Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Chapter 144 : Torak shut his eyes. That brought the blackness back, so he opened them again. 'W

Torak shut his eyes. That brought the blackness back, so he opened them again. 'Why would she?' he mumbled.

'I think,' said Renn, 'she wanted to make you go beyond the earthblood I'd laid down, so that her tokoroth could get you. But why?' she said to herself. 'It wouldn't make sense to kill you, then your power would be lost. It doesn't fit. None of it fits.'

Torak rested his forehead on his knees. Renn touched his cheek with the back of her hand and asked how he was feeling, and he said all right. She asked how he'd felt when he was sleepwalking, and he said, 'Empty. I was in nothingness. I was lost.'

Renn sucked in her breath. Torak asked her what it meant, but she wouldn't say. He knew she was keeping things from him. He didn't care. Wolf had saved him, and now he was out there alone. Against the tokoroth.

The demon disappeared into a thicket, and Wolf lost the scent. Shaking himself in disgust, he turned and trotted back to the Den.

The Bright Hard Cold bit his pads, and he was extremely hungry and weak; but he felt better than he had since the owl attacked, and he held his tail high. He had saved his pack-brother from the demon. This was what he was for.

As he neared the Den, the ravens swooped and croaked at him, and he made a feeble play-leap to chase them away. The ravens were with the pack, but not of it; they had to be kept in their place.

The pack-sister came out of the Den and said something surprised in tailless talk. Then she ducked inside and came out again, with her forepaws full of those small, flat salmon that didn't have any eyes. Wolf gulped the lot, and felt much better. He was licking the last bits off her paws when Tall Tailless came out of the Den. Tall Tailless saw Wolf, and went still. Wolf gave a whimper and threw himself at his pack-brother, and they rolled, whining and rubbing their noses in each other's delicious scent.

The Hot Bright Eye rose in the Up, splas.h.i.+ng the Forest with light, and Wolf felt that this was good. Darkfur and the cubs were gone, and he would miss them always; but he understood now that he couldn't be with them. Tall Tailless and the pack-sister were part of the pack, too, and they needed him.

A wolf does not abandon his pack.

THIRTEEN.

The wolf cub did not at all understand what was going on.

How had he got to this empty hillside so far from the resting place? And where was the pack?

He remembered the ravens cawing, and the terrible owl attacking his mother. He'd watched them fighting from under the juniper bush: his mother leaping and snapping, the great owl las.h.i.+ng out with its claws. Then his mother wasn't there any more, and his father was fighting the owl, and Tall Tailless was barking at the cub to stay, but he couldn't. He fled, and suddenly claws were biting his flanks and he couldn't feel the ground, he was flying.

He'd wriggled and whined, but n.o.body heard him. His father and Tall Tailless shrank to dots as the terrible owl carried him higher. Even the ravens dropped behind. Then there was no more Forest, only empty whiteness speckled with sticks that looked like trees.

The cub had whimpered in terror.

The owl flew for an endless time. Next thing, the cub woke to angry caws, and the ravens were diving out of the Up. They were mobbing the owl, who was twisting and swerving. The cub tried to bite its legs, but he couldn't reach. Again and again the ravens attacked. Suddenly the owl let go and the cub was falling.

He plopped into the Bright Soft Cold and lay shaking, too frightened to move.

When nothing happened, he struggled upright and poked out his head.

The terrible owl was gone.

So was everything else. No ravens. No Forest. No wolves. Only the wind and the white.

Digging himself out of the Bright Soft Cold, the cub floundered uphill to sniff the smells, as he'd seen his father do. His flanks hurt and his legs shook. He was hungry and very, very scared. He put up his muzzle and howled.

n.o.body came.

The cub had eaten some of the Bright Soft Cold, but though it filled him up a bit, it didn't chase away the hunger.

Wearily, he padded along the hillside. The wind had dropped and the Dark was coming. His claws felt strangely tight, and he sensed that everything the hill, the Bright Soft Cold, even the Up was waiting: for something bad.

He came to a clump of small, twisted willows that clung to the slope. They reminded him of the resting place, so he decided to stay close.

Nosing around, he found what seemed to be a Den. From it came an interesting smell that he couldn't remember.

Just then, something hit him on the nose. With a yelp, he sprang back and something hit him on the rump. Now it was pelting him all over, hitting his back, ears, paws. It was coming from the Up. He raised his head. It hit him in the eye. He shot under a willow.

The pattering grew to a thunder. The Bright Hard Cold was roaring from the Up, snapping branches, pummelling the cub.

The Den. Get inside the Den.

Seizing his courage in his jaws, he made a dash for it. Ha! The Bright Hard Cold couldn't get him in here! He heard it snarling, furious at not being able to reach him.

The Den was only a bit bigger than he was, but at the back, that interesting smell was much stronger. The cub remembered it now. Wolverine.

Wolverines are extremely fierce, but luckily, this one wasn't moving. The cub sniffed. He extended a wary paw. The wolverine was Not-Breath.

The cub was used to eating soft, chewable meat which his mother and father sicked up; he had to struggle to get his jaws around a part of the wolverine. The meat was so tough it was like chewing a log, but after much gnawing, he tore off a chunk and gulped it down.

He ate till his jaws ached and his belly felt full. Then he rolled in the rotten smell and went to sleep.

When he woke up, the Bright Hard Cold was still pounding the hillside, so he ate some more wolverine and slept. And woke. Ate. Slept . . .

When he woke again, all was quiet.

In the Now that he'd gone to in his sleep, he and his pack-sister had been clambering over his mother, play-biting her tail while she nuzzled their bellies.

In this Now, he was alone.

He whimpered. The noise he made in the stillness frightened him, so he stopped, and gnawed some more wolverine. Then he padded to the mouth of the Den.

The glare hurt his eyes. No smells. The only sounds were a strange crackling, and the hissing of the wind.

Blinking, he saw that the willows lay broken beneath the Bright Hard Cold. The whole world lay beneath the Bright Hard Cold.

He ventured out. His paws shot from under him and he fell. He scrambled upright, digging in his claws.

Above him rose the white hill. Below him it swooped down, then up again. The cub didn't dare move. There was nowhere to move to. He lifted his muzzle and howled.

It was the strongest, least wobbly howl he'd ever managed but no wolf answered.

Instead, a raven flew down, landing a few lopes away from him. Then another.

The cub lashed his tail and yowled with joy. These were his ravens, they belonged to the pack! Sleeking back his ears, he bounded towards them, slithering about on the Bright Hard Cold.

The ravens flew off, laughing. The cub didn't care, he was used to their tricks: they often pecked his tail and stole his meat. He raced after them forgot about digging in his claws and slid down the hill.

Still cawing with laughter, the ravens flew after him.

Crossly, the cub got up and shook himself.

The ravens lifted into the sky and flew away.

He barked. Come back!

The ravens circled over him, then flew off again, waggling their tails as they disappeared over the hill. Quork! Follow!

The cub laboured after them. When he reached the top of the hill, what he saw made him whimper in terror.

Above him rose the biggest rocks he'd ever seen; far bigger than even the boulder beyond the resting place.

Quork! croaked the ravens.

The cub was terrified. But he didn't want to get left behind.

Narrowing his eyes against the wind, he started after the ravens, towards the Mountains.

FOURTEEN.

'How many daywalks to the Mountains?' said Torak.

Renn shook her head.

They stood with the Forest at their back, staring over the rolling, s...o...b..und fells. Far in the distance yet dreadfully present rose the s.h.i.+ning peaks of the High Mountains.

Torak's spirit quailed. From where he stood, he made out thousands of tiny pinnacles. Any one could be the Mountain of Ghosts. And his only hope of finding it lay with the Mountain clans.

Renn seemed to hear his thoughts. 'The reindeer will be heading for the shelter of the Forest. Fin-Kedinn says the Mountain clans always follow the reindeer. If we're lucky, we'll meet them.'

Torak didn't reply. He wanted to crawl into the Forest and hide.

Wolf came to lean against him. Torak slipped off his mitten and sank his fingers into his scruff. Wolf licked his wrist: a brief flash of warmth, s.n.a.t.c.hed away by the wind.

'And remember,' said Renn, 'she wants you to find her.'

'But not you,' said Torak. 'And not Wolf, or Rip and Rek.'

'She tried to separate us. She failed.'

'She'll try again.'

Together they stared across the fells. A howling wind sent spears of snow streaming towards them. Go back, go back!

The ravens loved it. They swooped and soared in the fierce, cold, empty sky. Rek spun somersaults, while Rip folded his wings and plummeted onto a rise, landing in a puff of snow, flipping onto his back, and rolling down the slope. At the bottom he shook his wings, flew to the top, and started all over again.

Wolf gave a wuff! and bounded after him, but Rip hopped onto the wind and lifted out of reach. Wolf stood on the rise las.h.i.+ng his tail, gazing down at Torak. His fluffy pelt was spangled with snow, and his eyes were bright. Let's go! he yipped.

Their eagerness gave Torak courage. He turned to Renn. 'I think we can do this.'

She opened her mouth to protest.

'All we've got to do,' he said, 'is find the reindeer.'

She pointed at the fells. 'How?'

'We've got a wolf, two ravens, your Magecraft, and my tracking skills. We'll find them.'

They didn't.

For three days they laboured over the fells without seeing a single hoof-print. The flat white light made it impossible to judge distances, and the Mountains got no closer, while the fells proved even more formidable than they'd looked. They were seamed with gullies, frozen lakes, and iced-up thickets, some chest-high, others only ankle-deep, but always forcing them into a zigzag course. In places, they floundered through snowdrifts, while on ridges, the wind had blown away the snow to the pebbly ice beneath.

They tried to keep east, steering by the sun and the stars, but clouds defeated them, and they were led astray by what looked like reindeer, and turned out to be boulders.

They survived because of what they'd learnt in the Far North. They wore masks against the glare, and rubbed their faces with Renn's marrowfat salve to prevent windburn. They dug snow holes for shelter, and snared a ptarmigan and ate it raw, saving whatever twiggy firewood they could gather for melting ice. They kept their gear inside the snow hole so it wouldn't get lost in a drift, and their waterskins in their sleeping-sacks, to stop them freezing. Nights were cold. They dreamt of stacks of beautiful, dry wood.

On the third day, they spotted people in the distance, and hurried to meet them only to find a man made of turf. He was bearded with icicles and his outstretched arms were antlers, supported by a spear in either hand. He didn't feel threatening, just oddly welcoming.

'Some kind of guardian?' said Renn. 'Maybe the Rowan Clan's, they build their shelters out of turf.'

'Then they made him last autumn,' said Torak. 'There's moss on those antlers.' He scanned the fells. The Forest was long gone. All he could see were white hills. Beneath his boots, snow hid the ice which sealed off the land. Eostra had not relaxed her grip. And she was watching him.

'Dusk soon,' said Renn. 'We need to stop.'

They camped under the gaze of the turf man, in the lee of a hill by a frozen lake ringed with scrub. Renn said she would dig a snow hole, then try a finding charm for the Mountain clans. Torak went to set fis.h.i.+ng lines and snares. Their supplies were down to a handful of hazelnuts, and so far they'd only caught a single ptarmigan.

Wolf trotted off to hunt, followed by Rip and Rek, who clearly thought he had a better chance than Torak.

On the lake, Torak hacked holes with his axe, then fed in juniper hooks on pine-root twine he'd brought from the Forest. To stop the holes re-freezing in the night, he plugged them with twigs and covered them with snow. Then he planted his knife beside them to deter Rip and Rek, who were quite capable of hauling in the lines with their beaks, and stealing the catch.

Back on sh.o.r.e, he circled the lake. The land felt empty, but his hunter's eye told him it was not. He spotted splayed wing-prints where a grey owl had punched into the snow after a lemming. Further on, a cl.u.s.ter of shallow hollows, each with a tiny pile of frozen droppings, where willow grouse had huddled together for company. And a web of ptarmigan prints, although no sign of their beds; ptarmigan like to fly high, then dive into soft snow to make a snug, invisible burrow.

They also love birch twigs, so Torak broke off some ankle-high branches of dwarf birch, rubbed off the ice, and stuck them in a patch of snow to make a tempting cl.u.s.ter, in which he hid snares of looped twine. He did the same with willow for the grouse.

Further up the slope, he found a hare trail. Following it to a windy ridge, he set his snare just before the point where the hare would have to leave the safety of the scrub and cross open ground. It would be preoccupied, and so less likely to notice a snare.