Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
Chapter 30 : The prey soon sensed that he wasn't hunting them, and relaxed. An elk munched will

The prey soon sensed that he wasn't hunting them, and relaxed. An elk munched willowherb as he pa.s.sed. Forest horses flicked up their tails and cantered into the trees, then turned to stare till he was gone. Two boar sows and their fat, fluffy piglets raised their snouts to watch him go by.

The new leaves were still crinkled from the bud, and letting in plenty of sunlight. He made good speed. Like all Forest people he travelled light, carrying only what he needed for hunting, fire-making and sleep.

All his life he'd wandered the Forest with Fa, pitching camp for a night or so, then moving on. Always moving on. That had been the hardest part about living with the Ravens. They only broke camp every three or four moons.

And there were so many of them! Twenty-eight men, women, and children. And babies. Until last winter, Torak had never even seen one of those. 'Why can't it walk?' he'd asked Renn. 'What does it do all day?' She'd laughed so much she'd fallen over.

At the time, that had made him cross. Now it made him miss them all the more.

He left the valley of the Widewater south of the Thunder Falls, and headed east into the next valley. There he had a brief encounter with two Willow Clan hunters in dugout canoes. To his relief they were in a hurry, and didn't ask where he was going, pausing only to give him a warning before heading downriver.

'A sick man escaped from our camp last night,' said one. 'If you hear howling, run. He doesn't know he's a man any more.'

The other shook his head grimly. 'This sickness. Where did it come from? It's as if the very breath of summer is poisoned.'

As mid-afternoon wore on, Torak began to feel watched.

Many times he stopped to listen, but he never heard anyone, and whenever he doubled back, he found nothing. And yet the follower was there. He could sense it. As the shadows lengthened, he pictured madmen roaming the Forest; small malevolent creatures with sharp claws and faces of leaves.

He pitched camp near a noisy river where the damselflies were blue darts of light, and the midges nearly ate him alive until he rubbed himself with wormwood juice.

It was the first time in six moons that he'd slept on his own in the Forest, and he took care to choose the right spot. Flat ground, high enough above the river to avoid flash floods, and away from ant-nests and obvious prey trails; and no overhanging deadwood or storm-weakened trees to fall on him in the night.

After the Ravens' reindeer-hide shelters, he was keen to get back to the way he'd lived with Fa, so he built a shelter of living trees. He found three beech saplings and bent them inwards, las.h.i.+ng them together with pine root to make a snug sleeping-s.p.a.ce. This he thatched with fallen branches, and covered with leafmould, weighing that down with more branches. In the morning he would untie the saplings, and they would spring back unharmed.

After making a mattress of last autumn's crunchy beech mast, he dragged his gear inside. The shelter had a rich, earthy tang. 'A good smell,' he said out loud. His voice sounded uneasy and forced.

It was a warm night with a southerly breeze, so he made only a small fire, walling it in with stones to stop it escaping into the Forest, and waking it up with his strike-fire and a handful of birch-bark tinder.

He remembered nights with Fa when they'd sat over the embers, wondering about this mysterious, life-giving creature who was such a good friend to the clans. What did the fire dream of as it slept inside the trees? Where did it go when it died?

For the first time, too, he thought of the bone kin he might soon encounter. Maybe with the Red Deer Clan he would feel that he belonged. After all, if things had been different, he could have been Red Deer. When he was born, his mother could have named him for her own clan, rather than Fa's; and then he would have grown up in the Deep Forest, and Fa might not have been killed, and he would never have met Wolf . . .

It was too much to think about. He went off to find food.

He dug up some sweet orchid roots and baked them in the embers, and made a hot mash of goosefoot leaves flavoured with crow garlic. It tasted good, but he wasn't hungry. He decided to keep it for daymeal.

He was hanging his cooking-skin in a tree out of the way of foragers, when a cry echoed through the Forest.

He froze.

It was not the yowl of a vixen, or a lynx seeking a mate. It was a man. Or something that had once been a man. Far in the west, by the sound of it.

With a creeping sense of dread, Torak watched the light between the trees begin to fail. Midsummer was not far off, so the night would be brief. Just long enough for his spirits to falter.

Dusk deepened, and still the Forest rang with the chatter of thrushes and the raucous laughter of woodp.e.c.k.e.rs. The birds would sing all night. He was glad of the company.

He thought of the Ravens sitting round their long-fire. The smell of woodsmoke and baked salmon; Oslak's rumbling laugh . . .

The very breath of summer is poisoned.

Quickly he unrolled his sleeping-sack, crawled in and laid his weapons by his side. A moment ago he'd been wide awake. Now he was exhausted.

He slept.

Shrill laughter tore through his dreams. Hazily he became aware of a loud groaning both familiar and deadly . . .

He was alert in an instant. It was the sound of a falling tree and it was falling his way.

His sleeping-sack was twisted round his legs, he couldn't get free. Wriggling like a caterpillar, he squirmed through the entrance hole. Struggled to his feet hopped fell narrowly missed the fire and threw himself sideways into the ferns just as the tree crashed onto the shelter.

Sparks shot upwards. Dark branches swayed and came to rest.

Torak lay among the ferns: heart pounding, sweat chilling his skin. He'd checked for storm-weakened trees, he knew he had. Besides, there was hardly any wind.

That laughter. Malevolent, yet horribly childlike. It hadn't been only in his dreams.

Not daring to move, he waited till he was sure that nothing else was coming down. Then he went to inspect the ruins of the shelter.

A young ash had fallen across it, killing the three saplings and trapping his gear inside. With luck he could salvage the gear, which by firelight at least appeared undamaged. But if he hadn't woken when he had, he would have been killed.

And yet if the Follower had wanted to kill him, why warn him by laughing? It was as if it was playing with him. Putting him in danger, to see what he would do.

The fire was still burning. With a glowing brand in one hand and his knife in the other, he took a look at the ash tree.

He found axe-marks. Small, crude blows. But effective.

This was odd, though. No tracks on the ground. No sign that someone had braced themselves to hack at the tree.

Again he swept the ground with firelight. Nothing. Maybe he'd missed something, but he didn't think so. The one thing he knew about was tracking.

With his finger he touched the oozing tree-blood. It was thickening. That meant the tree-trunk had been cut some time before, then pushed over while he slept.

He frowned. It's impossible to fell a tree in silence. Why hadn't he heard anything?

Then it came to him. He'd filled his waterskin at the river which had drowned out other sounds.

As he stood there amid the dark and dying trees, he wished Wolf was with him. Nothing would get past Wolf. His ears were so keen that he could hear the clouds pa.s.s. His nose was so sharp that he could smell the breath of a fish.

But Wolf isn't here, Torak told himself savagely. He's far away on the Mountain.

For the first time in six moons, he couldn't howl for his lost friend. He didn't like to think of who or what might answer his call.

It was past middle-night by the time he'd salvaged his gear and built another shelter, and he was numb with fatigue. He was also uneasily aware that he'd caused the deaths of three saplings. He could feel their souls hanging in the air around him: wistful, bewildered; unable to understand why they'd been robbed of their chance of becoming trees.

It's your fault, the older trees seemed to whisper. You bring evil with you . . .

This time, he didn't risk getting into his sleeping-sack. Instead he woke the fire, and sat in his new shelter with the reindeer hide around his shoulders and his axe on his knees. He didn't want sleep. He just wanted dawn to come . . .

He awoke with a start. Again he had that feeling of being watched but this time it was different. There was a smell in the air: hot, strong and familiar, a little like hedge mustard, although his sleep-fuddled mind couldn't place it.

Then he saw the gleam of eyes on the other side of the fire. His hand tightened on his axe. 'Who are you?' he said hoa.r.s.ely.

The creature grunted.

'Who are you?' Torak repeated.

It moved into the light.

Torak tensed.

A boar. An enormous male, fully two paces from snout to tail, and heavier than three st.u.r.dy men. Its large, furry brown ears were p.r.i.c.ked, and its small clever eyes met Torak's warily.

Torak forced himself to stay calm. Boars don't usually attack unless they're wounded or defending their young; but an angry boar can move as fast as a deer, and is invincible.

'I mean you no harm,' he told the boar, knowing it wouldn't understand, but hoping his tone would carry his meaning.

The large ears twitched. Firelight gleamed on its yellow tusks. Then the boar gave an irritable grunt, lowered its ma.s.sive head, and started rooting around in the wreck of the shelter.

All it wanted to do was eat. Summer is a lean time for boars, with last autumn's berries and acorns long gone. No wonder it was busy grubbing up roots, beetles, worms; anything it could find.

The boar took no more notice of Torak, and after a while, he got into his sleeping-sack and curled up, listening to the comforting sound of snuffling. His new companion was gruff and none too friendly, but welcome all the same. Boars have keen senses. While it stayed close, no sick man or malevolent Follower could get near him.

But soon it would be gone.

As Torak stared into the red heart of the embers, he wondered if Fin-Kedinn had been right; if he'd let himself be tricked into leaving the Ravens. Maybe whoever whatever was after him had got him exactly where it wanted. Alone in the Forest.

Whoever it was, they'd been busy in the night.

It was raining when Torak crawled out of the shelter. The boar had gone, the fire was cold, and someone had rolled away the stones and smoothed out the ashes. Someone had taken Torak's arrows had crept inside the shelter while he slept, withdrawn them from the quiver by his head, and planted them in the ash to make a pattern.

Torak recognised it at once. The three-p.r.o.nged mark of the Soul-Eaters.

He went down on one knee and yanked out an arrow.

'All right,' he said aloud as he got to his feet. 'I know you're clever, and I know you're good at sneaking up on me. But you're a coward if you don't come out and face me right now!'

No-one emerged from the dripping undergrowth. 'Coward!' shouted Torak.

The Forest waited.

His voice echoed through the trees.

'What do you want? Come out and face me! What do you want?'

Rain pattered on the leaves and ran silently down his face. His only answer was the rattle of a woodp.e.c.k.e.r far away.

The morning pa.s.sed, and still it rained. Torak liked the rain: it kept him cool, and the midges away. His spirits rose as he crossed two more valleys. The feeling of being watched lessened. He heard no more demented howls.

Maybe that was because the boar was keeping him company. He didn't see it, but he kept finding traces of its presence. Big patches of churned-up earth where it had rooted for food. A muddy wallow beside a much-rubbed oak tree, where it had had a good scratch after taking a bath.

Torak found this rea.s.suring. He had a new friend. He wondered how old the boar was, and if it was the father of the piglets he'd seen the previous day.

As the afternoon wore on, their paths crossed. They drank at the same stream, and rested in the same drowsy glade. Once, as they were both searching for wood-mushrooms, the boar gave a tetchy grunt and chased Torak away, then stamped on the mushroom he'd been about to eat. When Torak went to look, he saw why. It wasn't a wood-mushroom at all, but a poisonous lookalike, as its bruised red flesh showed. In the boar's bad-tempered way, it had been warning him to be more careful.

Next morning it was still raining, and the Forest slumbered beneath a mantle of cloud. But as Torak trudged further east, he realised that it wasn't only the clouds that were shutting out the light. The Forest itself was growing darker.

He was used to the Open Forest, where the trees let in plenty of sun, and the undergrowth is usually fairly light; but now he had reached the hills which guarded the Deep Forest. Towering oaks reared before him with mighty limbs spread wide to ward him back. The undergrowth was taller than he was: dense stands of black yew and poisonous hemlock. The sky was hidden by an impenetrable canopy of leaves.

There had been no sign of the boar all day, and Torak missed him. He began to fear not only what followed him, but what lay ahead.

He thought of the tales his father had told him. In the Deep Forest, Torak, things are different. The trees are more watchful; the clans more suspicious. If you ever venture in, be careful. And remember that in summer, the World Spirit walks in the deep valleys, as a tall man with the antlers of a deer . . .

In the late afternoon, with the rain still falling, Torak paused at a stream to rest. Hanging his gear on a holly tree, he went to refill his waterskin.

In the mud he found fresh tracks. The boar had been here before him, and recently: the tracks were sharp, their dewclaws deeply indented. It was good to know that his friend was close. As he knelt to fill the waterskin, he caught the familiar mustardy scent, and grinned. 'I was wondering where you'd gone.'

On the other side of the stream, the bracken parted and there was the boar.

Something was wrong. The coa.r.s.e brown fur was matted with sweat. The small eyes were dull, and rimmed with red.

Torak let fall the waterskin and backed away.

The boar gave a squeal of rage.

And charged.

NINE.

Torak leapt for the nearest tree as the boar crashed towards him.

Panic lent him strength. He caught at a branch and hauled himself up, swinging his legs out of reach as the tusks gouged the trunk where his foot had been.

The tree shuddered. Torak clawed bark.

Hooking his leg over the branch, he hoisted himself into the fork. He wasn't even two paces above the boar, but he couldn't go any higher, the tree was too spindly. He'd lost his boots, and his feet were slippery with mud; he clutched branches to steady himself. One broke with a crack. The boar threw up its head and glared.

The brown eyes that had been so steady and wise were bulging and bloodshot. Something had happened to turn it into a monster. That reminded him horribly of Oslak.

'But I'm your friend,' he whispered.