Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Chapter 89 : 'I do know the risks, but ''No. Coming here tonight was incredibly brave

'I do know the risks, but '

'No. Coming here tonight was incredibly brave, but you cannot you must not do any more!'

Renn stood up. 'What I do or don't do is not for you to decide.' She turned to untangle her bow from a branch. 'And in case you've forgotten, on all those "other times", as you call them, I did actually . . . Torak? Torak!'

But he was gone, melting in the night as soundlessly as a ghost.

SEVEN.

The full moon was riding high in the dark-blue sky, but Torak still wasn't ready. He'd put off gathering the rowan boughs for as long as he could, dreading the moment when he would have to begin the rite.

For half a moon he'd lain low, surviving on Renn's supplies and any hares, squirrels and birds he could catch. Day had merged into day: scrabbling for food, hiding in thickets; muttering to himself, just to hear the sound of a voice.

Aki and his dogs hadn't come again. The clans were labouring to get in the last of the salmon, and the Boar Leader worked his son hard.

'Find a place that feels as if it has power,' Renn had said as they'd huddled in the thicket. 'Do it there.'

Torak had found such a place but it probably wasn't what she'd had in mind. He stood on the south slope of the steep valley which the clans call the Twin Rivers, where the Axehandle and Green Rivers collide in a thunderous battle to make the Whitewater. A desolate place, perpetually misted in spray, where birch and rowan clung to life amid huge, tumbled boulders.

And dangerously close to people. From here the Whitewater crashed down to the Sea where, not half a daywalk to the west, the clan meet was gathering. Torak was far too close but that was the plan. No-one would look for him here. And the rapids would mask his cries if the pain got too bad.

Pus.h.i.+ng the thought aside, he cut another rowan bough, and wished for the hundredth time that he had an axe.

Behind him, a branch snapped.

He spun round.

A shadow emerged from the trees.

He stumbled backwards.

The shadow lumbered into him and elk and boy sprang apart with startled bellows.

'You again!' cried Torak. 'Go away! I told you, I'm not your mother!'

The elk put down its head and nuzzled him, and he felt the hot, fuzzy nubs where its antlers would grow. The elk was enormous, but it moved with awkward humility, as if apologizing for being so big. Torak saw the wound on its flank where its mother had kicked it, and felt a twinge of sympathy.

The elk didn't understand why its mother had rejected it. It didn't even know enough to be afraid of Wolf, who only left it alone because the hunting was good. Twice it had blundered into Torak and he'd chased it away. He couldn't kill it because he would take days to make use of the carca.s.s, and he couldn't let it follow him, as then it would never learn to fear hunters. Now it seemed to think they were friends.

'Shoo!' he said, waving his arms.

The elk gazed at him with confused brown eyes.

'Go away!' He punched it on the nose.

The elk swung round and wandered off into the trees and Torak was alone again. Dread flooded back. Now nothing stood between him and the rite.

The thought of cutting out the tattoo turned him sick with terror. The thought of what he might become if he didn't was worse. Over the past few days, the mark had begun to burn. He could feel it eating into his flesh.

The place he'd chosen was twenty paces above the river: a great, hunched boulder guarded by rowans. Moonlight gleamed faintly on the stone. Torak wished the dark were deeper than this eerie twilight; but in summer the sun never slept for long.

Leaving sleeping-sack, quiver and bow at the foot of the rock, he climbed. Moss crumbled beneath his boots, releasing a whiff of decay. The granite felt cold under his fingers. As he reached the top, the roar of the rapids pounded through him, drowning out the sounds of the Forest. To the west, red knife-p.r.i.c.ks of campfires mocked his loneliness.

Wolf returned from the hunt, his muzzle black with blood. Rising effortlessly on his hind legs, he placed his forepaws on the rock, ready to leap up and join Torak.

No, Torak told him in wolf talk. Stay down.

Wolf sat on his haunches and gazed at him, puzzled.

Torak forced himself to ignore him. Wolf wouldn't understand what he was about to do, and there was no way of telling him.

For the first time in his life, he was going to do Magecraft. He was going to meddle with the forces that Mages use to see the future, heal the sick and find prey: forces he didn't understand and couldn't control.

'It's a way of getting deeper,' Renn had told him, trying to explain what came as naturally to her as tracking did to him. 'A way of touching the Nanuak itself. But you've got to be careful. It's like dipping your foot in a fast river. If you go too deep, you'll be swept away.'

The Nanuak.

Torak felt it inside him: the raw power which pulses through all living things river, rock, tree, hunter, prey which links them with the World Spirit itself.

Wiping the spray from his face, he untied the swansfoot pouch from his belt. The claws felt sharp, the hide scaly. Opening the pouch, he laid out the things Renn had given him.

'There are five kinds of Magecraft,' she had said. 'Sending. Summoning. Cleansing. Binding. Severing. The one for this rite will be cleansing. And severing.' She'd swallowed. 'You'll need something from each of the four quarters of the clans: Forest, Ice, Mountain, Sea. For the Forest, your mother's medicine horn. Take earthblood from it and mix it with fat any creature's will do, as long as it's not a water creature then draw a line round the tattoo. That shows you where to to cut.' She drew a breath. 'For Ice, the swansfoot pouch. It belonged to the White Fox Mage, so it's full of good power.'

'For the Mountain?' said Torak, feeling cold.

From the pouch she drew a wristband of dried rowan berries threaded on a willowherb cord. 'I met some Rowan Clan, they were going early to the clan meet to get the best camping spot. I swapped this for an arrow.'

'Won't they notice if you're not wearing it?'

'I thought of that, split it in two.' She held up her hand to show an identical band. Then she tied the other one round his wrist. She scowled, but he guessed that, like him, she felt better for sharing this between them.

'When the time comes,' she said, 'you must make a special drink to purify yourself. Root of hedge mustard, ground with alder bark, betony and elder leaves, steeped in strong water. Use Axehandle water, that's important, because it gets its power from the ice river in the Mountains. And leave it to stand in the moonlight for as long as you can.'

He'd prepared the drink at dusk, mixing it in a cup he'd made of squirrel rawhide, and leaving it on the rock to catch the first rays of the moon while he went off to gather rowan branches.

'I don't think there's anything in it that'll cause your souls to walk,' Renn had said, 'but you'd better mark your face with the sign of the hand and pa.s.s rowan leaves over yourself. And of course, I'll be with you, in case anything happens.'

'What do I use for the Sea?'

'Your father's knife. It's Sea slate. And Torak grind it sharp. It'll hurt less.'

In horror, he watched her take out a little horn needle-case, a coil of sinew thread and a slender bone fis.h.i.+ng-hook.

'What's the hook for?' he asked.

Renn didn't meet his eyes. 'You mustn't cut too deep, or you'll cut into the muscle.'

Torak put his hand to his chest.

'I'll show you.' With her knife she scratched a cross on the knee of her legging. 'This is the tattoo. You you cut round it in a sort of willow-leaf shape. Then you you hook the skin in the middle and lift.' Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead as she hooked the mark, tenting the buckskin. 'That way you can c-cut under your skin, and lift off the tattoo. Then press the sides of the wound together and s-st.i.tch it shut.'

They had both been shaking by the time she'd finished.

Spray from the Twin Rivers was icy on Torak's face as he knelt and drank the bitter herb drink. He purified himself with rowan, marked his face with the sign of the hand. Set out the needles and the hook. He felt as if he was going to be sick.

Below him, Wolf leapt to his feet: muzzle lifted, tail raised. He'd caught a scent.

What is it? Torak asked in wolf talk.

Other.

Other what?

Other. Wolf padded in circles, then gazed up at Torak, his eyes an alien silver in the moonlight.

Whatever Wolf meant, Torak couldn't let it distract him. If he didn't start now, he'd never have the courage.

He pulled his jerkin over his head. Spray chilled his skin. His teeth chattered. Shakily, he daubed an earthblood line around the three-p.r.o.nged fork of the Soul-Eater.

He drew his knife. Fa's knife. The Sea slate felt icy, the hilt heavy and warm.

Wolf gave a low growl.

Torak warned him to stay down and prepared to make the first cut.

It was nearly dawn, and he lay in the shadow of the rock, s.h.i.+vering uncontrollably in his sleeping-sack. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to be. Nothing existed except this blazing pain in his chest.

A sob escaped him. He clenched his teeth. Fa did this too, he told himself. Fa cut out the mark, he got through this. So can you.

The voice of the Twin Rivers boomed in his head, like the throbbing in his chest.

But Fa had his mate to help him. Not like you. You're all alone.

Snarling, he pressed his face into the reindeer hide.

Something tickled his nose. It was one of Renn's long red hairs, left behind in what had been her sleeping-sack. He clutched it in his fist. Not alone, he told himself.

Some time later, he woke to the click of claws on stone. A cold nose nudged his cheek, and Wolf settled against him with a 'humph'!

'Not alone,' whispered Torak, sinking his fingers into his pack-brother's fur. Don't ever leave me, he said in wolf talk.

Wolf gave him another nose-nudge and a rea.s.suring lick.

Clutching his scruff, Torak slid into evil dreams.

He dreamt that an elk was attacking Renn. Not the young elk which wanted to make friends with him, but a full-grown male.

Torak tried to move, but the dream dragged at his limbs, and he could only watch as Renn backed against the stump of an oak tree, looking about wildly for something to climb. Nothing: the river behind her, knee-high willows in front.

The elk gave a bellow that shook the earth, then put down its head to charge. One kick from those enormous hooves would brain a boar, or snap a wolf's spine in two. Renn didn't stand a chance.

The elk crashed towards her, and Torak felt the ground tremble; he smelt its musky rage. Suddenly he felt a jolting pain in his belly a pain that was horribly familiar . . .

. . . and now it was his rage which powered the great body forwards, his antlers thrusting aside the branches as he thundered towards Renn.

This isn't a dream, he thought. This is really happening!

EIGHT.

The elk burst from the thicket, and Renn flung herself behind the oak. With terrifying agility the elk spun on one hoof. Renn dodged and dodged again. The elk gallopped off, then swung round for another attack.

Breathless, sweating, she crouched behind the stump. Nothing climbable within reach this slope had been cleared for a camp two summers before and although the river was ten paces away, she'd never make it. Besides, elk can swim.

A root was digging into her knee, and as she s.h.i.+fted position, she nearly fell down a hole. Some kind of burrow. Muttering thanks to her guardian, she hugged her weapons and wriggled in backwards. The elk couldn't reach her down here, the hole was too narrow for those antlers. And elk didn't dig. At least, not normal ones.

But this was nothing like a normal elk.

She'd had no warning, nothing at all. After a sleepless night, she'd crawled blearily from the shelter and set off upriver. If anyone asked, she would tell them she was hunting, but the truth was, she was worried about Torak. She wanted to find some trace of him, even though he was probably long gone.

Then the elk had emerged from the waterlogged thicket.

Renn had been startled, but not alarmed. The elk had probably been browsing on sedge, or diving for water lily roots. She would give it s.p.a.ce to show that she wasn't hunting, and it would wander off.

Then everything changed.

Earth trickled onto her face, and she shook it off. Peering up at a grey disc of sky, her hunter's eye spotted a few black and white hairs snagged on the edge. She hoped the badger whose sett she'd invaded was fast asleep and a lot further inside. Caught between a mad elk and an outraged badger. Not much of a choice.

What to do now? Her bow and arrows were mercifully unharmed, her axe still in her hand. She could either wait till help came along, or fight her way out.

Fighting would get her killed. The elk was so tall that she could have run under its belly without ducking, and its antlers were wider than her outstretched arms; one swipe would gut her like a fish. And those hooves . . . Once, she'd seen a cow elk kill a bear with just two kicks: one on the jaw to stun, and then rearing on its hind legs both front hooves hammering down to split the skull.

But this elk wasn't a cow protecting her calf. It was a bull; and the rut, when bulls become lethal, was four moons away.