Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Chapter 160 : Suddenly, he stopped whimpering. In the distance he heard the deep, echoing croaks of

Suddenly, he stopped whimpering. In the distance he heard the deep, echoing croaks of ravens. He swivelled his ears. Those were his ravens!

He yowled.

They didn't come.

Well, then, he would go to them.

Eagerly, he bounded through the Bright Soft Cold. It broke beneath him and he tumbled down the hill.

At the bottom, he righted himself and sneezed. The Den was high above, unclimbably high. Now what to do?

Somewhere in the hills, a wolf howled.

The cub sprang alert. This wasn't a raven trick, this really was a wolf. It was his mother!

Frantically, the cub barked. I'm here! I'm here!

The howling stopped.

The cub barked and barked as he floundered through the Bright Soft Cold. I'm here!

He was beginning to tire when a dark shadow came rus.h.i.+ng down the hill and suddenly his mother was pouncing on him and they were rolling together and she was whining and nuzzling and he was mewing and burying himself in her wonderful warm fur, snuffling up her beloved, strong, meaty mother smell. Then she sicked up some food and he gulped it down, while she gave him a thorough licking all over. After that they leaned against each other and howled their happiness to the Up.

The cub was still howling when his mother gave a whine and shot away.

The cub stopped in mid-howl and opened his eyes.

And there was his father, racing towards them over the Bright Soft Cold.

FORTY-ONE.

It's summer, and Renn walks with Torak under the murmuring trees.

'Don't go,' she says.

Torak turns to her and smiles, and she sees the little green flecks in his eyes. 'But Renn,' he says. 'The Forest goes on for ever. I saw it from the Mountain.'

'Please. I can't bear it.'

He touches her cheek and walks away.

Renn bit her knuckle and curled deeper in her sleeping-sack.

It might never happen, she told herself. Everything is fine.

Lying on her side, she watched the firelight rippling over the cross-beams. She was back in the Forest, in the big shelter where the Raven Clan lived together in midwinter. All was familiar: the tree-trunk walls plugged with moss, the reindeer-hide roof open to the stars above the fire. She smelt woodsmoke. She heard the crackle of flames and the low hum of voices.

You are safe with your clan, she told herself. The Dark Time is over, the sun has come back. The Red Deer are camped nearby, and Torak is . . .

She sat up. In the gloom, she couldn't see him.

But that wasn't unusual. With the days still very short, most hunting was done at night, by the light of the moon and the First Tree.

Around her, people sat calmly sewing or knapping flint. Three moons had pa.s.sed since Souls' Night. To the clans of the Open Forest, Eostra and the shadow sickness were only a memory.

Pulling on her clothes, Renn went to find Dark.

His white hair glowed at the other end of the shelter, where he sat on the edge of the sleeping platform, intent on a carving. Durrain, the Red Deer Mage, was talking to him as she marked out a jerkin on a reindeer hide with a piece of charcoal.

Renn asked if they'd seen Torak. Dark said he thought he'd gone to find the wolves. Abruptly, Renn turned her back on him and pretended to warm her hands at the fire.

'What's wrong?' said Durrain.

'Nothing,' lied Renn.

She wouldn't have thought it possible that she could miss the Mountains, but she did. She missed those first days in Dark's cave; and later, with the Swans and the Mountain Hare Clan. Torak had healed slowly in body and spirit, but she had been with him. He'd told her how Wolf had brought him back from the dead, and about his father. She'd told him about the Walker, and Saeunn's last gift to her in the Mountain. They had discussed Eostra's Magecraft, and decided that it was the earthblood from his mother's medicine horn which had protected his world-soul. They had been together when he'd left his father's seal amulet as an offering for the Hidden People; and when she'd helped the Mountain Mages chase the demons back to the Otherworld and then stayed to perform a rite for the souls of the tokoroth children; because if things had been different, she too would have been a tokoroth.

Through it all, they had been side by side. But since they'd got back to the Forest, that had changed.

'Renn?' said Dark.

'What?' she snapped.

'Shall we go and look for him?'

'Oh, leave me alone!'

Ignoring Dark's hurt smile and Durrain's reproachful glance, she stomped off to fetch her bow.

'Ah, Renn.' Fin-Kedinn sat on the other side of the fire, making arrows. 'Help me with these, will you?'

'I'm going hunting.'

'Do this first.'

Blowing out a long breath, she threw down her bow.

Her uncle had already smoothed the alderwood shafts and secured the flint heads with sinew. Piles of halved woodgrouse feathers lay beside him, sorted into left and right wing, and he was binding them in threes to the shafts. A large dog leaned companionably against his calf.

Fin-Kedinn asked why Renn was angry, and she said she wasn't.

Why, she thought, does he want me to say it? He knows what's wrong. Torak never seems to be around. And people keep bowing to me as if I was already the new Raven Mage which I'm not, not till I say yes.

As if he'd guessed her thoughts, Fin-Kedinn said, 'You've been back some time, yet you've never asked how the ancient one died.'

Ignoring him, Renn trimmed an arrow with her knife, leaving just enough feather to make it fly straight.

'It was just after I'd returned from the fells,' began the Raven Leader. 'She'd waited till she knew I was back to keep the clans together. She chose a still, cold day; a grove of hollies half a daywalk from camp. We laid her in the snow in her sleeping-sack, and she drank the potion she'd prepared to make her drowsy. We sang to the ancestors to tell them she was coming, then she told us to leave. She made a good death.'

Renn set down her knife. 'I know why you're telling me this. The same reason you got Durrain to stay. To make sure I take her place.'

Fin-Kedinn regarded her steadily. 'Is that why you're scared?'

'I'm not scared!' she flung back.

The dog flattened his ears and pressed against Fin-Kedinn.

Renn glowered at the fire. 'It's not fair!' she blurted out. 'They bow to me and call me Mage, but they're frightened of him. Some even make the sign of the hand to ward him off.'

'He came back from the dead, Renn. Of course they're uneasy. But they do know what they owe him.'

'Oh, yes,' she said drily. 'They've even started telling stories about him: the Listener who talks with wolves and ravens. They just don't want him living with them.'

'And Torak. What does he want?'

As always, he'd sensed what really troubled her. 'I don't know,' she said miserably.

Fin-Kedinn ran his thumb along an arrowshaft. 'They say that in the Beginning, all people were like Torak, and knew the souls of other creatures. Now it's only him. Durrain thinks he may be the last. That in times to come, there will be no more spirit walkers; and all that remains will be the friends.h.i.+p between man and dog: a memory of what once was.' He paused. 'Torak is one apart, Renn. The clans know it. He knows it.'

Renn sprang to her feet. 'Even you? You want him gone?'

'Want?' Fin-Kedinn's blue eyes blazed. 'You think I want him to leave?'

'Then tell him to stay!'

'No,' said the Raven Leader. 'He has to find his own way.'

Fin-Kedinn caught Torak as he was heading off to find Wolf, and told him to come with him up-valley to check the snares. Torak was about to protest, but something in his foster father's voice made him think better of it.

Dawn was still far off, but the moon was bright, and the trees threw long blue shadows across the frozen river. Torak and Fin-Kedinn crunched over the ice in a haze of frosty breath. On the opposite bank, a reindeer stopped pawing the snow to watch them pa.s.s, then went back to munching lichen.

Belatedly, Torak noticed that Fin-Kedinn carried a food pouch and bedding roll; he asked if he should have brought his too. Fin-Kedinn said no. Some time later, he turned up a side-gully.

'But the snares are upriver,' said Torak.

Fin-Kedinn continued to climb.

The snow was deeper in the gully. Trees which had been snapped in the ice storm cast weird, humped shadows in the moonlight.

The Walker sat beneath a broken holly, retying his foot-bindings.

Torak halted. It seemed impossible that this ragged ruin of a man had once been a great Mage. Only Fin-Kedinn had seen deep into the Walker's heart, and perceived that he still possessed the skill and the spark of sanity which would drive him to cross the fells and find Eostra's lair. The Raven Leader's faith had not been misplaced.

Fin-Kedinn put his fists to his chest in sign of friends.h.i.+p. 'Narrander,' he said quietly.

The Walker ignored him.

Cautiously, Torak went to squat beside him. 'Walker,' he said. 'You saved my life. Thank you.'

'What? What?' snapped the old man.

'You carried me out of the Mountain. You covered my hands and feet so I wouldn't get frostbite.'

The Walker clawed a louse from his beard, squashed it between finger and thumb, and ate it. 'Hidden Ones saved the wolf boy. The Walker just pulled him out.' Munching another louse, he gave a spluttery laugh. 'A rock cut the Masked One in two, like a wasp! Now where's Narik?'

Fin-Kedinn approached. 'Come with us to camp, Narrander. You'll be warm. We'll look after you.'

The Walker drew his mouldering hides around him and waved the Raven Leader away. 'Narik and the Walker are off to their beautiful valley. They look after themselves.'

Fin-Kedinn sighed, and set down his bundles. 'Clothes. Food. They're yours, old friend.'

'Clothes, food,' mimicked the Walker. 'But where's Narik?'

Fin-Kedinn hesitated. 'Narik died in the great fire,' he said gently. 'You remember. Your son died.'

Torak stared at him.

'Ah, here is Narik!' cried the Walker, pulling a sleepy-looking snow-vole from his cape.

Torak said slowly, 'Walker. You told me once that you lost your eye in an accident, knapping flint. But did you lose it in the great fire, when my father shattered the fire-opal?'

The old man stroked the vole with a grimy finger. 'It popped right out,' he crooned, 'and a raven ate it. Ravens like eyes.'

Fin-Kedinn regarded him gravely. 'You've avenged Narik's death. You helped end the terror of the Eagle Owl Mage. Come with us. Be at peace.'

The old man went on crooning as if he hadn't heard.

Fin-Kedinn indicated to Torak that they should leave. To the Walker he said, 'Farewell, Narrander. May the guardian swim with you.'

As they rose to go, the Walker flashed out a claw and dragged Torak back. His grip was strong. Torak caught a blast of foul breath, and saw something flicker in the single eye, like a minnow in a murky pond. 'The wolf boy's troubled, eh? Bits of souls sticking to his spirit? The Great Wanderer, the Forest, the Masked One? He's like the Walker, yes, he got too close, so he has to keep moving!'

With a cry, Torak pulled free. The Walker gave a bubbling laugh which ended in a cough.

They left him in the moonlight among the broken trees, clutching the snow-vole to his breast.

Neither of them spoke on their way to the snares. When they got there, they found three willow grouse and two hares stiffening in the snow. Fin-Kedinn plucked one of the grouse, while Torak woke a fire and set a flat stone to heat. Fin-Kedinn split the grouse and laid it on the stone. When they'd eaten, he took an antler point from his belt and started sharpening his knife.

After a while, he said, 'I told you once that the seventh Soul-Eater had died in the fire. I told you that because I'd sworn to Narrander not to reveal that he'd survived.'

Torak took this in silence. Then he said, 'Narik. His son?'