Ghost Hunter Page 2

  The Boars had camped on the River Tumblerock, less than a daywalk north of the Ravens, but the fog made Renn's progress slow. As she stumbled through it, she thought of gray moths and Eostra the Masked One. Every falling leaf made her jump. She regretted having declined the Boar Clan Leader's offer to accompany her.

  Her tired mind went in circles. How to stop the

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  gray moths? How to fight the shadow sickness? What if Saeunn was too old and weak to cope, and everything came down to her?

  And like a dark current beneath it all was the gnawing anxiety about Torak.

  For days she'd been reading the embers, and last night she'd placed a dream-stave under her sleeping-sack: a stick of rowan wound with a lock of his hair. Now she wished she hadn't. Everything pointed the same way. She prayed that she'd gotten it wrong.

  The fog was gone by midafternoon, and she paused for a salmon cake under a beech tree. She was opening her food pouch when the zigzag tattoos on her wrists began to prickle. Quietly, she closed the pouch and examined the tree.

  On the other side, someone had gouged a strange, spiky mark in the trunk. It was about a hand wide, and it had been hacked--not carved but hacked --into the smooth silver bark.

  Renn had never seen anything like it. It resembled a huge bird with outstretched wings. Or a mountain.

  And it was fresh. Tree-blood oozed from the wounds. Whoever had done this had acted from hatred and a desire to inflict pain.

  Drawing her knife, Renn scanned the Forest. The light was beginning to fail. Shadows were gathering under the trees.

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  She knew of only one creature who could treat another with such savagery. A tokoroth. A demon in the body of a child.

  She touched the scar on the back of her hand, where one had bitten her two summers before. She pictured filthy, matted hair. Vicious teeth and claws. She fancied she saw branches stir, heard a cackling laugh as the creature leaped from tree to tree.

  There's nothing here, she told herself.

  But she was running up the slope.

  Not far now. Just over the ridge, then I'll be back in the valley of the Ashwater, and it's downhill all the way.

  It was a frosty night when she reached the Raven camp. Her clan, hunched around the long-fire, greeted her with subdued nods. Nobody asked why she was frightened. Fear hung in the air. The Boar Mage was right: things were worse here too.

  Two young hunters, Sialot and Poi, had fallen sick; they said there were demons in their shadows. All day they'd been gouging strange, spiky marks on everything: earth, wood, even their own flesh. Fin-Kedinn was at the river, making an offering. And Torak was gone. He'd left for the Mountains that morning.

  When she heard this, Renn gave a strangled cry and rushed to her shelter.

  Inside, the Raven Mage was reading the embers.

  "Why didn't you stop him?" cried Renn.

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  Saeunn didn't look up. She sat beneath her elk-hide mantle, feeding slivers of alder bark to the fire, watching how they twisted, straining to catch the hissing of the spirits. "The Mountain of Ghosts," she breathed. "Ah ... yes...."

  Renn flung down her gear and scrambled closer. "The Mountain of Ghosts. Is that the mark I found on the tree?"

  "She has made her lair in the Mountain. She seeks power over the dead. Yes ... this was always her desire."

  Renn thought of Torak making his way through the Forest, not knowing what he was heading into. She started cramming salmon cakes into her food pouch.

  "You would set off at night?" mocked Saeunn. "With the moths and the shadow sickness, and tokoroths waiting in the Forest?"

  Renn paused. "Then at first light."

  "You cannot leave. You're a Mage. You must stay and help your clan."

  "You help them," retorted Renn.

  "I am old," said Saeunn. "Soon I shall seek my death."

  Alarmed, Renn met her flinty gaze. Even while she'd been away, the Raven Mage had declined. Beneath her mottled scalp, her skull looked as fragile as a puff ball: one touch and it would collapse into dust.

  But her mind remained as sharp as a raven's talons.

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  "When I am dead," she declared, "you will be the Raven Mage."

  "No," said Renn.

  "There is no choice."

  "They can find someone else. It happens. People do choose Mages from other clans."

  "Fool of a girl!" spat Saeunn. "I know why you shirk your duty! But do you think that even if he survived this final battle--if he vanquished the Soul-Eater and lived to tell of it--do you think he'd stay with the Ravens? He's a wanderer--it's in his marrow! You will stay, he will leave. This is how it will be!"

  In that moment, Renn hated Saeunn. She wanted to shake those frail shoulders as hard as she could.

  Saeunn read her thoughts and barked a laugh. "You hate me because I tell the truth! But you know it, too. You've read the signs."

  "No," whispered Renn.

  Saeunn grasped her wrist. "Tell Saeunn what you saw."

  The Mage's claws were as light and cold as a bird's, but Renn couldn't pull away. "The--the crystal Forest shatters," she faltered.

  "The shadow returns," added Saeunn.

  "The white guardian wheels across the stars--"

  "--but cannot save the Listener."

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  Renn swallowed. "The Listener lies cold on the Mountain."

  "Ah ..." breathed the Raven Mage. "The embers never lie."

  "They must be wrong!" cried Renn. "I'll prove them wrong!"

  "The embers never lie. Eostra will take him alone. Without you. Without the wolf."

  "She won't!" Renn burst out. "She can't keep us apart, he won't face her alone!"

  "Oh, he will. I've seen it in the embers, I've seen it in the bones, and they tell me--yes, and you know this in your heart--they tell me that the spirit walker will die!"

  After a dreadful night, Renn slid into a dreamless sleep. When she woke, she was horrified to find that the morning was half gone.

  The first snow had fallen, and the white glare made her blink as she emerged, thickheaded and heavy-limbed. Camp was bustling. The clan was taking down the shelters and using the saplings and reindeer-hides to make sleds, while the dogs--who knew what this meant--raced about, eager to get into harness. The Ravens were breaking camp.

  Renn found Fin-Kedinn dismantling his shelter. "Where to?" she said. "And why now?"

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  "East, to the hills. The clans will gather there. They'll be safer near the Deep Forest." He saw her expression and stopped. "You're going after him."

  "Yes." She expected him to try to stop her, but he went on with his work. His face was gray. She could see that he hadn't slept.

  "Why are you breaking camp now?" she said again.

  "I told you. They'll be safer near the Deep Forest."

  "They? But--aren't you going with them?"

  "No. Thull will lead them while I'm gone. Saeunn will counsel him when the clans gather."

  "What?" Renn stared at him. "But--they need you more than ever! You can't leave now!"

  Fin-Kedinn faced her. "Do you think I would leave my people if I wasn't convinced it was the only way? I've thought of little else for days. Now I'm sure."

  "Why? Where are you going?"

  He hesitated. "I need to find the one person who can help Torak. Who can help us all."

  "Who's that?"

  "I can't tell you, Renn." She flinched. "You can't? Or won't?" He didn't reply.

  With a cry, Renn turned her back on him. Everything was happening too fast. First Torak. Now Fin-Kedinn.

  She felt her uncle's hands on her shoulders, gently turning her around. She saw the snow sprinkling the

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  white fur of his parka; the silver hairs threading his dark-red beard.

  "Renn. Look at me. Look at me. I cannot tell you. Because I swore on my souls, I swore, that I would never tell."

  Ice flowers grew on the banks of th
e River Horseleap. The trees sparkled with frost. It was too cold for the Blackthorn Moon. It didn't feel right.

  Renn guessed that as Torak had decided it was too dangerous for her to go with him, he would also try to leave Wolf behind; which meant that he would go first to the resting place, to say good-bye. To save time, she crossed the river and headed up its gentler south bank. It didn't look as if Torak had done the same. At least, she didn't find any tracks.

  She was too worried to be angry with him. He had lived with the burden of his destiny for three winters, and over the last summer, she had watched the dread grow. He never spoke of it, but sometimes, when they were sitting by the fire or playing with the cubs, she saw a tightening around his eyes and mouth, and knew he was thinking of what lay ahead.

  If only he didn't feel that he had to do everything alone.

  She'd set out so late that she wasn't even near the

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  resting place when she had to start looking for a campsite. She ground her teeth in frustration. Torak had a day's lead on her, and he walked fast. A day's lead was all it would take.

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  FOUR

  Torak had wasted the whole morning seeking a place to cross the Horseleap. The north bank had gotten steeper and steeper as he'd headed upstream, so at last he'd been forced to double back.

  He was exasperated. He'd grown up in these valleys. How could he have forgotten them so quickly?

  And already, he was missing Wolf. They'd been apart before, but this felt different. He almost hoped that Wolf would seek him out, and he would see that gray shadow loping toward him through the trees.

  Overnight, the Forest had turned white. Torak saw drag marks where a badger had collected bracken for

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  winter bedding; and patches where reindeer had pawed away the snow to get at the lichen beneath.

  The mark on the yew tree shouted at him from ten paces away.

  He wasn't sure what it meant--maybe a mountain with a great bird swooping toward it--but he sensed its intention. I am here, said the Eagle Owl Mage. I am waiting.

  Torak bristled with outrage. The sign had been hacked through the bark and into the sapwood. It was as if Eostra were threatening the Forest itself.

  On impulse, he shook some earthblood from his mother's medicine horn into his palm, and patted it into the tree's wounds. There. The horn was special, made from the World Spirit's antler; maybe the ochre it contained would help the yew to heal.

  It was also a gesture of defiance to the Soul-Eater. Torak did this.

  As he moved off, he heard Darkfur's distant, questioning barks: Where--are you? And far away, Wolf's answering howl: Here! They sounded happy. Torak told himself he'd done the right thing in leaving them.

  But he still missed Wolf.

  Wolf had slept through the Light, but as the Dark came on, he set off to hunt. He left his mate teaching the cubs to avoid auroch horns. She'd found an old one, and was

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  tossing it up and down; the cubs were doing the rest, by leaping for it and getting biffed on the nose.

  As Wolf trotted through the Forest, he caught the scents of prey gorging on nuts and mushrooms. At a spruce tree where a reindeer had scratched its head-branches, he rose on his hind legs and chewed the delicious, bloody tatters.

  But some things troubled him.

  It was so cold that the ground was stone beneath his pads, and even the trees were shivering. This cold felt odd. Dangerous.

  And Tall Tailless was hiding something. He'd told Wolf that he was going hunting, but Wolf had sensed that he wasn't after prey. So why hadn't Tall Tailless told him? How could he hide things from his own pack-brother?

  Worst of all, the Stone-Faced One had appeared to Wolf in his sleep. Through the hissing Dark she had come, and terror had seized him by the scruff. Her yowl had bitten his ears like splintered bone. Her smell was the smell of Not-Breath. Her terrible face was stiff: her eyes were not eyes but holes, and her muzzle never ever moved. As Wolf cowered before her, she had plunged her forepaw into the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot-- and taken it out unbitten.

  When he'd woken up, she was gone. But now, as Wolf followed the scent of a roebuck through the willowherb, he wondered if this was why Tall Tailless had left. Was he

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  hunting the Stone-Faced One?

  If that were true, he couldn't do it without his pack-brother. And yet--how could Wolf go with him, when he had to look after the cubs?

  As Wolf was trying to get his jaws around this, a bad scent hit his nose. He caught the smells of the Stone-Faced One, and a fierce hunger to kill. And the smell of owl.

  Wolf's fur stood on end.

  He forgot about the roebuck and set off in pursuit.

  It was the time when the light begins to turn: the clans called it the demon time.

  Rip and Rek had been unsettled for a while, but Torak couldn't work out why. Maybe, like him, they were missing Renn and Wolf. Maybe it was this strange, windless cold.

  Hungry, he paused on the cliffs above the river, woke up a small fire, and chewed a slip of dried horse meat. The banks were still too steep to climb down, and he'd had to backtrack almost two-thirds of the way to the resting place. He wasn't proud of himself.

  He tossed a few crumbs in the ferns for Rip and Rek, but to his surprise, they ignored them. Instead, they flew to the top of a pine tree and gave long, penetrating calls: rap-rap-rap. Intruder.

  Torak made a quick search, but found nothing.

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  With agitated caws, Rip and Rek flew away.

  When one has ravens for companions, it's wise to heed their warnings. Drawing his knife, Torak made a second, more careful search.

  At the foot of a rocky outcrop a short distance from the fire, he found an owl pellet. It was huge: longer than his hand and three times as thick as his thumb. Peering, but not wanting to touch, he saw that it was made of packed fur and bones, mostly weasel and hare. No wonder the ravens had fled. Like many creatures, they, too, feared the eagle owl.

  Torak pictured the great bird alighting with its prey on the rocks above his head: ripping the carcass to shreds and gulping it down, then spewing out the pellet of bones.

  Rising to his feet, he scanned the rocks above.

  One moment he was gazing at mottled granite; the next, the eagle owl raised its tufted ears and hissed at him.

  It was so close that he could have touched it. In one frozen heartbeat, he took in the powerful talons and the cruel, curving beak. He stared into the unblinking orange glare. He recoiled. Its pupils were black pits of nothingness. Nothing except the urge to destroy.

  The owl gave a piercing cry, spread its enormous wings, and flew away, forcing Torak to duck.

  He watched the owl disappear into the Forest. His

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  palms were clammy with sweat.

  Swiftly, he put the fire back to sleep and gathered his gear.

  Farther on, he found a pine marten's mangled remains. The owl had not eaten. It had killed for pleasure.

  He saw one of its wing-feathers, barred with tawny and black, and coated with an unclean dust that smelled of rottenness. He'd found one just like it on the day the Soul-Eaters had taken Wolf.

  That was when it hit him.

  The owl had flown west.

  Toward the resting place.

  Toward the cubs.

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  [Image: Shadow.]

  FIVE

  Torak couldn't reach the resting place for the brambles.

  He slashed at them with his knife, he tore at them with his hands. He couldn't see what was happening, but he heard the ravens' strident caws and the snarls of a furious wolf. Darkfur was defending the cubs alone. Wolf was still out hunting.

  At last Torak tore free and stumbled into the resting place. He saw Pebble cowering under a juniper bush at the edge of the cliff; Shadow lying by the ash tree at the far end: a crumpled heap of black fur. He saw Rip and Rek mobbing the eagle owl as it
swooped to snatch the

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  fallen cub. He saw Darkfur springing to the defense.

  Yanking his axe from his belt, Torak raced to help her. The owl tilted its wings and soared out of reach. Torak caught a blast of fetid air as it swept back toward him. He flung up his arm. The owl struck him a dizzying blow on the forehead. As he fell to his knees, he saw it swoop with outstretched talons at Pebble's hiding-place.

  Dashing the blood from his eyes, Torak struggled to his feet and ran to fend it off. He was almost there when Darkfur made a desperate leap to save her cub. The owl twisted with blinding speed, and the she-wolf's jaws clashed empty air. To Torak's horror, Darkfur landed at the very edge of the cliff. Frantically, she scrabbled. Her claws raked frozen earth. She fell.

  Torak saw her hit the water far below. She went under, came up struggling. The river was too strong. She went under again.

  The owl was harrying Pebble's juniper bush, the ravens beating it back. Shouting and swinging his axe, Torak threw himself into the attack. From the corner of his eye, he saw Wolf burst from the Forest and leap at the marauder. The owl wheeled, evading axe and fang and claw. It kept coming back. It had killed before and it meant to kill again.

  Torak glimpsed Pebble shaking with terror beneath the juniper bush. If he stayed hidden, he had a chance, but in the open ...

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  Torak barked a command, Stay, but at that moment, Pebble's courage broke. He bolted from his hiding-place and made for the brambles. The owl snatched him in its talons and soared into the sky.

  Torak threw down his axe and unslung his quiver and bow. His fingers were slippery with blood--he couldn't get the arrow nocked.

  With awesome power, the owl rose out of range, Pebble hanging limp in its talons. Mockingly, it circled. Then, in a wide, lazy arc, it turned and headed south.

  Rip and Rek sped after it with raucous cries.

  Wolf disappeared over the edge of the cliff.

  As Torak stood swaying, he saw his pack-brother skitter down the rocks and run along the bank, frantically sniffing for his mate. Then, finding no scent, Wolf raced over a fallen pine that spanned the river, and vanished into the Forest, in a futile effort to save his cub.

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  SIX

  The eagle owl was taunting Wolf. Dangling the cub from its talons, it flew back to make sure that he was following, then glided out of reach. Wolf's paws scarcely touched the ground as he raced after it.