf and told him in wolf talk that they needed to hide from everyone, but were still hunting the Bitten One. He wasn't sure if he got it across.

Rising to his feet, he nodded at Renn. She nodded back.

Keeping off the trail, they started upriver. They pa.s.sed the curse stick. They drew level with the great stone jaws.

A squirrel scampered up a tree. A roe buck fled, flas.h.i.+ng its white rump.

Good, thought Torak. Maybe the Aurochs aren't so close.

Maybe.

Renn walked beside him, silent as a shadow. Wolf's paws made no sound.

The spruce trees waited for them, their arms dripping with dark clots of moss.

Torak paused. He thought of the Oak Mage. He thought of Bale. He took a breath and entered the Deep Forest.

TEN.

Wolf's hackles rose. Torak glanced at Renn to make sure that she'd seen. She had.

Bitten One, said Wolf.

Near? said Torak.

Many lopes.

Torak bent close to Renn. 'He's picked up Thiazzi's trail,' he whispered, 'but he's far away.'

'And still no Aurochs?'

He shook his head.

She was puzzled. So was he. They'd been creeping between the shadowy trees for ever, following the river upstream, but staying well back from its banks. So far, no sign of Aurochs. The trees, though . . . Roots snagged Torak's boots. Twig fingers brushed his face. It was warmer in the Deep Forest. The air smelt greener, more alive. Bats flitted overhead, and the undergrowth stirred with secret rustlings. Moss dripped from every branch and log and boulder as if, thought Torak, a great green tide had drowned the Forest and then receded. And behind it all, he felt the immense, watching presence of the trees.

Wolf turned aside and ran to an ash tree. Rising on his hind legs, he put both forepaws on the trunk and sniffed a low-hanging branch. Odd, he told Torak with a twitch of his whiskers.

Torak touched the branch. His fingers came away slimy, smelling strangely of earth.

Renn pointed to the branch. What is it?

He shook his head, wiping his hand on his leggings and wis.h.i.+ng he hadn't touched it. Deep Forest clans were known for their skill with poisons.

They reached a grove of murmuring alders. As they entered, the trees fell silent, as if they didn't want to be overheard.

Wolf halted and snuffed the air.

Bitten One. Over the Wet.

Torak was still taking that in when Wolf lowered his head.

Den.

Beyond the alders, Torak glimpsed shadows moving in blackness. Bulky shapes that might be shelters.

'Camp!' Renn breathed in his ear.

'And Wolf says Thiazzi is across the river, in Forest Horse territory.'

'We have to go back,' she urged, 'cross downstream.'

That risked confusing Wolf and losing Thiazzi's trail, but they had no choice. They started to backtrack.

At least, they tried, but Torak got the sense that they'd lost their way. The gurgle of the river seemed fainter, and he caught the sharp, unmistakeable scent of crow garlic, which they hadn't encountered on the way in.

He strained to pierce the gloom. A dock leaf skewered on a twig glimmered in starlight. A whisper of air cooled his cheek as an owl or a bat swept past.

That leaf.

He stopped so abruptly that Renn walked into him.