Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Chapter 43 : He rolled onto his side, then onto his knees, and spewed up what felt like half the Sea

He rolled onto his side, then onto his knees, and spewed up what felt like half the Sea. 'D- drowning,' he gasped.

'I could see that!' said the voice, managing to sound both angry and shaken. 'But what were you doing? Why didn't you just climb out?'

Torak raised his head. 'Renn? Is that you?'

's.h.!.+ Someone might come! Can you stand? Come on! Follow me!'

Struggling to grasp what was happening, Torak staggered to his feet. He swayed, and would have toppled back into the water if Renn hadn't grabbed his wrist and dragged him towards the birch trees. 'Through here,' she whispered, 'there's a bay where we won't be seen!'

Together they scrambled between huge tumbled boulders and straggly birch, emerging at last onto a little white beach shadowed by a looming hillside.

Torak sank to his knees in the sand. 'How did you find me?' he panted.

'It wasn't me,' said Renn, 'it was -'

A shadow bounded from behind a boulder and knocked Torak backwards into the sand, covering his face in hot, rasping licks.

'It was Wolf,' said Renn.

TWENTY-THREE.

There was something fierce almost desperate about the way they greeted each other. Wolf whimpering and las.h.i.+ng his tail as he covered Torak's face in kisses; Torak unnervingly like a wolf himself as he licked Wolf's muzzle and buried his face in his fur, murmuring in the low, fervent speech that Renn couldn't understand.

She felt like an intruder. And she was deeply shaken by what had just happened. She kept seeing the body in the water: face down, dark hair swirling. She'd thought he was dead.

Her hands shook as she retrieved her quiver and bow from where she'd hidden them behind a boulder, and shouldered her wovengra.s.s bag of limpets. 'Can you walk?' she said more abruptly than she'd intended.

Still on his knees with Wolf, Torak turned and gazed at her as if he'd no idea who she was. With his bruised face and streaming hair he didn't look like her friend any more.

'I I can't believe . . .' His voice was rough with unshed tears.

'Torak, we've got to get out of here! We're too close to the camp, someone might come!'

But she could see that he wasn't taking it in.

'Come on!' she said, pulling him to his feet.

The hillside was steep, and the deep moss and crowberry made it tough to climb, but to her relief he managed it. Wolf pranced about them, swinging his tail and leaping up to nuzzle his face.

Just below the ridge, they had to stop for breath.

'How did you find me?' panted Torak, bent double with his hands on his knees.

'I was foraging on the sh.o.r.e,' said Renn. 'Suddenly Wolf gave that grunt he makes, and ran off.' She paused. 'Torak, what happened? Why couldn't you get onto the rocks?'

'I was caught in a seal net.'

'A net?'

'I tried to get out, but I couldn't. Wolf bit through it. He saved my life.'

Renn thought about that: about the kind of love that had made Wolf brave the thing he feared the most. 'He hates the Sea,' she said. 'I had a terrible time getting him into a skinboat.'

'How did you manage?'

From inside her jerkin she drew out the thong on which hung the grouse-bone whistle.

Torak studied it. 'So if I hadn't given it to you all those moons ago, you wouldn't have been able to bring him with you. And I would have drowned.' He scratched Wolf's flank, and Wolf rubbed against him, wrinkling his muzzle in a grin.

Once again, Renn felt like an intruder. She realised that she knew nothing of what had happened to Torak since he'd left the Ravens. There was lots she had to tell him, too: about the sickness, and the tokoroth. 'Come on,' she said. 'My camp's not far.'

They crested the ridge, startling a pair of ravens who flew off with indignant caws. When Torak saw what lay before him, he cried out. 'But there's a forest!'

Below them lay a steep-sided valley like an axe cut through the mountains, with a long, narrow lake at the bottom. On all sides the slopes were darkened by willow, rowan and ash.

'They're not very tall,' said Renn, 'but at least they're trees. The Seals don't seem to come inland, so hiding's been easy. But yesterday I found someone's tracks down by the lake. A man's or a boy's, I think.'

'I miss the Forest so much,' said Torak, gazing at the trees.

'Me too,' said Renn. 'I miss salmon, and the taste of reindeer. And the nights are so light here. You don't notice it in the Forest, but here . . . I can't sleep.'

'Neither can I,' murmured Torak.

'There's my camp,' said Renn, leading him down to the hidden gully filled with ferns and meadowsweet and the frothy yellow flowers of bedstraw. A stream tumbled through, and in the east bank she'd dug herself a fox-hole, with a firepit in front. A rowan tree spread its arms protectively overhead.

'You can dry off by the fire,' she told him. 'I'll cook the limpets. They won't take long.'

Hanging up her quiver and bow, she knelt by the embers. They gave almost no smoke because she'd used ash, and peeled off the bark.

Before setting out, she'd placed a flat piece of slate over one end to heat up, and now she spat on it to check it was hot enough; it gave a satisfying sizzle. After rinsing the limpets in the stream, she set them on the slate to cook.

'What have you done for food?' asked Torak as he huddled by the fire, with Wolf leaning against him.

'Birds' eggs, mostly,' said Renn. 'A bit of hunting, but only small prey. There don't seem to be any elk or deer. There must be fish in the lake, but it's too exposed. That's why I went to the beach.' She paused. 'I'm all right, but I'm worried about Wolf. Those ravens led him to carrion, but it wasn't enough. And he won't go near seabirds, because he got spat at by a fulmar.' She gave a slight smile. 'He was so miserable. I had to find some soapwort and give him a wash. He hated that too.' She stopped, aware that she was talking too much.

Torak was frowning at the fire. 'Renn. I'm really glad you're here.'

Renn looked at him. 'Oh. Well, good.'

The limpets were cooked. With her knife she knocked them off the slate and onto a large goosefoot leaf. After tucking a limpet in a fork of the rowan tree for the clan guardian, she divided the rest into three. She put a third in the gra.s.s a short distance away for Wolf, then showed Torak how to cut away the black, blistered guts to get at the chewy orange meat. He eyed the limpets thoughtfully, then started to eat.

He'd pulled off his jerkin and hung it to dry on the rowan, and she saw that he was thinner, and that there was a wound on his calf which had been quite badly sewn up, and needed the st.i.tches taken out. She said so, and he told her he'd do it later; then he asked about the scab on her hand.

'It's a bite,' she said, rubbing it against her thigh. She didn't want to mention the tokoroth just yet.

Wolf had already finished his limpets, and was eyeing Torak's. Torak let him have them. Then he rested his chin on his knees. 'What's it like in the Forest?' he said. 'How bad has it got?'

'Bad,' said Renn. She told him about the clans leaving, and the man in the Sea-eagles' camp.

Torak's frown deepened. 'I dreamed about Wolf, you know. He was warning me. "Shadow. Hunted." I think that's what he was saying.'

'Did he mean the sickness?' said Renn.

'I don't know. I'll ask him.'Torak lowered his head and gave a soft grunt-whine and instantly Wolf leapt up, ears p.r.i.c.ked. Then his tail rose, and he licked the corner of Torak's mouth, whining a reply.

'What's he saying?' asked Renn uneasily.

'Same as before. "Shadow. Hunted." I wonder what it means.'

Renn cleaned her knife in the ashes. 'Is that why you left? Because he warned you in a dream?'

'What?' said Torak.

'Is that why you left without telling anyone? Without telling me.' She couldn't keep the edge out of her voice.

'I left,' he said steadily, 'to find the cure. I didn't tell you because if you'd come with me you'd have been in danger.'

Renn stared at him. 'I was already in danger! We all were. Are! What could be worse than the sickness?'

He hesitated. 'The Follower.'

'What's that?'

'I don't know. It's small. Filthy. It's got claws.'

'The tokoroth,' Renn said in a low voice.

He sat up. 'That's what the Forest Horses said. Is that what it's called?'

She nodded. 'Saeunn told me after you left. That's why I came to find you. She says they're among the most feared creatures in the Forest.'

'They?' said Torak. 'You mean there's more than one?'

Again she nodded.

He considered that. 'It crossed the Sea hidden in Asrif's skinboat -'

'It's here?' cried Renn. 'Here on the island?'

'Like I said, it hid in Asrif's boat. And if one could do it -'

'- maybe others could too. They could have hidden in one of the Sea-eagles' canoes, or with the other clans.'

They were silent, thinking about that.

'But are you sure it's here?' said Renn.

'Oh, yes,' Torak said grimly. 'I saw it. It set the trap that nearly got me drowned.' He paused. 'I was trying to find proof a track or something to show the Seals.'

'To show the Seals? Why were you doing that?'

'They're helping me make the cure.'

'They're helping you? I don't understand. They beat you up, they took you prisoner -'

'Then they let me go.' He told her his story: about being followed through the Forest, and turned away from the Deep Forest; then being captured by the Seals, and talking his way out of punishment. 'I'm sure the tokoroth is causing the sickness,' he said, 'but the odd thing is, it hasn't given it to me. It's as if it's testing me. I can't work out why.'

Renn was still trying to understand. 'And you say you're not their prisoner?'

'I told you, the Seals are helping me make the cure. They even taught me skinboating. Well. They tried. We're leaving for the Eagle Heights tomorrow.' He glanced east, where the light was growing. 'I mean, today.'

Renn reached for a stalk of goosefoot, and chewed. 'This feels wrong. First they beat you up, and now they're helping you?'

'They need the cure too.'

She was unconvinced. 'This cure. I've heard of selik root, but never of its being used in Magecraft.'

'So?' Torak said sharply. 'Tenris knows what he's doing.'

'Who's Tenris?'

'Their Mage. Renn, they've had the sickness before, and he cured them! He can do it again.'

'Even if he can, what's to stop the Soul-Eaters sending more tokoroth?'

Torak stared at her. He got up and paced, then returned to the fire. 'The tokoroth,' he said. 'What are they?'

Renn winced. Then she took a deep breath and told him everything Saeunn had told her.

As he listened, his face drained of colour.

'Saeunn says they aren't children any more,' said Renn. 'They're demon. Utterly demon.'

'Like the bear that killed Fa,' said Torak.

Wolf got up and went to lean against him; he scratched the furry flank. Then he moved closer to the embers and knelt down. 'When I was in the net,' he said, 'something strange happened.'

Renn waited, wondering what was coming next.

'I got a sick feeling. Deep inside. I've had it before, at the healing rite. It felt as if I was being pulled loose.' He swallowed. 'This time, in the net, I felt as if I was the fish.'