Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Chapter 37 : SEVENTEEN.The three skinboats flew over the waves as the sun sank towards the Sea, and

SEVENTEEN.

The three skinboats flew over the waves as the sun sank towards the Sea, and hope died in Torak's heart.

In his mind he saw Wolf running up and down the sh.o.r.e: howling, unable to comprehend why his pack-brother had forsaken him.

Torak couldn't bear it. If only he'd howled a reply. But he'd been too stunned. And by the time it had occurred to him, he was far away, and Wolf's howls were nothing but memory.

Bitterly he berated himself for breaking the law of the Sea. If Renn had been with him this would never have happened; the Seals would never have got angry, and he'd be back there now with Wolf.

A gust of wind drenched him with spray, stinging his eyes and making the wound on his calf smart. He lurched and nearly went overboard.

'Keep still!' said Detlan over his shoulder. 'If you fall in, I'm not hauling you out.'

'Hear that, Forest boy?' shouted Asrif from his skinboat.

'Save your breath, Asrif,' cried Bale. 'Still a long way to go.'

Torak clutched the skinboat with numb fingers. Wherever he turned, he saw nothing but waves. The Sea had swallowed everything. Forest, Mountain, Raven, Wolf. He felt as insignificant as dust on the watery hide of this vast, endlessly heaving creature.

Peering over the edge, he stared into impenetrable dark. If he fell in, when would he reach the bottom? Or would he keep sinking down and down for ever?

A bird flew past. At first Torak thought it was a goose, but then he saw that it was black all over, and flying so low that its wingtips almost touched the Sea.

Some time later, they pa.s.sed a flock of small, plump seabirds sitting on the water, talking to one another in mysterious, un-bird-like groans. They had black backs and white bellies, and very bright, triangular red and yellow beaks.

Detlan caught Torak staring at them. 'Puffins,' he said crossly, 'they're puffins. Don't you have puffins in the Forest?'

Torak shook his head. 'Are they hunter or prey?'

'Both,' said Detlan. 'But we never hunt them. Puffins are sacred to the Mages.' He paused, reluctant to talk, but unable to tolerate Torak's ignorance. 'They're not like other birds,' he said at last. 'They're the only creature that can fly through the air, and dive in the Sea, and burrow under the earth. That's why they're sacred. Because they can visit the spirits.'

Asrif brought his skinboat alongside theirs. 'I bet there's nothing like them in your Forest,' he jeered.

There wasn't, but Torak was not about to admit it. He gave Asrif a hostile stare.

The evening wore on, and still the sun hung low in the sky. Soon it would be Midsummer, the time of the white nights, when the sun didn't sleep at all.

Torak would have given a lot to go to sleep. His limbs were cramped, and he kept nodding off, then jolting awake again.

Then, from far beneath the waves, he heard singing.

Of one accord, all three Seals stopped paddling.

Bale whipped off his sun-visor and scanned the waves. Asrif bared his teeth in a grimace. Detlan muttered under his breath and clutched an amulet at his breast.

Torak leaned over the side, listening.

Such a remote, lonely song. Long, wavering cries that made ripples in his mind. Echoing groans as bottomless as the deeps. It was as if the Sea herself were singing a lament.

'The Hunters,' breathed Detlan.

'There,' Asrif said quietly, pointing to the north-west.

Bale turned his head, then nodded. 'They're after capelin. We must be careful not to disturb them.'

Torak squinted into the sun, but saw nothing. Then ten paces away he made out a large patch of calm water. It reminded him of the smoothness you see where a river flows over a rock just beneath the surface. 'What is it?' he whispered.

'A shoal of capelin,' murmured Detlan over his shoulder. 'They hide far below, and the Hunters chase them to the surface. That's why the gulls are coming.'

As if from nowhere, seabirds appeared, mewing excitedly. But according to Detlan, it was below the surface that the Hunters would make their kill. Torak pictured the terror among the fishes as they crowded together, seeking safety, but unable to get away from the Hunters who came at them from the dark . . .

But what were the Hunters?

'Watch the water,' whispered Detlan.

Torak shaded his eyes with his palm.

The Sea began to seethe. Bubbles broke the surface. The water turned pale green.

'That's the capelin rising,' hissed Detlan. 'The Hunters are beneath them, and all around. They've nowhere to go but up . . .'

More gulls came, till the sky was a screaming tumult. And now Torak saw a dense ma.s.s of fish rising to the surface: slender, twisting bodies packed so tight that they turned the Sea to silver and made the water boil. In their panic some leapt clear of the waves, desperate to escape. But the gulls were waiting for them.

A fish broke the surface right beside Torak: a silver dart no longer than his hand. A huge bird with a wingspan wider than a skinboat swept down, speared it in one sharp talon, and bore it skywards. Craning his neck, Torak recognised the broad, flicked-up wing-feathers of an eagle.

A gull flew after it, intent on stealing its prize. The sea-eagle gave a contemptuous twitch of its ash-coloured tail and flew away.

Down among the gulls, the fight for fish was savage. Torak saw one gull struggling to fly away with a half-swallowed capelin jutting from its gullet, while two more chased it, tugging at the fish's tail.

Then he saw something that made him forget the seabirds.

A black fin broke the surface.

He gasped.

The fin was as tall as a man, and moving faster than a skinboat.

'Ah,' breathed Detlan. 'The Hunters are come.'

Torak glanced at the Seals. All three were watching with awe and in Bale's case, admiration.

Another towering fin broke the surface. Then another this one with a notch bitten out of it just below the tip. It was moving fast and with deadly purpose, circling the capelin.

So that's a Hunter, thought Torak. His father had drawn him pictures of whales in the dust, but until now Torak had never grasped how huge they were. With a s.h.i.+ver he realised how vulnerable he was, bobbing about in a skinboat as fragile as an eggsh.e.l.l . . .

Suddenly he heard a splash and turned to see a column of spray shooting high into the air. Then a great black tail lifted clear of the water and thrashed down again. More spray flew. The water became a chaos of flying foam and shattered sunlight. And this time when the Hunter with the notched fin turned to circle the capelin, it had a young one swimming beside it, its small fin just keeping up with the big one.

On and on the Hunters circled dived then surfaced again, taking their fill of the prey. Then suddenly they vanished.

Holding his breath, Torak scanned the Sea. They could be anywhere. They could be right beneath the skinboat . . .

A throaty 'kwss.h.!.+' behind him and a jet of spray drenched the boat from prow to stern. And there was the one with the notched fin, so close that Torak could have reached out and touched the enormous blunt-nosed head black on top and white underneath, with an oval patch of white behind the eye. For a moment the huge jaws gaped, and Torak saw sharp white teeth longer than his middle finger. For a moment a dark, s.h.i.+ning eye met his. Then the Hunter arched its gleaming back and dived.

He braced himself, but it didn't come again. All that remained of the hunt were the gulls squabbling over sc.r.a.ps, and a glitter of silver fish-scales drifting down through the green water.

Bale bowed to the Sea where the Hunters had been, then took up his paddle and moved off. The others followed in silence.

Only after they were well clear of the hunting ground did Detlan turn to Torak. 'So now you've seen them,' he said.

Torak was silent for a moment. 'They hunt in a pack,' he said. 'Like wolves.'

Detlan scowled. 'The Hunters are like no Forest creature you've ever seen. They're the fastest creatures in the Sea. And the cleverest. And the deadliest.' He swallowed. 'A single Hunter can make a whirlpool that can sink the biggest skinboat. One flick of his tail can snap a man's backbone like a capelin's.'

Torak glanced over his shoulder. 'Do they hunt people?'

'Not unless we hunt them.'

'And do you?'

Detlan glared at him. 'Of course not! The Hunters are sacred to the Sea Mother! Besides,' he added, 'they always avenge harm done to their own.' His heavy face became thoughtful. 'There's a story that once, before the Great Wave, a boy from the Cormorant Clan caused the death of a young Hunter. He didn't mean to do it, it was an accident; the Hunter had become tangled in the boy's seal net, and he'd harpooned it before he could see what it was.' He shook his head. 'The boy was so terrified that he never went out in a skinboat again. All his life his whole life he stayed on the sh.o.r.e with the women. But many winters later, when he was an old, old man, he was seized with such a longing to be once more on the Sea that he told his son to take him out in his skinboat.' Detlan licked his lips. 'The Hunters were waiting for them. They were never seen again.'

Torak thought about that. 'But he hadn't meant to kill the young one. Was there no way he could have appeased them?'

Again Detlan shook his head, and after that they didn't speak for a long time.

The wind dropped and they entered a fog bank. Bale and Asrif disappeared. Detlan's paddle cut noiselessly through the water.

A barren rock slid by to Torak's right, with a gull perched on top.

'There,' said Detlan with a nod. 'That's the Rock.'

Somewhere in the fog, Asrif sn.i.g.g.e.red. 'Soon that'll be you, Forest boy.'

Torak set his teeth, determined not to give them the satisfaction of seeing him flinch; but inside, his spirits quailed. The Rock was scarcely bigger than a skinboat, and even at its highest point it was no taller than he was. One big wave would wash him into the Sea. He couldn't imagine surviving on it for a day, let alone a whole moon.

On they went through the fog. Torak felt it settle on his skin, beading his strange new clothes with damp.

Up ahead, something bobbed in the water.

He blinked.

It was gone.

No there it was again, bobbing up beside him. A head like a dog's: a grey dog with a blunt, whiskered muzzle and large, inquisitive black eyes.

Detlan saw it and smiled. 'Bale! Asrif!' he called. 'The guardian has come to show us the way home!'

The seal rolled over, showing a pale, spotted belly. Then it flipped round, scratched its muzzle with one hand-like flipper, shut its nostrils tight, and sank below the surface, where it swam alongside the skinboats.

So that's a seal, thought Torak. He thought it an odd blend of ungainliness and sleek beauty.

The guardian led them well, and the fog cleared as abruptly as it had descended. Suddenly they were out in sunlight again.

'We're home,' said Detlan. Laughing, he lifted his paddle high, scattering droplets.

Torak gasped. Before him lay an island like none he'd ever seen.

Three jagged peaks reared straight out of the Sea. There was no Forest. Just mountains and Sea. The mountains were almost sheer, their grim flanks speckled with seabirds and veined with waterfalls that cascaded from patches of ice mantling their shoulders. Only at their feet could Torak see a swathe of green and below that, a wide, curving bay with a slash of sand stained pink by the setting sun.

Smoke rose from a cl.u.s.ter of humped grey shelters on the sand. Beside each shelter stood a rack on which were laid several skinboats. Below them on the beach, Torak saw that two saplings had been planted, and lashed together to form an arch. The saplings were bright scarlet. Uneasily he wondered what they were for.

From across the water came the murmur of voices and the clamour of birds. With a shock he saw that the cliffs were alive with seabirds: thousands of them wheeling, crammed onto ledges. The shelters of the Seals, too, seemed precarious and cramped. He couldn't imagine how people could live like this: caught on a narrow strip of land between mountain and Sea.

'The Seal Islands,' said Bale, bringing his skinboat alongside Detlan's. There was no mistaking the pride in his voice.

'How many islands are there?' said Torak. He could only see one.

Bale looked at him suspiciously. 'This, and two smaller ones to the north. The Cormorant and the Kelp clans live on those, but this this is the Seals' home. It's the biggest, which is why the whole group takes its name. The biggest and the best.'

Of course, thought Torak sourly. Everything the Seals did had to be the best.

But as they drew nearer, he forgot about that. There seemed to be something very wrong with the bay. Its waters were deep crimson: too deep to be coloured only by the setting sun.

Then he caught a familiar, salty-sweet stink, very strong in the windless air. It couldn't be . . .

It was.

The Bay of Seals was full of blood.

EIGHTEEN.

The clamour of seagulls dinned in Torak's ears, and the smell of blood caught at his throat.

He saw children paddling in foaming red shallows, and women was.h.i.+ng hide in crimson water. Men moved like shadows before a leaping fire, piling huge slabs of meat beside the sapling arch. Limbs, hands, faces: all were stained scarlet, like people in a dream.

'Someone's made a big kill,' said Asrif.