Viper's Daughter Read online

  ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘She will be, I sent her off to pick juniper berries.’ Turning a piece of bone in his long pale fingers, he studied it intently. ‘Where’s Torak?’

  ‘On the ridge with Fin-Kedinn. How do you decide what you’re going to carve?’

  ‘I don’t. I look at this bone and I say, “What’s inside you?” and it tells me. “Ah!” I say. “So that’s what you are!”’ He smiled at her through his cobwebby white hair.

  ‘So what’s it telling you?’

  ‘It’s going to be a seal.’

  They’d been back in the Forest for over a moon. Shamik had chosen to live with the Raven Clan and now followed Dark like a shadow. Renn and Torak were camped in the next valley, which was as near as they could get and still be with the wolves.

  It had been the best autumn anyone could remember. The Ravens had gathered sacks of acorns and hazelnuts, and the cubs had eaten so many blackberries their muzzles turned purple. Torak’s shoulder had healed. So had the burns on Renn’s feet.

  She was still trying to make friends with her new bow. Made of driftwood and whale bone bound with walrus sinew, it was shorter and stiffer than she liked. She was keener on her White Fox arrows, which were tipped with black flint and fletched with snow owl feathers for silent flight.

  ‘Did you see that green ring around the moon last night?’ said Dark.

  She nodded.

  ‘Someone in the Boar Clan saw a long-tailed star. Bad weather on the way, I think.’

  ‘My smoke-reading told me the same thing. And Torak says Wolf sensed something bad coming from the Up.’

  Frowning, Dark fingered the mammut-hair wristband she’d given him. Tanugeak had given it to her with a supply of mammut ash in a gutskin pouch. This made Renn faintly uneasy. Why had Tanugeak felt she needed it? What did she fear was coming?

  Dark had resumed carving. The seal lifted its tiny snout as it powered through an invisible Sea, and Dark was cleverly using the bone’s blotchiness to suggest mottled hide.

  Renn said, ‘Do you really think it’s just bad weather on the way?’

  ‘I’m not sure. But I’m glad you and Torak aren’t camped far off. I think it’s going to be a tough winter.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Renn. ‘Yes, that must be it.’

  Fin-Kedinn had asked Torak to help him dig pitfalls on the ridge.

  After digging three, they’d moved further along and were setting snares. To mask their scent from the prey, they rubbed their hands with juniper berries from a bush near the hares’ run, and handled the horsehair twine as little as possible. They took stakes from the same bush and smeared the cut ends with mud.

  With a twinge of concern, Torak noticed that Fin-Kedinn’s limp was worse, the lines at the sides of his mouth more deeply etched. Torak said, ‘We don’t have to do any more today.’

  Fin-Kedinn nodded, but went on trimming a stake.

  It was the Blackthorn Moon, when yellow birch leaves light up the Forest floor like little suns. In the mornings the valleys were filled with mist, and spiders’ webs glittered in the bracken. Squirrels were busy hoarding food, while boars, jays and woodpigeons were simply enjoying the feast.

  After the Moon of Red Willow the sun would go to sleep in its cave and it would be the Moon of Long Dark. Torak liked winter. Tracking was easier in snow, and he liked the feel of the sleeping Forest, when only firs and pines remained awake.

  Fin-Kedinn planted the stake and positioned the horsehair loop. ‘The signs are it’ll be a hard winter.’

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Torak.

  His foster father rose, leaning on his staff, and fixed him with his vivid blue gaze. ‘Best if you and Renn stay close to the clan. Yes?’

  Torak blinked. ‘You think it’ll be that bad?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I’d prefer you to stay close.’

  To his surprise, Torak discovered that he no longer minded how close they camped to the Ravens. The arguments he used to have with Renn now seemed trivial. What did it matter where they camped? What mattered was that they were together.

  He nodded. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I think that would be best.’

  Torak wasn’t back when Renn returned to camp, so she went into their shelter and took a nap.

  She woke some time later. It wasn’t quite dusk and the wolves were still asleep. Wolf lay snoring beside a mound of slumbering cubs. Renn stepped over a well-chewed bone and trod on Darkfur’s paw by mistake; they exchanged mute apologies.

  A grey owl was roosting in an oak tree at the edge of camp. Cross-legged on the same branch sat Seshru the Viper Mage.

  ‘You,’ Renn said blankly.

  Her mother’s beautiful black mouth curved in a smile. ‘Me.’

  This time, Renn knew she was dreaming. But she didn’t know how to wake up.

  Seshru’s hair was a river of darkness. The pupils of her eyes were vertical slits, like those of a snake. ‘You’ve been doing Magecraft,’ she mocked. ‘Can this mean you’ve accepted that we’re not so very different?’

  ‘No,’ said Renn. ‘I have your marrow, I can’t change that. How I use my skill is up to me.’

  With fluid grace Seshru unwound herself and slid down to a lower branch that brought her face to face with Renn. ‘But you still tell lies.’ Her gaze flicked upwards, and a viper slithered down the trunk and coiled around her shoulders. ‘You lied to the Narwals about your brother.’

  ‘Half-brother.’

  ‘You told them he’d gone hunting.’

  ‘I couldn’t tell them he’d died. And they’d never have believed us if we’d told them he was an ice demon.’

  ‘How do you know he died? You never saw the body.’

  ‘He was trampled by a mammut. We heard it.’

  Seshru laughed. ‘You didn’t see it!’ Plucking the viper from her throat, she drew her knife and languidly sliced it in two.

  ‘But he’s dead, I know he is!’

  Both ends of the snake were wriggling, flecking Seshru’s beautiful face with blood. Now they were two vipers. Smiling, she chopped them in pieces, which also became snakes: a seething, hissing mass rising and whirling around her. ‘I told you before,’ she said, laughing. ‘It isn’t over!’

  Her laughter was ringing in Renn’s ears when she woke up.

  She found Torak and Fin-Kedinn coming down the ridge. They hadn’t seen her, and as she watched them walking gravely side by side her heart tightened with love and worry for them both.

  The encounter with her mother had left her shaken. She couldn’t work out what it meant.

  If it means anything, she reminded herself. If it isn’t merely another of her tricks.

  She decided to say nothing about it to Torak. When they’d left the Far North she had promised herself that she would have no more secrets from him – but this was different. The Viper Mage was dead. So was Naiginn. She wouldn’t let Seshru poison their lives with lies.

  The following afternoon Torak lifted a corner of the firepit to see if the roe buck was cooked. Not yet.

  That morning he and Renn had dug a trench and lined it with stones, piled it with logs and woken a fire. Once the embers had collapsed to ash, they’d dug them out and laid the carcass on the bed of hot stones, piling more hot stones on top, followed by juniper branches and mud.

  While Renn was off gathering mushrooms, Torak had scraped the buck’s skin and hung it on a branch out of reach of the wolves. He’d washed the guts and stuffed them with a mix of blood, fat, chopped heart and liver, then tucked the sausages into the firepit. Tomorrow they would share what was left with the Ravens.

  Dusk fell. Torak woke another fire and sat down to wait for Renn.

  Beyond the firelight a squirrel buried an acorn, patted earth in place, then scampered off. Rip and Rek roosted in an oak with their beaks under their wings. The wolves woke. Yawning and stretching, they padded about, greeting each other with swinging tails and snuffly licks.

  Torak watched the stars through the
oak’s branches. A star shot across the sky and faded like a spark. The others were flickering: that meant a storm on the way. Among them he made out the Great Auroch.

  The Great Auroch was the most powerful demon in the Otherworld. In the First Winter it escaped, and the World Spirit fought a terrible battle and flung it burning from the sky. The wind scattered its ashes: little seeds of evil all over the world. Every autumn the Great Auroch rose again. As winter came on it rose higher, glaring at the Forest with its bloodshot red eye – and demons grew stronger…

  Renn returned with a birch-bark pail full of puffballs. Sitting beside him, she craned her neck at the sky. ‘Do you ever think about when you were flying?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  She looked at him. ‘Were you frightened?’

  ‘Yes. But it was amazing too. I miss it.’

  The First Tree appeared: immense, slow bursts of green light rippling across the sky.

  ‘It’s bright tonight,’ said Renn.

  Torak put his arm around her. It always comforted him to see the First Tree protecting the Forest.

  Wolf lifted his muzzle and howled a welcome to the night. Darkfur joined in, then Pebble, then the cubs’ wobbly yowls. Torak put his hands to his mouth and howled with them, thanking the Forest for keeping them safe, and wishing the wolves a good hunt.

  Hungry, he went to inspect the firepit.

  ‘You move differently in the Forest,’ said Renn.

  ‘Do I?’

  ‘More relaxed. Like a wolf.’

  ‘It’s because I’m under trees. I didn’t like those huge skies in the Far North.’ With a piece of antler he raised a corner of baked mud and breathed a mouthwatering smell of venison. ‘Good, I think it’s—’

  ‘Have you forgiven me?’ Renn said suddenly.

  He glanced at her. ‘What for?’

  ‘For leaving.’

  ‘Of course I have.’

  ‘Is that the truth?’

  He went to her and pulled her to her feet. ‘I was angry with you, but not any more. Although – you have to promise me one thing. Promise you’ll never, ever—’

  ‘I promise.’

  ‘Not good enough, you’ve got to say it out loud.’

  ‘I promise I’ll never ever leave you – without telling you why—’

  ‘No!’ He was grinning. ‘Promise never to leave!’

  In the gloom her white teeth flashed. ‘I promise never to leave.’ Rising on tiptoe, she kissed him. He kissed her harder. After a while they drew apart.

  ‘Let’s eat,’ said Torak. ‘But remember, all you get is a few bones because you’re only a half-man. And you have to walk three steps behind me, and don’t—’

  He didn’t get any further because she was clobbering him and he was laughing and shielding his head with his arms.

  Wolf could hear Tall Tailless and the pack-sister yip-and-yowling, which was their way of laughing. Satisfied that all was well, Wolf left the older cub watching the young ones and the taillesses, and he and his mate loped off to hunt.

  In the Up, the Tree of Light was singing. Wolf caught the gleam of his mate’s eyes in the Dark and the scent of prey on the wind. This was good: it was how it should be.

  After a few failed hunts, they killed a young elk and ate till their bellies were taut. Then they trotted back to the Den and sicked it up, and the cubs gobbled the half-chewed meat and fell asleep.

  The taillesses were already in their Den. Whatever had been wrong between them was now right. Taillesses were very complicated and much of what they did was a mystery. Wolf didn’t understand why the pack-sister had left, but Tall Tailless had forgiven her, so Wolf had too.

  It was enough that the pack was together again: that no one had been injured in the hunt; that everyone had eaten their fill. Putting up his muzzle, Wolf howled his happiness to the Forest and to the swaying, singing Tree of Light.

  It was good. It was how things should be.

  Viper’s Daughter is the seventh book in the classic series which began with Wolf Brother. The eighth book, Skin Taker, will be published in 2021.

  The world of Torak and Renn is that of six thousand years ago: after the Ice Age, but before farming spread to north-west Europe, when the land was one vast Forest.

  The people looked like you or me, but their way of life was very different. They lived in small clans, some staying at a campsite for a few days or moons, others staying put all year round. They didn’t have writing, metals or the wheel – but they didn’t need them. They were superb survivors. They knew all about the animals, trees, plants and rocks around them. When they wanted something they knew where to find it, or how to make it.

  Like the previous books in the series, Viper’s Daughter takes place in northern Scandinavia. The wildlife which Torak and Renn encounter on their adventures is appropriate to the region, as are the seasonal fluctuations in the hours of daylight. However I’ve changed mountains, rivers and coastlines to suit the stories, which means that you won’t find the specific topography of the Far North or the Forest in a modern atlas.

  When I finished Chronicles of Ancient Darkness, I was convinced that I would never write a sequel. But the odd thing was that Torak, Renn and Wolf never entirely went away. A few years ago I started wondering what happened to them after the end of the last book. By chance, I’d booked a short break in north Norway. As I tramped through the snowy forest, ideas began to spark; and that night I saw the northern lights pointing north…

  To research the story I travelled to the remote Chukotka Peninsula of far eastern Siberia: it’s bigger than France, with a population of just a few thousand, and no roads. From there I journeyed by ice-breaker through the Bering Strait to Wrangel Island, the last known refuge of the woolly mammoth. The island was once part of Beringia, the land which bridged Asia and America; and as Wrangel wasn’t glaciated, it hasn’t changed much since then. I was surprised to find luxuriant vegetation rich in berries and mushrooms. We also came upon a mammoth tusk half-buried in a dry riverbed.

  Back in the early 2000s when I began the series, I wasn’t aware that mammoths had survived on Wrangel Island until long after Torak and Renn’s time. Nor did I know that although the Wrangel mammoths were smaller than their mainland forebears, remains of larger mammoths from about six thousand years ago had been unearthed on the Pribilof Islands. For these reasons I’ve decided that it isn’t too much of a stretch for Torak, Renn and Wolf to encounter mammoths in Viper’s Daughter.

  When we reached Wrangel Island, we found polar bear tracks on every beach we explored – and often we found the bears themselves. Like Torak, I’ve sat in a small boat (in my case a Zodiac) and glanced up to see a polar bear staring down at me from a clifftop. I’ve seen one rise from its hiding-place on the shore where I was standing and amble into the sea; and many times I’ve found it hard to distinguish between driftwood, waves and bears. Nor did I make up Torak’s idea of warding them off by imitating the sound of walrus tusks striking rocks. Russian scientists on Wrangel devised this trick, which has worked so well that in forty years they’ve never had to shoot a bear.

  Like Torak and Renn, I’ve seen a snowy owl hovering perfectly still in winds so strong I could hardly stand. I’ve paddled under cliffs thronged with seabirds, and got close to snow geese, musk-oxen, walruses and bearded seals. In the Bering Strait I’ve seen whales in huge numbers, and like Renn I’ve had a near-miss with a humpback whale. I was on the deck of the ship and the whale surfaced so close to the prow where I was standing that I feared we’d hurt it. Luckily we didn’t, but for one unforgettable moment its brown eye met mine.

  I didn’t make up the island of birds either. In the Bering Strait we came upon a vast ‘island’ of short-tailed shearwaters feeding on krill churned up by a pod of whales hunting beneath. The island comprised many thousands of tiny voiceless birds, and no one on board, including our guides, had ever seen anything like it. We all felt privileged to watch.

  I got ideas for the Narwal Clan from
the traditional ways of the Chukchi of Chukotka, who split walrus hides (which are about 6 cm thick) to make their beautiful skinboats, and hunted geese with slingstones (bolas). They also used to give their children the toughest of upbringings so that they would survive the rigours of the Arctic. Like Torak, I’ve munched tangy roseroot and glossy black smoked whale meat. But I gave quiviak (as it’s usually spelt) a miss when I came across it in Greenland.

  Waigo was inspired by a haunting visit to the abandoned Eskimo1 village of Naukan at Cape Dezhnev, where I climbed steep green hills crowned with towering whale-jaw arches and watched sea-fog rolling in. Many other details, such as Naiginn’s halibut hook, and the trick of scoring signs on the undersides of bracket mushrooms, I picked up from the Haida and Tlingit people on a visit to Alaska and the islands of Haida Gwaii in British Columbia.

  In depicting the volcanic landscape of the Far North, I’ve drawn on my travels in Iceland and the Aeolian Islands off Sicily, where I explored Vulcano’s hissing yellow fumaroles and climbed the ever-active volcano of Stromboli. It was in Chukotka, while I was nosing about downstream of a hot spring wafting sulphurous steam, that I spotted several ready-cooked fish drifting past.

  To help me picture the ice cave, I ventured into a huge one beneath the Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau, Alaska. The cave mouth was dangerously unstable and I had to wait for a sign from my guide before darting inside. I couldn’t have evoked the roar of the torrent, the vast weight of the glacier overhead, or that otherworldly blue cavern if I hadn’t experienced it myself.

  As for wolves, I’ve been a patron of the UK Wolf Conservation Trust since Wolf Brother came out in 2004, until it closed to the public and the wolves went into well-deserved retirement, in 2018. Over the years I’ve cherished the wolves’ foibles and their different characters, which continue to provide inspiration for the new books.

  *

  Now I need to thank some people, including the crews and guides of: the Professor Khromov (aka The Spirit of Enderby), on which I journeyed from Anadyr to Wrangel Island in 2015; the Island Roamer, on which I explored Haida Gwaii; and the Wilderness Adventurer in Alaska, on which I spent time in Alaska’s Inside Passage and Glacier Bay National Park. It’s been a joy to work once more with the two artists who made the original Chronicles of Ancient Darkness books so beautiful, and I want to thank Geoff Taylor for his gorgeously evocative chapter illustrations and endpaper maps, and John Fordham for his stunning cover design.