Soul Eater - Borders Only Page 2

  -her lipless mouth puckered--"to get in the way.""He's thirteen summers old," said Fin-Kedinn."He has a destiny," the Mage said coldly. "His life is not his own; he must not risk it for a friend! He doesn't understand that, but he will. When he fails to find the wolf, he'll return, and you can punish them both."Fin-Kedinn stared into the embers. "I was going to foster him," he said. "I should have told him. Maybe it would have made a difference. Maybe--he would have asked me for help."Saeunn spat into the fire. "Why trouble yourself? Let him go! Let him go and seek his wolf!"84TENWolf is in the other Now that he goes to in his sleeps. He can lope faster than the fastest deer, and bring down an auroch on his own; and yet, when he wakes up, he's just as hungry as if he hadn't killed at all.This time, he is a cub again. He's cold and wet, and his mother and father and pack-brothers are lying still and Not-Breath in the mud. The Fast Wet did this. It came roaring through while Wolf was exploring on the rise.He puts up his muzzle and howls. On the other side of the Fast Wet, a wolf is coming, coming to rescue him!85Wolf bursts into a frenzied welcome. Then his welcome turns to puzzlement. This is such a strange wolf. Its scent is that of a half-grown male, but it .smells of other creatures, too. It walks on its hind legs, and it has no tail!And yet--it has the light, bright eyes of a wolf; and something in its spirit calls to his. He has found a new pack-brother. A pack-brother who will never abandon him ...Wolf woke with a snap.He was back on the sliding tree, squashed beneath the hated deerhide, jolting over the Bright Soft Cold. He longed for that other Now, in which he was a cub again, being rescued by Tall Tailless.His head ached, and he'd been sick in his sleep, but he couldn't move to lick himself clean. His wounded pad hurt. His trodden-on tail hurt more.Stinkfur came and pushed in another piece of meat--which Wolf ignored. On and on they dragged him, while the Light sank, and the Bright Soft Cold came drifting down from the Up.After a while, Wolf smelled that they'd entered the range of a pack of stranger wolves. That meant danger.The big pale-pelted male went off on his own, and hope leaped in Wolf's heart. Maybe Pale-Pelt would be foolish enough to attack the stranger wolves, and86they would defend themselves, and he would be killed!Much later, Pale-Pelt returned--unharmed. He was smiling his terrible smile, and carrying a small deerhide Den that wriggled and snarled. Wolf smelled the rank fury of a wolverine. A wolverine? What did this mean?But he couldn't hold on to that for long, because he was getting tired again, sliding down into sleep.A great owl hooted--and he woke. Without knowing why, his fur prickled with dread.The owl fell silent. That was worse.Wolf was now fully awake. While he'd slept, the Dark had come, and the sliding tree had stopped. The bad-taillesses were some paces away, crouching around the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot. Wolf sensed that they were waiting for something. Something bad.Around him the strange white land lay windless and still. He smelled a hare nibbling willow buds many lopes away. He heard the tiny scratchings of lemmings in their Dens, and the hiss of the Bright Soft Cold falling, falling.Then through the Dark he heard a tailless approaching. His claws twitched with eagerness. Could it be Tall Tailless, come to rescue him?His hope was swiftly torn to pieces. It wasn't his pack-brother. It was a female whom Wolf hadn't smelled87before. He knew that she was part of the bad pack, for he saw the others rise on their hind legs to wait for her. He felt their dread as she came gliding through the hissing whiteness.She was tall and very thin, and the pale fur of her head hung about her like worms. Her voice was as the rattle of dry bones, and her smell was of Not-Breath.The others greeted her quietly in tailless talk; but although they hid it, Wolf smelled their fear. Even Pale-Pelt was afraid. So was Wolf.Now she turned, and came toward him.He cowered. His very spirit shrank from hers.She came closer. He wanted to look away, but he couldn't. There was something terribly wrong with her face. It was blank as stone, and it didn't move at all, not even a twitch of her muzzle when she spoke. And her eyes were not eyes, but holes.Wolf growled and tried to pull away, but the deerhide held him fast.Now she was leaning over him, and her Not-Breath smell was dragging him down into a black fog of loneliness and loss.Slowly she brought one forepaw close to his muzzle. She was holding something--he couldn't see what--but he caught the scent of that which has lain long in the deep of the earth. Through her pale flesh he glimpsed a gray light, and he knew, with the strange certainty that88came to him sometimes, that what she held bit as fiercely as the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot. Except that it bit cold.His growl became a terrified whimper. He shut his eyes and tried to think of Tall Tailless coming for him through the Bright Soft Cold: coming to rescue him, just as he'd done when Wolf was a cub.89ELEVENInuktiluk's sled hurtled west, carrying Torak and Renn the wrong way. The only sounds were the panting of dogs and the scrape of runners on crusted snow, and an occasional gasp from Renn as they banked on a slope, and leaned in hard to avoid toppling over."You can't watch us all the time," Torak told Inuktiluk when they'd stopped to rest by a wide, frozen lake. "Sooner or later, we'll get away.""Where would you go?" retorted Inuktiluk. "You'd never make it north; you'd never get around the ice river."They stared at him. "What ice river? "90"It's about a sleep from here. No one in the Ice clans has crossed it and lived."Torak set his teeth. "We've crossed an ice river before." ,Inuktiluk snorted. "Not one like this.""Then we'll go around it," said Renn.Inuktiluk threw up his hands. Whistling to his lead dog, he started across the lake. "We cross on foot," he told them. "Walk behind me, and do exactly as I say!"Burning with frustration, they followed--and were soon absorbed in the difficult task of simply staying upright."Keep to the white ice," called Inuktiluk."What's wrong with the gray ice?" said Renn, eyeing a patch to her right."That's new ice. Very dangerous! If you ever have to cross it, stay apart--and keep moving?Torak and Renn glanced at each other, and widened the gap between them.Even the white ice was wind-polished to a treacherous slipperiness, and they slowed to an anxious shuffle. Inuktiluk's boots seemed to grip the ice, allowing him to stride ahead, and the dogs' sharp claws proved best of all; but the puppy slithered about in his seal-hide boots, reminding Torak painfully of Wolf. As a cub, he'd been forever tripping over his paws."How deep is the lake?" asked Renn.91Inuktiluk laughed. "It doesn't matter! The cold will kill you before you can shout for help!"It was a relief to reach the shore and climb onto solid snow. While Inuktiluk checked the dogs' paws, Torak drew Renn aside. "There's more cover up ahead," he whispered. "We might be able to get away!""And go where?" she replied. "How do we get around the ice river? How do we find the Eye of the Viper? Face it, Torak, we need him!"The land became harder to cross, with jagged ridges and swooping declines. To help the dogs, they jumped off and ran up the slopes, leaping back onto the sled as it sped downhill, while Inuktiluk slowed it by digging in the tines of a reindeerantler brake.The cold sapped their strength, but the White Fox man was tireless. Clearly he loved his strange, icy land, and he seemed troubled that they knew so little about it. He insisted that they drink often, even when they weren't thirsty, and he made them carry their waterskins inside their parkas, so that the water inside them wouldn't freeze. He also made them ration the amount of blubber they ate or smeared on their faces. "You'll need it for melting ice," he said. "Remember, you only have as much water as you have blubber for melting ice!"Seeing their puzzled expressions, he sighed. "If you're going to survive, you need to do as we do. Follow92the ways of the creatures of the ice. The willow grouse burrows a shelter in the snow. We do too. The eider duck lines her nest with her feathers. We do the same with our sleeping-sacks. We eat our meat raw, like the ice bear. We borrow the strength and endurance of reindeer and seal, by making our clothes from their hides. This is the way of the ice." He squinted at the sky. "Above all, we pay heed to the wind, which rules our lives."As if in answer, it began blowing from the north. Torak felt its icy touch on his face, and knew that it was not appeased.Inuktiluk must have guessed his thoughts, because he pointed to the far shore of the lake, where one of the stone men stood. "We build those to honor it. Sooner or later, you'll have to make an offering."Torak worried about that. At the bottom of his p
ack lay Fa's blue slate knife, and in his medicine pouch, his mother's medicine horn. He couldn't imagine parting with either.Around noon they came to an eerie land where giant slabs of ice tilted crazily. From deep within came hollow groans and echoing cracks. The dogs flattened their ears, and Inuktiluk gripped an eagle-claw amulet sewn to his parka."This is the shore ice," he said in a low voice, "where land ice and sea ice fight for mastery. We must93get through quickly."Renn craned her neck at a jagged spike looming overhead. "It feels as if there are demons here."The White Fox looked at her sharply. "This is one of the places where Sea demons get close to the skin of our world. They're restless. Trying to get out.""Can they?" said Torak."Sometimes one slips through a crack.""It's the same in the Forest," said Renn. "The Mages keep watch, but a few demons always escape."Inuktiluk nodded. "This winter it's been worse than most. In the Dark Time, when the sun was dead, a demon sent a great island of ice surging inland. It crushed a Walrus Clan shelter, killing everyone inside. A little later, another demon sent a sickness that took the child of a woman of my clan. Then her older boy went onto the ice. We searched, but we never found him." He paused. "This is why we must send you south. You bring great evil.""We didn't bring it," said Torak."We followed it," said Renn."Tell me what you mean," urged the White Fox. ,They stayed silent. Torak felt bad, as he was growing to like Inuktiluk.They pressed on through the broken mountains of ice. At last the shore ice gave way to flatter, crinkled ice. To Torak's surprise, Inuktiluk squared his shoulders94and breathed deeply. "Ah! Sea ice! Much better!"Torak didn't share his ease. The ice before him seemed to be bending. Bewildered, he watched it gently rising and falling, like the hide of some enormous creature."Yes," said Inuktiluk, "it bends with the breath of the Sea Mother. Soon, in the Moon of Roaring Rivers, the thaw will begin, and this place will become deadly. Great cracks--tide cracks, we call them--appear beneath your feet, and swallow you up. But for now, it's a good place to hunt.""To hunt what? " said Torak. "Back at the lake I saw hare tracks, but there's nothing here."For the first time, Inuktiluk looked at him with approval. "So you noticed those? I hadn't thought a Forest boy would." He pointed straight down. "This prey is under the ice. We do as the ice bear. We hunt seal."Renn shivered. "Do ice bears eat people? ""The Great Wanderer eats anything," said Inuktiluk, sticking the antler in the ice to tether the dogs. "But he prefers seal. He's the best hunter there is. He can smell a seal through an arm's length of ice.""Why have you stopped?" said Torak."I'm going hunting," said the White Fox."But--you can't! We can't stop to hunt!""Well, what are you going to eat?" replied Inuktiluk.95"We need more blubber, and meat for the dogs!"That shamed Torak into silence; but inside, he burned with impatience. It was six days since Wolf had been taken.Inuktiluk unhitched his lead dog, and slowly paced the ice. Soon the dog found what it sought. "A seal's breathing-hole," Inuktiluk said quietly. It was tiny: a low molehill with a hole in the top about half a thumb wide, its edges grooved, where the seal had gnawed to keep it open.From the sled, Inuktiluk took a piece of reindeer hide and laid it with the furry side on the ice, downwind of the hole. "To muffle the sound of my boots, like the ice bear's furry pads." He laid a swan's feather across the hole. "Just before the seal surfaces, it breathes out--and the feather moves. That's when I've got to act fast. The seal only takes a few gulps of air before it's gone again."He motioned them back to the shelter of the sled. "I must stand and wait, like the ice bear, but in those clothes you'd freeze. Stay out of the wind, and stay still! The slightest tremor will warn the seals." He took up position, standing motionless, with his harpoon raised.As Torak crouched behind the sled, he began to unpick the knots that fastened his pack to the runners."What are you doing?" whispered Renn."Getting out of here," he said. "Are you coming?"She started untying her pack.96They were behind Inuktiluk, so they were able to shoulder their packs and sleeping-sacks without being seen, but as they rose, he turned his head. He didn't move or speak. He just looked.Defiantly Torak stared back. But he didn't stir. This man had opened a vein to save them. He was a hunter, like them. And they were about to spoil his hunt."We can't do this," breathed Renn."I know," replied Torak.Slowly they unhitched their packs.Inuktiluk turned back to the breathinghole.Suddenly the feather twitched.With the speed of a striking heron, Inuktiluk thrust in the harpoon. The harpoon head came off the shaft, and stuck like a toggle under the seal's hide. With one hand Inuktiluk hauled on the rope tied to the head, and with the other he used the shaft of the disarmed harpoon to enlarge the breathing-hole.Dropping their packs, Torak and Renn ran to help. One tremendous pull--and the seal was out, and dead of a blow to the head before it hit the ice."Thanks!" panted Inuktiluk.They helped him haul the streaming silver carcass away from the hole.The dogs were in a frenzy to get at it, but Inuktiluk silenced them with a word. Easing the harpoon head from the wound, he stitched it shut with a slender bone97that he called a "wound plug," so as not to waste blood. Then he rolled the seal onto its back, and tilted its snout into the hole. "To send its souls down to the Sea Mother, to be born again." Taking off his mitten, he stroked the . pale, spotted belly. "Thank you, my friend. May the Sea Mother give you a fine new body!""We do the same thing in the Forest," said Renn.Inuktiluk smiled. Slitting the seal at just the right place, he slipped in his hand and brought out the steaming, dark-red liver.Behind them a bark rang out, and they saw a small white fox sitting on the ice. It was shorter and fatter than the red Forest foxes, and it was watching Inuktiluk with inquisitive golden-brown eyes.He grinned. "The guardian wants his share!" He threw it a piece, and the fox caught it neatly and downed it in a gulp. Inuktiluk handed chunks of liver to Torak and Renn. It was firm and sweet, and slid down easily. The White Fox man tossed the lungs to the dogs; but Torak noticed that they only sniffed them, and seemed too restless to eat."We were lucky," said Inuktiluk through a mouthful of liver. "Sometimes I wait a whole day for a seal to come." He raised an eyebrow. "I wonder if you'd have the patience to wait that long."Torak thought for a moment. "I want to tell you something." He paused. Renn nodded. "We came north98to find our friend," he went on. "Please. You have to let us go."Inuktiluk sighed. "I know now that you mean well. But you must understand, I can't do this.""Why not?" said Renn. , On the other side of the sled, the dogs were whining and tugging at their tethers.Torak went to see what was troubling them."What is it?" said Renn.He didn't reply. He was trying to make out the dogs' talk. Compared to wolf talk, it was much simpler, like the speech of puppies. "They can smell something," he said, "but the wind's gusting, so they're not sure where it is.""What is it they smell?" said Renn, reaching for her bow.Inuktiluk's jaw dropped. "Do you--does he understand them?"Torak never got the chance to reply. A ridge of ice to his left suddenly rose-and became a great white bear.99TWELVEThe ice bear raised its head on its long neck, and tasted Torak's scent.With an effortless surge, it reared on its hind legs. It was taller than a tall man standing on the shoulders of another, and each paw was twice the size of Torak's head. One swat would snap his spine like a willow twig.Swinging its head from side to side, it slitted its hard black eyes and snuffed the air. It saw Torak standing alone on the ice, Renn and Inuktiluk moving to take cover behind the sled. It smelled the bloody snow beyond them, and the half-butchered carcass of the seal. It heard the dogs howling and straining at their tethers100in their foolish lust to attack. It took in everything with the unhurried ease of a creature who has never known fear. The power of winter was in its limbs, the savagery of the wind in its claws. It was invincible.The blood roared in Torak's ears. The sled was ten paces in front of him. It could have been a hundred.In silence the ice bear dropped to all fours, and a ripple ran through its heavy, yellow-white pelt."Don't run," Inuktiluk told Torak quietly. "Walk. Toward us. Sideways. Don't show it your back."Out of the corner of his eye, Torak saw Renn nocking an arrow to her bow; Inuktiluk gripping a harpoon in either hand.Don't run.But his legs ached to run. He was back in the Forest, running from the wreck of the shelter where his father lay dying, running from the demon bear. "Torak!" shouted Fa w
ith his final breath. "Run!"Summoning every shred of will, Torak took a shaky step toward the sled.The ice bear lowered its head and fixed its gaze upon him. Then--at a lazy, inturned walk--it ambled between him and the sled.He swayed.The ice bear made no sound as it set down each foot. Not a click of claws on ice. Not a whisper of breath. Hardly knowing what he did, Torak slid his hand out101of his mitten and felt for his knife. It wouldn't come out of its sheath. He pulled harder. No good. He should have heeded Inuktiluk's advice, and kept it inside his parka. The leather sheath had frozen solid."Torak!" called Inuktiluk softly. "Catch!"A harpoon flew through the air, and Torak caught it in one hand. The slender, bone point looked feeble beyond measure. "Will it be any use?" he said."Not much. But at least you'll die like a man."The ice bear breathed out with a rasping hssh--and Torak caught a flash of yellow fangs, and knew with a cold clutch of terror that the harpoon had been a mistake. This bear would not be intimidated, but it could be goaded to attack.He caught a flicker of movement. Renn pushing up her visor to take aim. "Don't," he warned. "You'll only make it worse."She saw that he was right, and lowered her bow. But she kept the arrow nocked in readiness.The dogs were barking and snapping at their traces. The bear twisted its head on its long neck, and snarled: a deep, reverberating thunder that shook the ice.It locked eyes with Torak--and the world fell away. He couldn't hear the dogs, couldn't see Renn or Inuktiluk, couldn't even blink. Nothing existed but those eyes: blacker than basalt, stronger than hate. As he gazed into them he knew--he knew--that to the ice102bear, all other creatures were prey.His hand on the harpoon shaft was slippery with sweat. His legs wouldn't move.The bear champed its great jaws, and slammed the ice with its paw. The force of the blow shuddered through Torak. Somehow he stood his ground.A Forest bear snarls if it means only to threaten, but if it's hunting in earnest, it comes on in lethal silence. Did the same hold true on the ice?No.The ice bear leaped for him.He saw the scarred black hide of its muzzle, the long, purple-gray tongue. He felt hot breath burning his cheek....With fearsome agility the bear swerved--reared-- and pounded the ice with both forepaws.Torak's knees buckled and he nearly went down.Now the ice bear was turning from him, rounding on the sled, clouting it out of the way as easily as if it were birch bark. Inuktiluk dived to one side, Renn to the other--but as the sled crashed down, it caught her on the shoulder and she fell with a cry, one arm trapped beneath a runner, directly in the path of the bear.Torak launched himself forward, waving his harpoon and yelling, "Here I am! Not her, me! Me!"Inuktiluk, too, was shouting and making stabbing feints with his harpoon--and in the instant the bear103turned- toward him, Torak wrenched the sled off Renn and grabbed her arm, half-dragging her out of its path. At that moment one of the dogs snapped its trace and flew at the bear. A great paw batted it away, sending it flying through the air, to land with a sickening crack on the ice. As Torak and Renn threw themselves down, the bear leaped clean over them, bounded to the seal's carcass-- and snatched its head in its jaws. Then it raced off across the ice, carrying the seal as easily as if it were a trout."The dogs!" shouted Renn. "Hold them!"The puppy was cowering under the sled, but the others were reckless in their blood-lust and hampered only by their traces--and now, as they strained together, they snapped them and hurtled off in pursuit, ignoring Inuktiluk's shouted commands. The trailing traces snagged his boot, and Torak and Renn watched in horror as he was dragged across the ice.The dogs were strong and fast, too fast to catch. Torak put his hands to his lips and barked: the loud, sharp command that in wolf talk means STOP!His voice cut like a whiplash, and the dogs obeyed at once, cowering with their tails clamped between their legs.Far away, the ice bear vanished among the blue hills. Torak and Renn ran to where Inuktiluk was already sitting up, rubbing his forehead.He recovered fast. Grabbing the traces in his fist, he104drew his knife and, with its hilt, dealt the dogs punishing blows that made them squeal. Then, breathing hard, he nodded his thanks to Torak."We should thank you" Renn said shakily. "If you hadn't distracted it.The White Fox shook his head. "We only lived because it let us live." He turned to Torak. The distrust was back in his face. "My dogs. You can speak to them. Who are you? What are you? "Torak wiped the sweat off his upper lip. "We need to get going. That bear could be anywhere."Inuktiluk studied him for a moment. Then he gathered his remaining dogs, shouldered the body of the dead one, and limped back to the sled.Torak dropped his harpoon with a clatter, and bent double with his hands on his knees.Renn rubbed her shoulder.He asked if she was all right."Hurts a bit," she said. "But at least it's not my draw arm. What about you?""Fine. I'm fine." Then he sank to his knees and started to retch.The sinking sun burned golden on the dark-blue ice as the dogs flew toward the White Fox camp.Night fell. The slender moon rose. Torak kept glancing at the sky, but not once did he catch sight of105the First Tree: the vast, silent green fires that show themselves in winter. He longed for it as never before; he needed some link with the Forest. But it didn't come.They passed dark, fanged ice hills, and heard distant cracks and groans. They thought of demons hammering to break free. At last Torak spotted a speck of orange light. The weary dogs scented home, and picked up speed.As they neared the White Fox camp, Torak saw a large, humped snow shelter with three smaller ones linked to it by short tunnels. All were honeycombed with light shining through the blocks. Around them, many little humps sprang to life, scattering snow and barking a noisy welcome.Torak stepped stiffly from the sled. Renn winced and rubbed her shoulder. They were too numb with exhaustion to feel apprehensive of what lay ahead.Inuktiluk insisted that they beat every flake of snow from their clothes, and even pick the ice from their eyebrows, before crawling into the low entrance tunnel that was built like a dog-leg to keep out the wind. On hands and knees, Torak smelled the bitter stink of burning seal oil, and heard a murmur of voices, abruptly cut short.In the smoky lamplight, he saw whalebone racks, around the walls with many boots and mittens hung up106to dry; a glittering haze of frozen breath; and a circle of round faces glistening with blubber.Swiftly, Inuktiluk told his clan how he'd found the interlopers in the storm, and everything that had happened since. He was fair--he mentioned that Torak had saved him from being dragged across the ice--but his voice shook when he told how the "wolf boy" had spoken the tongue of dogs.The White Foxes listened patiently, asking no questions, and studying Torak and Renn with inquisitive brown eyes not unlike those of their clan-creature. They didn't seem to have a leader, but four elders huddled close to the lamp, on a low sleeping-platform piled with reindeer hides."It's them," shrilled one, a tiny woman, her face dark as a rose hip shriveled by frost. "These are the ones I saw in my vision."Torak heard Renn's sharp intake of breath. Placing both fists on his heart in sign of friendship, he bowed to the old woman. "Inuktiluk said that in your vision, you saw me about to do evil. But I haven't. And I won't."To his surprise, laughter ran through the shelter, and all four elders gave toothless grins."Who among us," said the old woman, "knows what evil we will or won't do?" Her smile faded, and her brow furrowed with sadness. "I saw you. You were about to break clan law."107"He wouldn't do that," said Renn.The elder didn't seem annoyed at this interruption; she merely waited to see if Renn had finished, then turned back to Torak. "The fires in the sky," she said calmly, "never lie."Torak was bewildered. "I don't understand! What was I going to do?"Pain tightened the ancient face. "You were about to take an axe to a wolf."108THIRTEENAttack Wolf?" cried Torak. "I'd never do that!""I Saw it too," Renn blurted out. "In my dream, I saw it!"She couldn't help herself. But as soon as she'd said it, she wished she hadn't.Torak was staring at her as if he'd never seen her before. "I could never hurt Wolf," he said. "It isn't possible."The White Fox elder spread her hands. "The Dead don't lie."He opened his mouth to protest, but the old woman spoke first. "Rest now, and eat. Tomorrow we send you109south, and this evil will pass."Renn thought he'd fight back, but instead Torak became quiet, with that stubborn look that always meant trouble.The White Foxes bustled about, taking food from niches cut in the walls. Now that their elders had spoken, they seem
ed happy to prepare a feast, as if Torak and Renn had simply happened by for a night of storytelling. Renn saw Inuktiluk regaling the others with the tale of how the ice bear had stolen his seal, which made everyone roar with laughter. "Don't worry, little brother," someone cried. "I managed to hang on to mine, so we still get to eat!""Why didn't you tell me?" said Torak. His face was taut, but she could see that beneath his anger he was badly shaken."I was going to," she said, "but then you told me about your dream, and--""Do you really believe I could hurt Wolf?""Of course not! But I did see it. You had an axe. You were standing over him; you were going to strike." All day she'd carried the dream inside her. And it wasn't the everyday kind that didn't always mean what it appeared to; it was the kind with the glaring colors, which she had maybe once every thirteen moons. The kind that came true.Someone passed her a chunk of frozen seal meat,110and she discovered that she was ravenous. As well as the seal, there was delicate whale skin with a chewy lining of blubber; sour pellets of ground-up willow buds from the gizzards of ptarmigans; and a delicious sweet mash of seal fat and cloudberries, her favorites. The shelter rang with talk and laughter. The White Foxes seemed extremely good at forgetting their worries and enjoying themselves. But it was disconcerting to have Torak sit beside her in glowering silence."Arguing won't help us find Wolf," she said. "I think we need to tell them about the Eye of the Viper--""Well, I don't.""But if they knew, they might help." "They don't want to help. They want to get rid of us.""Torak, these are good people." He turned on her. "Good people can smile and be rotten inside! I know, I've seen it!" She stared at him."I can't lose him again," he said. "It's different for you. You've got Fin-Kedinn and the rest of your clan. I've only got Wolf."Renn blinked. "You've got me, too.""That's not the same."She felt the heat rising to her ears. "Sometimes," she said, "I wonder why I even like you!"At that moment, a stout woman called her to come111and try on her new clothes--and she left without a backward glance.His words were ringing in her ears as she crawled through a tunnel into a smaller shelter where four women sat sewing. It's different for you. No it isn't! she wanted to shout. Don't you know that you and Wolf are the first friends I've ever had?"Sit by me," said the woman, whose name was Tanugeak, "and calm down."Renn threw herself onto a reindeer skin and started plucking out hairs."Anger," Tanugeak said mildly, "is a form of madness. And a waste of strength.""But sometimes you need it," muttered Renn.Tanugeak chuckled. "You're just like your uncle! He was angry too, when he was young."Renn sat up. "You know Fin-Kedinn?""He came here many summers ago.""Why? How did you meet him?"Tanugeak patted her hand. "You'll have to ask him."Renn sighed. She missed her uncle terribly. He would know what to do."These visions of yours," said Tanugeak, examining Renn's wrist. "They can be dangerous; you should have lightning marks for protection. I'm surprised your Mage hasn't seen to that.""She wanted to," said Renn, "but I never let her."112"Let me. I'm a Mage too. And you'll need them, I think. You carry a lot of secrets." Turning to a woman who sat apart from the others, she asked for her tattooing things. Then, without giving Renn time to protest, she laid her forearm on her ample lap, stretched the skin taut, and began swiftly pricking it with a bone needle, pausing to dip a scrap of gull hide in a cup of black dye and rub it into the punctures.It hurt at first, but Tanugeak kept up a stream of stories to keep Renn's mind off it. Soon her anger slipped away, leaving only the worry that Torak might do something stupid, like trying to escape without her.She felt safe in here. On the sleeping-platform, three children slept in a heap, like puppies. Over the blubber lamp, a baby dangled in a seal's bladder snugly stuffed with moss. The women chatted and laughed, spangling the air with specks of frozen breath; only the one who sat apart, Akoomik, kept silent.As the drowsy peace stole over her, Renn felt cared for in a way she'd never experienced before: as if the prickly shell she'd grown to protect herself were being gently peeled away.Tanugeak started on the other wrist, and the women laid out Renn's new clothes, stroking them with weathered brown hands.There were outer leggings and a parka of shimmering silver sealskin, to which someone had sewn her 113clan-creature feathers. There was a warm jerkin and inner leggings of eider duck hide, with the soft feathers worn against the skin. There were undermittens of hare fur, and sturdy outer mittens; ptarmigan-down slippers, to be worn over fluffy stockings made from the pelts of young seals. And to keep out the wet, there were magnificent boots of dehaired seal hide, with crisscross bindings of braided sinew and finely pleated soles."Beautiful," murmured Renn. "But I've nothing to give you in return."The women looked astonished,* then laughed. "We don't want anything in return!" said one."Come back in the Dark Time," said another, "and we'll make you a set of winter clothes. These are just for spring!"Akoomik didn't join in the laughter as she packed her needles in a little bone case. Renn noticed tiny toothmarks on it, and asked who'd made them."My baby," replied Akoomik. "When he was teething."Renn smiled. "Is he over the worst?""Oh yes," said Akoomik in a voice that made Renn shiver. "That's him over there." She pointed to a ledge cut in the wall, on which lay a small, stiff bundle wrapped in hide."I'm sorry," said Renn. She was scared, too. In the Forest, the clans carried their Dead far from their114shelters, so that their souls couldn't trouble the living."We keep our Dead with us till spring," said Akoomik, "to save them from the foxes.""And to stop them from feeling left out," Tanugeak added comfortably. "They like chatting just as much as we do. When you see a star traveling very fast, that's one of them setting off to visit their friends."Renn found that a comforting thought; but Akoomik pinched the bridge of her nose to hold back her grief. "The demons took his breath a moon ago. Now they've taken my elder son, too."Renn remembered what Inuktiluk had said about the boy lost on the ice."My mate died of fever in the Moon of Long Dark," Akoomik went on. "Then my mother felt death coming, and went out to meet it, so that she wouldn't take food from the young ones. If my son doesn't return, I'll have no one." Her eyes were dull: as if a light had gone out. Renn had seen that before, in people whose souls were sick.If I lose Wolf I'll have no one.At last she understood what Torak had meant. His mother had died when he was born. He'd lost his father to the bear. He'd never even met the rest of his clan. He was more alone than anyone she knew. And although she too had lost people, she realized that with Torak, as with Akoomik, the grief was still raw. If he lost Wolf...115Once again, she wondered how she could bring herself to tell him what she suspected."Finished," said Tanugeak* making her jump.Renn studied the neat black zigzags on the insides of her wrists. They made her feel stronger, better protected. "Thank you," she said. "Now I need to find my friend.""First, take this." Tanugeak gave her a small pouch made from the scaly skin of swans' feet, with the claws left on."What's in it?" asked Renn."Things you might need." She leaned closer. "Listen well," she said under her breath. "The elders saw something else in the sky that night. We're not sure . what it means, but I have a feeling you might know." She paused. "It was a three-pronged fork, of the kind a healer might use for catching the souls of the sick. But this one felt bad."Renn's fingers tightened on the pouch."Ah," said Tanugeak, "I see that you've been dreading this." She touched Renn's hand. "Go. Find your friend. When the time is right, tell him the secrets you carry."When Renn got back to the main shelter, the White Foxes had settled down for the night. Most slept huddled together, while a few sat softening sinew between their teeth, or flexing stiff boots to make them116wearable for the morning. Torak was fast asleep at one end of the sleeping-platform.Renn got into her sleeping-sack, wondering what to do. The White Fox vision had confirmed the fear she'd been harboring for days. The Soul-Eaters had taken Wolf.She dreaded telling Torak. How much more could he bear?She was woken by Inuktiluk shaking her shoulder.Everyone else was asleep, but through a chink in the shelter she saw that the moon was low: it would be dawn soon. Torak was gone.She shot upright."He's waiting outside," mouthed Inuktiluk. "Follow me!" .Quietly they made their way into the smaller shelter, where Renn exchanged her old clothes for the unfamiliar new ones.The night air cut like a knife, but there was no wind. The sn
ow glinted in the faint glow of the dying moon. The crust had frozen, so they had to tread carefully. A few dogs stirred, caught their scent, then slumped down again.Torak was waiting. Like Renn, he had new clothes: she hardly recognized him in his silvery parka. "They're helping us get away!" he whispered, his eyes glinting with excitement.117"Who's they?" hissed Renn. "And why?"Inuktiluk had vanished into the dark, and it was Torak who answered. "I told him everything. You were right, they do know about the Eye of the Viper! And there's a woman--Akoomik? She's going to tell us where it is!"Renn was astonished. "But--I thought you didn't trust them. What changed your mind?""You did." He gave her one of his rare, wolfish grins. "I do listen to you sometimes."Inuktiluk was beckoning, so they followed him west till they came to a rent in the ice. Renn saw the dark gleam of water, and caught the tang of the Sea.They tracked the channel as it steadily broadened, then Torak touched her arm. "Look."She gasped. "A skinboat!"It was ten paces long, sturdily built of dehaired seal hide stretched over a whalebone frame. Their packs were neatly stowed at either end, and two doublebladed paddles lay on top."This channel leads to the open Sea," said Inuktiluk. "Once you reach it, keep the land in sight, but stay clear of the mouth of the ice river.""You told us that no one had ever crossed it," said Torak.The round face split in a grin. "But plenty have paddled around it!" Then his grin faded. "Watch out for118black ice. It's denser than white, and it'll sink you in moments. If you see a piece in the water, you've already passed several that you missed."Renn wondered how they were going to spot black ice in a black Sea.Torak was hefting his paddle, keen to make a start. "How do we find the Eye of the Viper?"Akoomik emerged from the shadows, and with her knife began carving marks in the snow. "Follow the North Star past the ice river," she said, "about a day's paddling from here. When you see a mountain shaped like three ravens perched on an ice floe, put in at the frozen bay below it, and head up the ridge that curls around its northwest flank.""But what is it?" said Renn. "How will we know we've found it?"Both White Foxes shivered, and made the sign of the hand. "You'll know," said Akoomik."And may the guardian save you," said Inuktiluk, "if you venture inside." He helped them into the skinboat.Torak handled his paddle confidently, but Renn was uneasy. She hadn't had as much practice in boats. "Why are you helping us?" she asked the White Foxes."The elders don't know you as I do," said Inuktiluk. "When I explain, they won't be angry. Besides," he added, "if I don't help you, you'll go anyway!"Akoomik peered into Torak's face. "You've lost119someone. So have I. If you find what you seek, maybe I will too."Torak thought for a moment, then rummaged in his pack, and pressed something into her mittens. "Take these."She frowned. "What are they?""Boar tusks. I'd forgotten I had them; but they're special. They belonged to a friend of mine. Offer them to the wind. For both of us."Inuktiluk grunted in approval, and Akoomik's white teeth showed in the first smile Renn had seen her give. "Thank you! May the guardian run with you!""And also with you!" whispered Renn.Then they were off, slicing through the black water and heading for the open Sea, to find Wolf.120FOURTEENThe stranger wolves were howling many lopes away, and as Wolf listened, he felt the bite of loneliness. He heard that it was a big pack, and that each wolf was cleverly varying its howls to make it sound as if there were even more of them. Wolf knew that trick; he'd learned it when he'd run with the pack on the Mountain.In his head he saw the wolves lifting their muzzles joyfully to the Bright White Eye. He longed to howl back. But he was squashed beneath the hated deerhide. Howling was only a memory.The sliding tree lurched as the taillesses crested a121ridge. Wolf forced himself to stay alert, to be ready for when his pack-brother came. But it was getting harder. Thirst scratched his throat. Pain gnawed his tail. When they'd been on the Great Wet in the terrible floating hides, he'd been sick. His belly still hurt.The other creatures were feeling no better. The otter had fallen into despairing silence, although Wolf smelled that she wasn't yet Not-Breath. The lynx and fox-- whom Pale-Pelt had caught and crammed onto another sliding tree--hadn't yowled since the Light. Only the wolverine gave the occasional furious snarl.The stranger pack ended its howl, and the white hills sang with silence. Wolf knew that now the wolves would be licking and snuffling each other in readiness for the hunt. Before he and Tall Tailless went hunting, they always snuffle-licked and touched noses, although of course only Wolf wagged his tail.The sliding tree turned into the wind, and he smelled mountains drawing near. He sensed a shiver of excitement running through the taillesses, and guessed they were reaching the end of their long lope.Stinkfur came to trot beside him, and thrust a chunk of the Bright Soft Cold through the deerhide. Awkwardly, Wolf took it in his cramped jaws, and crunched it up. He no longer had the will to refuse what he was given.Up ahead, Pale-Pelt spoke to Viper-Tongue, and they122glanced at him and broke into the yip-and-yowl of tailless laughter. Rage bit his belly. In his head he burst free of the deerhide and leaped at Pale-Pelt, tearing out his throat so that the hot blood gushed....But only in his head. He was getting weaker. Even if he could break free, he wouldn't have the strength to bring down Pale-Pelt. He worried that when Tall Tailless and his pack-sister finally came, he would be too weak to fight alongside them.As the Light fled, a mountain loomed. The wind dropped. Wolf smelled that there was little prey here, and no wolves. His pelt crawled with dread.The sliding tree shuddered to a halt.There, against the flank of the mountain: a Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot was snarling, and beside it-- silent, unmoving--waited the Stone-Faced One.She stood with her forepaws clenched at her sides, and Wolf .sensed that in one she held the gray, glowing thing that bit cold. She was very still, and yet her shadow on the mountainflank leaped like tattered wings.Wolf hadn't seen or smelled her since the time when she'd come through the hissing whiteness. Now one glimpse of her terrible face made him a whimpering cub again.In silence the other taillesses left the sliding trees, and went to join her. They were fearful, but as before,123they hid their fear from each other.The Stone-Faced One spoke in her rattling voice, and the whole pack crouched around the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot, and began to rock back and forth. Back and forth, back and forth. Watching them made Wolf dizzy, but he couldn't look away. Then they started a low, steady growling that thudded through Wolf like the hooves of reindeer galloping over hard ground. On and on it went, faster, louder, till his heart beat painfully in his chest.And now from the mountain came a smell of Dark and demons, flowing over him like an unseen Fast Wet.Suddenly Stone-Face raised her forepaw--the paw in which she held the gray thing that bit cold. Then-- as Wolf watched in amazement--she thrust her paw right into the jaws of the Bright Beast!Frozen with horror, he watched Stinkfur thrust in her forepaw, then Pale-Pelt, then Viper-Tongue. He watched them rocking back and forth, still growling that fast, stony growl, with their paws sunk deep in the crackling jaws of the Bright Beast.All at once they gave a triumphant howl--and wrenched their paws out again.Wolf could not believe what he was smelling! Their forepaws didn't stink of meat that has been bitten by the Bright Beast! They smelled cool and fresh! What were these taillesses, whom even the Bright Beast feared to bite?124Terror crushed Wolf: terror not only for himself but for his pack-brother.Tall Tailless and the female were smart and brave, and they had Long Claws-that-Fly-Far. But if they attacked these strange, bad taillesses, they would be torn to pieces.125FIFTEENWhat's that in the water?" hissed Renn. "A seal," said Torak over his shoulder. "Are you sure?" "No.""It looked like ah ice bear.""If it was an ice bear, we'd know it by now."But she had seen it. A great pale shape sliding through the dark water under the skinboat."Inuktiluk told me there are white whales," said Torak. "Maybe that's what you saw."To Renn's annoyance, he didn't seem frightened. But he was a better skinboater, and too intent on126finding Wolf to be scared.The swell lifted the boat and she dug in her paddle, trying not to think what lay beneath. The Sea Mother could drown them with one flick of her fin. Down they would sink into the bottomless black, their mouths open in a scream that had no end; and when the fishes had nibbled their bones bare, the Hidden People would roll them forever in their long green
hair...."Watch out," said Torak. "You're splashing me.""Sorry."Her arms ached, and despite her owl-eyed visor, her head was pounding from the glare. They'd reached the open Sea shortly after dawn, and were now in an eerie world of dark-green water and drifting blue ice mountains. To the east stretched the white expanse of the shore; to the north, the vast, shattered chaos of the ice river."Too slow," muttered Torak. Picking up speed, he steered them behind a floating mountain."I don't think we should get so close," said Renn."Why not? It keeps us out of the wind."She applied herself to her paddle. On the palegreen foot of the ice mountain, three seals lay-basking. She fixed her eyes on them, and told herself not to worry.It was no good. She was worried. Torak's need to find Wolf was all-consuming; she'd begun to wonder where it would lead. And she hadn't yet told him about the Soul-Eaters.127A smaller ice mountain slid past them on its mysterious journey. She felt its freezing breath, heard the slap and suck of the Sea carving a cavern in its flank. The cavern was a searing blue oval. Like an eye, she thought."The Eye of the Viper," she said suddenly."I've been thinking about it too," said Torak. "It can't be anything to do with a real viper; there aren't any this far north--""--and Inuktiluk said, 'if you venture inside.''"He turned to her, his owl eyes making him startlingly unfamiliar. "I think I can guess what he meant.""Me too," said Renn.He shivered. "I hope we're wrong. I hate caves." They paddled on in silence.To keep up her spirits, Renn rummaged in her pack for food. The White Foxes had provisioned them well. Along with half a skin of blubber, she found frozen seal ribs and blood sausages. She cut two slices, and handed one to Torak. It tasted gritty, and she missed the tang of juniper berries. She missed the White Foxes more. "I feel bad about them," she said."Why?" said Torak, with his mouth full."They gave us so much, and we repaid them by running away.""They were going to send us south!"128"But all this gear. Snow-knives. Lamps. Better waterskins. A new strike-fire for me, and a beautiful case for my bow. There's even a repair kit for the boat." She held up a pouch made from a seal's flipper.Torak wasn't listening. He'd lowered his paddle, and was staring ahead."What is it?" said Renn.Ahead of them on the ice mountain, the seals had woken up.Renn was puzzled. "But we've got enough food," she whispered. "We can't stop to hunt now!" He ignored her.Suddenly the seals slithered off the ice and into the water. At the same moment Torak plunged in his paddle and yelled, "Turn! Turn!"--swinging the skinboat hard to the left. A bewildered Renn did the same, and they shot sideways--out from the wake of the ice mountain-- as a rending roar split the sky, and the mountain tilted and crashed into the Sea, sending a wall of water thundering over where they'd been a heartbeat before.Panting, they bobbed up and down. In place of the ice mountain there was now a heaving white slush."How did you know that would happen?" said Renn."I didn't," said Torak. "The seals did.""How did you know they knew?"He hesitated. "They feel it in their whiskers. Last summer I spirit walked in a seal. Remember? "129Uneasily, Renn licked the salt from her lips. She'd forgotten; or she hadn't wanted to remember. She hated being reminded of how different he was.He saw it in her face. "Come on," he said. "Long way to go."They moved off, steering clear of ice mountains. Renn felt the distance between them of things unsaid. She'd have to tell him soon.The wind picked up, blowing cold in their faces. But in her White Fox clothes, she hardly felt it. The seal hide cut out the wind, but was lighter than reindeer hide, while the eider-feather underclothes kept her snug, but let out the sweat, so that she didn't get chilled. The dog-fur ruff around the hood kept her face warm, but never became clogged with frozen breath; and her inner mittens had slits in the palms, so she could slide her fingers out for fine work like opening pouches. The clothes were beautiful, too, the silver fur shimmering in the sun. But they made her feel like someone else.The zigzag tattoos on her wrists also made her feel different, and she wondered just why Tanugeak had given them to her. The White Fox Mage had seemed to know things about her that she thought only Saeunn and Fin-Kedinn knew; things that Renn kept hidden in a deep corner of her mind.But it was Tanugeak's final gift that puzzled her most. The swansfoot pouch contained a dark powder that130smelled of soot and seaweed. What was she supposed to do with that?"Look," said Torak, cutting across her thoughts.He'd been steering them farther out to Sea, and now she saw why.To the east lay the glaring white of the ice river. Jagged peaks towered over dizzying cliffs riven with deep blue cracks. Renn heard a distant booming--and saw a great spur break away and crash into the Sea. Clouds of powdered ice shot into the sky. A green wave rolled toward them, rocking the skinboat.If we'd been closer, she thought, we'd have been crushed. Like my father."Try not to think about it," Torak said quietly.She picked up her paddle and stabbed at the water.The sun was low and the ice river far behind them when they finally glimpsed the mountain. From the dead white land it rose: three stark peaks piercing the sky, like ravens perching on ice.Renn had never seen anything so lonely. Two winters ago, her clan had journeyed to the northernmost end of the High Mountains, and she'd felt as if she'd reached the edge of the world. Now she felt as if she'd fallen over it.Torak sensed it too, and slipped one hand out of his mitten to touch his clancreature skin.South of the mountain's western flank, they found the iced-in bay that Akoomik had drawn in the snow. It131was a relief to get out of the skinboat, although their legs were stiff. Once again, they were grateful to the White Foxes. The boat was easy to carry, and their boots' rough soles stopped them from slipping on the ice.Hiding the boat in the lee of a snow hill, they overturned it and propped it up on four forked driftwood sticks. "Inuktiluk called them shoresticks," Torak told Renn. "We can use them to make the boat into a shelter, too."Renn knew better than to suggest that they should do exactly that, right now, since it was midafternoon, and the shadows were turning purple. Already, Torak was scanning for tracks.He soon found them: a broad swathe of churned-up snow. "Two sleds," he said with a frown. "Heavily laden, and heading for the mountain. Quite fresh." He straightened up. "Let's go."Renn shivered. All at once, the Soul-Eaters felt very close. "Wait," she said. "We need to think about this.""Why?" he said impatiently.She hesitated. "One of the White Fox women told me something. I've been wanting to tell you all day." "Yes?"She lowered her voice to a whisper. "Torak. It's the Soul-Eaters. They're the ones who took Wolf." "I--know," he said. "What?"132He told her what he'd seen when he'd spirit walked in the raven."But--why didn't you tell me?" she cried. "You've known for days!"He scowled, and hacked at the snow with his heel. "I know I should have, but I couldn't risk it. I thought you might go back to the Forest." His scowl deepened. "If you'd left..."Suddenly she felt sorry for him. "I've suspected for days, but I didn't leave. And I won't now."He met her eyes. "So--we go on."She swallowed. "Yes. We go on."They looked at the trail of the Soul-Eaters, winding up the mountain.Renn said, "What if this is some kind of trap?""I don't care," he muttered."What if they've heard rumors of the Wolf Clan boy who's a spirit walker? If they catch you, if they take your power, it could endanger the whole Forest.""I don't care" he repeated. "I've got to find Wolf!"She had an idea. "What about a disguise? ""What?""That'd throw them off the scent. And maybe Tanugeak had that in mind, too. At least, she gave me what we need."Torak took a few paces, then turned back to her. "What do we do?"133It didn't take long to change their appearance. Their clan-tattoos weren't a problem, as their cheeks were still so blistered from the snowstorm that the fine marks hardly showed. Renn made a black stain by mixing Tanugeak's powder with water, then finger-painted a White Fox band across Torak's nose. She also cut his hair to shoulder length, with bangs across the brow. He was too thin to make a truly convincing White Fox, but with luck, his clothes would conceal that.She dyed her own hair black by combing in more of the stain, which she also used to darken her face. Then she got Torak to turn her into a Mountain Hare by painting her forehead with a zigzag band tinged with earthblood from his medicine horn.He seemed disconcerted. "You don't look like Renn anymore.""Good," she said. "And you don't look like Torak."They stared at each other, both more unsettled than they cared to admit. Then they set off on the trail o
f the Soul-Eaters.The sleds had been dragged up a ridge that snaked around the western flank of the mountain, just as Akoomik had said. As they climbed higher, the shadows deepened from purple to charcoal. Often they paused to listen, but no living thing stirred. No eagles wheeled, no ravens cawed. The air grew colder. The wind dropped. Their boots134creaked in the stillness.Then--with appalling suddenness--they came upon the sleds, casually piled at the side of the trail.After so many days of following the faintest of clues, it was a shock to find solid structures of wood and hide. It made the Soul-Eaters solid too.Sensing they were nearing the end, they hid their packs and sleeping-sacks in the snow a few paces from the sleds. Renn saw what a wrench it was for Torak to leave behind his father's blue slate knife. "But it's too dangerous," she told him. "They knew him; they might recognize it."They decided to take the waterskins the White Foxes had packed for them, a little food, and knives. Renn would also take her bow, and she wanted to take the axes as well, but Torak feared the White Fox vision too much to risk it.Twenty paces beyond the sleds, the trail rounded a spur--and they halted.Above them reared the gaunt mountain, lit" crimson by the last rays of the sun. In its flank, a black hole gaped. Before it, like a warning, stood a tall gray pillar of stone. -White mist seeped from the darkness of the cave. Clammy tendrils reached for them, stinking of dread and demons. Hope fled. If the Soul-Eaters had taken Wolf in there ...135Glancing over her shoulder, Renn saw the shape of the whole mountain for the first time. She saw how it rose out of the snow like the head of some giant creature. She saw how the ice river uncoiled its sinuous bulk east, before twisting around to lose itself in the Sea.Torak had seen it too: "We've found the Viper," he whispered."We're standing on it," breathed Renn.They turned back to the mountain: to the glaring black hole split by the standing stone."And there's the Eye," she said.Torak took off his owl visor and stowed it in his medicine pouch. "They're in there," he said. "I can feel it. So is Wolf."Renn chewed her lower lip. "We need to think about this.""I've done enough thinking," he snapped.Taking his arm, she drew him behind a rock, out of sight of the Eye. "There's no sense going in," she said, "unless we know for sure that--that Wolf is still alive."He didn't reply. Then--to her horror--he put his hands to his mouth to howl.She grabbed his wrist. "Are you mad? They'll hear you!""What if they do? They'll think I'm a wolf!""You don't know that! Torak, these are Soul-Eaters!"136"Then what?""There is another way." Slipping her hand out of her mitten, she fumbled at the neck of her parka, and brought out the little grouse-bone whistle he'd given her once. She blew on it--and no sound came, as they had known it wouldn't; but if Wolf was alive, he would hear it.Nothing. Not a breath of wind stirred the dead air."Try again," said Torak.She tried. And again. And again.Still nothing. She couldn't meet his eyes.Then--from deep inside the mountain--the faintest of howls.Torak's face lit up. "I told you! I told you!"The howl was long and wavering, and even Renn could hear its misery and pain. It rose to a peak ...And cut off.137SIXTEENWolf!" cried Torak, throwing himself forward. Renn yanked him back. "Torak, no! They'll hear you!""I don't care, let me go!" He pushed her away with such force that she went flying.She landed on her back, and they stared at each other, both shocked by his violence.He offered her his hand, but she got to her feet unaided. "Don't you understand?" she hissed in a furious whisper. "If you go into that cave, you might be walking right into their hands!""But he needs me!"138"And how does it help if you get yourself killed?" She dragged him down the trail, out of sight of the Eye. "We have to think! He's down there. We know that. But if we blunder in, who knows what might happen?""You heard that howl," he said through his teeth. "If we don't go in now, he may die!"Renn opened her mouth to protest--then froze.Torak had heard it too. The crunch of footsteps coming up the slope.Of one accord, they ducked behind the sleds.Crunch, crunch, crunch. Unhurried. Coming closer.Quietly, Torak drew his knife. Beside him, Renn slipped her hands out of her mittens and nocked an arrow to her bow.A thickset man came into view. He was clad in mottled sealskin, and carried a gray hide pouch over one shoulder. His head was bowed. His hood concealed his face. He bore no weapons that they could see.As Torak watched, rage choked him. His eyes misted red. This was one of them. This man had taken Wolf.In his mind he saw Wolf standing proudly on the ridge above the Forest, his fur limned golden by the sun. He heard again that agonized howl. Pack-brother! Help me!Crunch, crunch, crunch. The man was almost level with them. He stopped. Looked over his shoulder, as if reluctant to go on.It was too much for Torak. Scarcely knowing what he139did, he leaped forward, head-butting the man in the belly, sending him crashing into the snow.He lay winded, but then--with astonishing speed-- rolled sideways, kicked Torak's knife from his hand, and grabbed his hood, twisting it backward in a vicious choke hold. Torak felt strong legs pinioning his arms, squeezing the breath from his chest; flint digging painfully into his throat."I wouldn't," Renn said coldly. She took a step closer, her arrow aimed at the attacker's heart.Torak felt the grip on his ribs loosen. His hood was released, the knife withdrawn."Please," whined his attacker, "don't hurt me!"With her arrow still poised to shoot, Renn nudged Torak's knife toward him with her boot, then told her captive to get up."No, no!" whined the captive, cowering at her feet. "I may not look upon the face of power!"Torak and Renn exchanged startled glances.The captive groveled, scrabbling for the pouch he'd dropped in the attack. Torak was surprised to see that he wasn't a man, but a boy about his own age, although twice as- heavy. He bore the black nose tattoo of the White Foxes, and his round face glistened with blubber and terror sweat."Where is he?" said Torak. "What have you done with him?"140"Who?" bleated the boy. He saw Torak's tattoo, and his mouth fell open. "You're not one of us. Who are you?""What are you doing here?" snapped Renn. "You're no Soul-Eater!""But I will be!" retorted the boy with unexpected ferocity. "They promised!""For the last time," said Torak, advancing with his knife, "what have you done with Wolf?""Get away from me!" squealed the boy, scrambling backward like a crab. "If--if I scream, they'll hear. They'll come to my rescue, all four of them! Is that what you want?"Torak stared at Renn. Four?"Get away from me!" The boy edged up the slope. "I chose to do this! No one can stop me!"He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. It gave Torak an idea. "What have you got in that pouch?" he said, to keep the boy talking."A--an owl," stammered the boy. "They want it for sacrifice.""But an owl is a hunter," said Renn accusingly."So is a wolf," said Torak. "And an otter. What are your masters doing in there? Tell us or we'll--""I don't know!" cried the boy, moving farther up the slope.As they followed him, the Eye came into view.141"Your masters," Renn said quietly, "do they talk of the one who is a spirit walker? Tell the truth! I'll know if you lie!""A spirit walker?" The boy's eyes widened. "Where?""Do they ever speak of this?" demanded Torak."No, no, I swear it!" He was sweating freely now, stinking of blubber. "They came to make a sacrifice! That's all I know, I swear on my three souls!""And for this you'd break clan law by catching hunters for sacrifice?" said Renn. "For an empty promise of a power that will never be yours?"Sheathing his knife, Torak took a step toward the boy. "Your mother wants you back," he said.He'd guessed right. The boy's body sagged.Renn was puzzled, but Torak ignored her. If she got an inkling of what he meant to do, she'd try to stop him. "Get out of here," he told the boy. "Go back to Akoomik while you still can."Terror and ambition fought in the blubbery face. "I can't," he whispered."If you don't go now," said Torak, "it'll be too late. Your clan will make you an outcast. You'll never see them again.""I can't" sobbed the boy.From deep within the Eye, a voice boomed. "Boy! It is time!"142"I'll make it easy for you," snarled Torak. Wrenching the pouch from the boy's grip, he pushed him down the trail. "Go on, go!" He hoisted the pouch over his shoulder. "Renn, I'm sorry, but I've got to do this."Realization dawned in her face. "Torak--no--it'll never work; they'll kill you!"Turning his head, he shouted an answer to the Soul-Eaters. "I'm coming!"Then he raced up the trail and into the Eye of the Viper.143SEVENTEENAfter the twilit mountainside, the darkness hit Torak like a wall."Shut your eyes," said a voice in fr
ont of him. "Let the dark be your guide."Torak just had time to draw down his hood before a figure lurched toward him bearing a sputtering pine-blood torch.From the voice he expected a man, but when he stole a glimpse from under his hood, he was startled to see a woman.She was heavy and squat, with legs so badly bowed that she rocked as she walked. Her features were at144odds with the rest of her: small, darting eyes in a sharp-snouted face. Pointed ears that reminded Torak of a bat. He didn't recognize her clan; the spiky tattoo on her chin was unknown to him. What drew his gaze was the bone amulet on her breast: the three-pronged fork for snaring souls."You were a long time," said the Soul-Eater. "Did you get it?"Hiding his face, Torak held up the pouch. Inside, the owl wriggled feebly.The Soul-Eater grunted, then turned and hobbled farther into the cave.Glancing back, Torak saw that the last glimmer of daylight was far behind. He slung the pouch over his shoulder, and started after her.The Soul-Eater moved fast, despite her bowlegs, and in the swinging torchlight he caught only flashes as they went deeper. Ridged red walls like a gaping maw. A tunnel as pale and twisted as guts. Yellow handprints that flared, then faded in the gloom. And always the echoing drip, drip of water.As he stumbled on, the folly of what he'd done sank in. When the Soul-Eaters saw his face, they would know he wasn't the White Fox boy. Maybe, too, they would detect some trace of his father in his features. Or maybe they already knew who he was, and this was all a trap.Down, down they went. An unclean warmth seeped145from the rocks and clung to his face like cobwebs. An acrid stink stole into his throat."Breathe through your mouth," muttered the Soul-Eater.Fa used to give him the same advice. It was terrible to hear it repeated by the enemy.Above him, Torak saw thin sheets of reddish stone hanging down like flaps of bloody hide. In their folds, unseen creatures shrank from the light.His head struck a rock and he fell, crying out in disgust as his fingers plunged into soft blackness seething with thin gray worms.A strong hand grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet. "Quiet!" said the Soul-Eater. "You'll startle them!" Then to the darkness, "There, there, my little ones." As if in answer came the squeak and rustle of thousands of bats."The warmth makes them wakeful," murmured the Soul-Eater. Laying her palm on the tunnel wall, she made Torak do the same.He recoiled. The rock had the lingering warmth of a fresh carcass. He knew only one reason for that. The Otherworld."Yes, the Otherworld," said the Soul-Eater, as if she'd heard his thoughts. "Why do you think we came all this way?" -He didn't dare reply, which seemed to irritate her.146"Don't let the bats see your eyes," she snarled. "They go for the glitter."Abruptly, the tunnel widened into a long, low cavern the color of dried blood. It had the eye-watering stink of a midden in high summer, and Torak's gorge rose.Then he forgot about the smell. The walls were pitted with smaller hollows, some blocked with slabs of stone. From inside one he caught the hiss of a wolverine.His heart quickened. Where there was a wolverine, maybe there was also a wolf.He gave a low grunt-whine that Wolf would be sure to recognize. It's me!No answer. Disappointment crashed over him like a wave. If Wolf was still alive, he wasn't here."Stop whining," growled the Soul-Eater, "and keep up! If you get lost down here, we'll never find you again."More tunnels, until Torak's head whirled. He wondered if the Soul-Eater had chosen a winding route on purpose, to make him lose his bearings. Behind that sharp face, he sensed a quick mind. Twisted legs and flying thoughts. That was what the Walker had said.They emerged into a vast cavern--and Torak faltered. Before him loomed a forest. A forest of stone.Shadowy thickets reached upward, seeking sunlight they would never find. Stone waterfalls froze in an147endless winter. As Torak followed the lurching torchlight, a sickly warmth made the sweat start out on his brow. He heard a furtive trickling; glimpsed still pools and twisted roots. He caught nightmare flashes of figures draped in stone: some crouching above him, some half hidden in water. When he looked again, they were gone, but he felt their presence: the Hidden People of the Rocks.The Soul-Eater led him to a massive trunk of greenish stone that looked as if it had been hacked to a stump by some act of unimaginable violence. He heard movement, and knew he was being watched.His foot caught on a root, and he tripped and fell. Laughter rang through the cavern."What's this, Nef?" said a woman's mocking voice. "Have you brought us your fosterling at last?"Torak's heart began to pound. He'd managed to deceive one Soul-Eater. He'd need all his wits to deceive the others.Groveling where he lay, he began to whine. "No, no, don't make me look upon the face of power!""Not that again!" grunted Nef. "He won't even dare look at me!"Torak felt a flicker of hope. If they hadn't seen the White Fox boy's face ...A cold finger slid down his cheek, making him flinch. "If he daren't look at Nef the Bat Mage," a148woman whispered in his ear, "dare he look upon Seshru the Viper Mage?"She drew back his hood, and he found himself staring into the most perfect face he'd ever seen. Slanting lynx eyes of fathomless blue; a mouth of daunting beauty. Dark hair, drawn back from a high white brow, revealed a stark black line of tattooed arrowheads, like the markings on a snake.Fascinated yet repelled, he met the peerless gaze, while the Viper Mage studied him as a hunter regards its kill.Her lovely features tightened with contempt--but nothing more. She didn't know who he was. "He's thin for a White Fox," she said. "Nef, you disappoint me. You've found us a runt." Her chill fingers slid inside the neck of his parka, and she smiled. "What's this? He has a knife!""A knife?" said the Bat Mage.The knife that Fin-Kedinn had made for him hung in its sheath from a thong about his neck. Now it was gone: lifted over his head and tossed to Nef."He has a knife!" jeered a man's voice as rich and deep as an oak wood. An enormous figure loomed from the darkness, and before Torak could resist, he was seized, and his arms twisted so viciously that he screamed.More laughter, blasting him with the eye-stinging tang of spruce-blood. "Should I be frightened, Seshru? "149mocked the man. In his bulky reindeer-hide clothes, he seemed to fill the cavern. "Does he mean to threaten the Oak Mage?"Torak stared into a face as hard as sun-cracked earth. The beard was a twiggy thicket, the mane a russet tangle. The eyes that bored into his were a fierce leaf green. "Does he mean to threaten?" repeated the Oak Mage in a tone of menacing softness.Torak felt as helpless as a lemming trapped by a lynx."Thiazzi, leave him!" snapped the Bat Mage. "We need him alive, not dead of fright!"The Viper Mage arched her white throat and laughed. "Poor Nef! Always so eager to play the mother!""What would you know about mothering?" Nef threw back at her.Seshru's beautiful lips thinned."Let's see what it's brought us, shall we?" said Thiazzi, grabbing the pouch from Torak's hand. He pulled out a small, half-grown white owl, and shook it until its eyes darkened with shock. From that moment, Torak hated Thiazzi the Oak Mage, who delighted in tormenting creatures weaker than himself.The Bat Mage didn't seem to like it either. Shambling forward, she snatched the owl from the Oak Mage and stuffed it back in the pouch. "We need this one alive too," she muttered. Then she turned to Torak,150indicated a birchbark bowl on the floor, and told him to eat.To his surprise, he saw that the bowl contained a strip of dried horse meat and some hazelnuts."Go on," urged Seshru with a curious sideways smile. "Eat. You have to keep up your strength." Her glance slid to Thiazzi, and Torak caught a flicker of amusement between them.He pretended to eat, but his throat had closed. It seemed as if only a moment ago, he'd been out in the snow with Renn. Now he was in the bowels of the earth with the Soul-Eaters.The Soul-Eaters. They had haunted his dreams. They had killed his father. Now, at last, here they were: mysterious, unknowable--and yet more real than he could ever have imagined.Thiazzi the Oak Mage sprawled on the rocks, chewing spruce-blood, flecking his beard with golden crumbs. He could have been any hunter in the Forest-- except that he tortured for pleasure.Seshru the Viper Mage moved to lean against him: slender, graceful, her supple seal-hide tunic shimmering like moonlight on a lake. The emptiness of her smile made Torak shudder. When she licked her lips, he glimpsed a little, pointed black tongue.Nef the Bat Mage puzzled him most of all. Her small eyes darted suspiciously from Thiazzi to Seshru,151and she seemed at odds with them both--and with herself.Far away, an owl hooted.Seshru's smile faltered.Thiazzi went still
.Nef murmured under her breath, and put her hand to the dusky clan-creature fur on her shoulder. The torchlight dipped.With a start of terror, Torak saw that a fourth Soul-Eater sat in the deep of the cave--where before there had been only shadow."Behold," whispered Seshru, "the Masked One is come.""Eostra," said Thiazzi hoarsely, "the Eagle Owl Mage."Nef grasped a stone sapling and rose to her feet, hauling Torak with her.The Masked One, thought Torak. He remembered the pain in the Walker's face. Cruelest of the cruel.Through the gloom he made out a tall gray mask. From it glared the unblinking eyes of the greatest of - owls. Owl feathers covered the head, from which rose two sharp owl ears. Long coils of ashen hair hung about a feathered robe. Only the hands could be seen. The nails were hooked, and tinged with blue, like those of a corpse. The flesh had the pale-green sheen of rotting meat.152"Bring it close," said a voice as harsh as a death rattle.Torak was pushed nearer, and thrown to his knees. He caught a whiff of decay, -like the smell of the Raven bone-grounds. Dread froze his heart.With appalling slowness, the owl mask bent over him, and he felt a fierce and evil will beating at his mind.Just when he could bear it no longer, the mask withdrew. "It is well," it said. "Take it away."Torak breathed out shakily, and crawled back toward the light. The torches flared. When he dared look again, Eostra the Eagle Owl Mage was gone.But the change in the cave was palpable. The Oak Mage and the Viper Mage moved with sharpened purpose among the stone trees, fetching baskets and pouches whose contents Torak couldn't see."Come, boy," said Nef. "Help me feed and water the offerings. Then you and I will make the first sacrifice."153EIGHTEENThe dread of Eostra's presence clung to Torak as he followed the Bat Mage through the forest of stone. Nef handed him the pouch that held the owl. "Put it there," she said, indicating a ledge near the altar, "and follow me."As he set down the pouch, Torak loosened the neck a little, to give the owl some air. Nef barked mirthlessly. "It makes you uneasy to harm a hunter. You'll have to do worse if you want to be a Soul-Eater." Snatching a torch, she set off through the twisting tunnels. "You'll have to take on the burden of sin for the good of the many. Could you do that, boy?"154"Yes," Torak said doubtfully."We'll find out," said Nef. "Tell me. How old are you?"He blinked. "Thirteen summers.""Thirteen." Her brow furrowed. "My son would have been fourteen, if he'd lived."For a moment Torak almost felt sorry for her."Thirteen summers," repeated the Bat Mage. With a faraway look, she reached into a pouch at her belt and brought out a handful of dead flies. On her shoulder the clan-creature fur stirred--stretched its neck--and snapped them up. "There, my beauty," she murmured. She caught Torak staring. "Well, go on," she said, "let her sniff you!"He offered it his finger. The bat's crumpled ears quivered, delicate as new leaves, and he felt the brief warmth of a tiny tongue tasting his skin. Strange prey, he thought. He pictured how the bat would move over snow: its claws digging in, its elbows making tiny stumplike tracks. With a pang he thought how the ever-curious Wolf would have raced to investigate."She likes you," growled Nef. "Odd." Abruptly she headed off again, and Torak had to run to keep up."How did your son die?" he asked."He starved," said Nef. "The prey fled our part of the Forest. We must have done something to displease the World Spirit." Her scowl deepened. "I wanted to155die too. I tried to, but the Wolf Mage saved me." - At the mention of his father, Torak nearly fell over. "He saved my life," Nef said bitterly. "Now he's dead, and I can never repay him. Gratitude is a terrible thing."Suddenly she seized Torak's hands and pressed them to the wall of the tunnel, crushing them under her own. "That's why we're here, boy, to make things right with the World Spirit! Quick! Tell me what you feel!"He struggled, but her hands imprisoned his. Beneath his palms the rock was clammy and warm. Deep within, he felt something squirm. "It lives!" he whispered."What you feel," said Nef, "is the skin that separates our world from the Other. There are places under the earth where that skin has worn thin."Torak thought of a cave he'd once ventured into. He asked if there were such places in the Forest."There's one," said Nef. "We tried it, but the way .was shut.""Why do you need it?" he said. "Why are you here?"The small eyes glinted. "You know why."He licked his lips. "But--I need to learn more if I'm to be a Soul-Eater."Nef leaned closer, engulfing him in the acrid smell of bat. "First we must find the Door," she said. "The place where the skin is thinnest. Then we must make156the charm to protect us from what will come forth.Last"--her voice sank to a whisper--"in the dark of the moon--we must open the Door."Torak swallowed. Once again he heard the voice of the Walker. They are going to open the Door! "But--why?" he breathed. "Why do you--" "No more questions!" snarled Nef. "We've got work to do!"They hurried on, emerging after a time into the stinking cavern where Torak had heard the wolverine. He saw a stream that he'd missed before, pooling in a hollow before vanishing down a crevice. Beside it stood a birchbark pail and a wovenbark sack of dried cod.Nef told him to take them both and follow her. Shambling to the first of the hollows, she shifted the slab that blocked it by a hand's width. She tossed in a scrap of cod, drew out a small birchwood bowl, filled it, and pushed it in again.Torak caught a gleam of eyes. An otter: the one whose joyful snow-slide he'd tracked in the Forest. Her sleek coat was matted, and she shrank from them. His pity for Nef drained away. If she could do this ...The Bat Mage pushed back the slab, leaving a narrow gap for air, and limped to the next hollow. Slowly they made their way through the cavern. Torak glimpsed a white fox curled in exhausted slumber. An eagle: all ruffled feathers and glaring yellow rage. A lynx157so cramped that it couldn't turn around. The spitting fury of a wolverine.Finally, in a deep pit almost completely sealed by an enormous slab of stone, he glimpsed the awesome, unmistakable bulk of an ice bear."That one gets only water," said Nef, taking the pail and splashing some into the hole. "We need to keep it starved, or it'll be too strong."The bear gave a thunderous growl, and hurled itself against the slab. The slab held firm. Not even the power of an ice bear could move it."How did you catch it?" said Torak.Nef snorted. "Seshru has some skill with sleeping-potions. Thiazzi's strength has its uses."Torak turned, and took in the length of the cavern. He'd begun to realize that what the Soul-Eaters were doing went far beyond threatening Wolf. "Hunters," he said. "They're all hunters.""Yes," said the Bat Mage."Where's the wolf?"Nef went still. "How do you know there is one?"He thought quickly. "I heard it. A howl.'*The Bat Mage lurched back the way they'd come. "The wolf will be brought in tomorrow, in the dark of the moon. When it's time."Covertly, Torak glanced about him to see if some hollow remained unexplored.158Again Nef seemed to read his mind. "He isn't here. We're keeping him apart from the others." "Why?"That earned him a sharp glance. "You ask a lot of questions.""I want to learn."The bat on Nef's shoulder squirmed, and she watched it lift off and flit away into the darkness. "Because of Seshru," she said. "Last summer she received a strange message from our brother across the Sea. 'The Wolf lives.' We don't know what it means. But that's why we keep the wolf separate."Torak's thoughts whirled. Did they know something? Maybe not enough to suspect that he was a spirit walker, but something....He realized that Nef was watching him keenly; so he asked the question to which he thought he already knew the answer. "All these creatures. What are you going to do to them?""What do you think we're going to do?""Kill them," he said.The Bat Mage nodded. "The blood of the nine hunters is the most dreadful--the most potent of sacrifices."His temples pounded. The cave walls pressed in on him."You say you want to be one of us," said Nef. "Well,159that begins now." She raised her torch, and Torak saw that she'd brought him full circle, back to the forest of stone. It was deserted. The other Soul-Eaters had gone. On the ledge at his shoulder, the owl in the pouch lay still. Awaiting sacrifice.The breath caught in his throat. "But--you said tomorrow. In the dark of the moon.""For the full charm, yes. But first we have the finding of the Door--and for that, too, we must protect ourselves. The blood of the owl will do that. And it will help us hear what lies within."Wedging the torch in a crevice, she reached for the pouch, and drew out the bird. With one hand she held it down. With the other she extended her knife-hilt to Torak. "Take it," she ordered. "Cut
off its head."Torak stared at the owl, and the owl stared back at him: bedraggled, limp with fright.Nef jabbed the knifehilt into his chest. "Are you so weak that you fail at the first test?"A test...He saw now that everything the Bat Mage had done had been leading up to this. She meant to find out if he was who he pretended to be: a White Fox boy determined to step over into the murky world of the Soul-Eaters."But it isn't prey," he said. "We're not going to eat it. And we're not hunting. It hasn't had a chance to get away."160The eyes of the Bat Mage were bright with a terrible certainty. "Sometimes," she said, "the innocent must suffer for the good of the many."Good? thought Torak. What's this got to do with good?"Take the knife," commanded Nef.He couldn't breathe. The air in his lungs was hot and heavy with sin."Come!" said Nef. "We are the Soul-Eaters; we speak for the World Spirit! Are you with us or against us? There is no middle path!"Torak took the knife. He knelt, and placed his free hand on the owl. He'd never felt anything so soft as those feathers, so delicate as the fragile bones that sheltered the small, racing heart.If he refused to do this, Nef would kill him. And the Soul-Eaters would open the Door, and unleash who knew what horrors upon the world.And Wolf would die.He took a deep breath--silently begged the World Spirit for forgiveness--and brought down the knife.161NINETEENIt's done," said the Bat Mage. "Is that the blood?" said the Oak Mage. "Of course."Hardly daring to breathe, Renn shrank deeper into her hiding-place: a dank fissure behind a thicket of stone saplings. Where was Torak? What had they done to him?She watched the Soul-Eater bearing a sputtering torch in one hand and a horn cup in the other. In the flickering light, the bowlegged shadow was vast. Overhead, thousands of bats stirred."Where's the boy?" said the Oak Mage, taking his place before the altar.162"With the offerings," said the Bat Mage. "He seemed shaken. Seshru is watching him." Renn's skin crawled."So he's shaken, is he?" sneered the Oak Mage. "Nef, he's a coward! I hope that won't affect the charm.""Why should it, Thiazzi?" retorted the Bat Mage. "He came to us, he offered himself. He'll serve the purpose well enough."What purpose? thought Renn. From what she'd heard, Torak's disguise had succeeded; they didn't know who he was, or that he was a spirit walker. But why did they need him?She wondered, too, how many Soul-Eaters there were in these caves. There had been seven when they'd banded together, and two were now dead, which left five; but the White Fox boy had mentioned only four. Where was the fifth?Then she forgot about that. The Bat Mage set the torch in a cleft, dipped her forefinger in the cup, and daubed a streak of darkness on her brow. She did the same for the Oak Mage."The blood of the owl," she chanted, "for keenest hearing.""And to protect us from those who rage within," intoned the Oak Mage.Renn stifled a gasp: The blood of the owl... So they'd163killed it, just as the White Fox boy had said. But why? To kill a hunter angers the World Spirit, and brings bad luck on oneself and one's clan.Resting her hand on a sapling, she was startled to feel a sickly warmth. She knew instantly what it was. The heat of the Otherworld.To protect us from those who rage within ... Did they mean demons? Demons from the Otherworld?If only she'd followed Torak at once! But instead she'd paced the snow: furious with him, arguing with herself. By the time she'd made up her mind--had hidden her bow and found her courage--the cave had swallowed him.That was when she'd heard the echoing tread of a man. She'd barely had time to slip inside before he'd loomed from the darkness: big as an auroch, his face hidden in a tangle of hair and beard. The Oak Clan tattoo had been plain on the back of his hand. The smell of spruce-blood had hung about him like mist in the Forest.In awe she'd watched him put his shoulder to a slab of rock five times her size, and slide it across the cave mouth as if it had been a wicker screen. They were shut in: She'd had no choice but to follow him into the twisting tunnels: fearing to get too close, or worse-to be left behind in the dark.At last they'd emerged into this forest of stone. Around her she felt the presence of shadowy figures164watching, waiting. Even the drip, drip of water sounded stealthy. Worst of all was the flutter and squeak of thousands of bats. Did they know she was here? Would they tell the Soul-Eaters?Peering between two stone saplings, she watched the Bat Mage take up her torch and touch it to others wedged around the altar. Firelight flared--then suddenly dipped, as if in homage. The bats fell silent. The air grew heavy with evil.Renn jammed her knuckles in her mouth.A third Soul-Eater sat at the head of the altar. In the gloom, Renn made out feathered robes that seemed to grow from the stone itself; the fearsome orange glare of an eagle owl.Behind the mask, a chill voice spoke. "The souls. Give me the souls."The Bat Mage placed something small on the altar--and the shadowy robes moved to cover it. Renn guessed that the Bat Mage had worked some kind of binding charm, and trapped the owl's souls in its feathers."It is well," said the voice behind the mask.Renn thought of the owl's souls, caught--perhaps forever--in the grip of the Eagle Owl Mage. She wondered if they would ever escape, to flutter into the sky, seeking the shelter of the First Tree....165Dread dragged at her heart as she watched the Mage place something dark and curved on the altar. It was the Walker's strike-fire: the stone claw that he'd taken from a cave in the Forest long ago.Next, the Oak Mage reached into a pouch, and held up a small black pebble with the sheen and smoothness of an eye. "This is the owl," he chanted as he laid it beside the strike-fire. "The first of the nine hunters."The nine hunters?Renn's fingers closed about a slender twig of stone. Feeling sick, she watched the Oak Mage upend the pouch. More pebbles rattled onto the altar.The Bat Mage chose one and laid it beside the one that betokened the owl. "This" she chanted, "is the eagle. For keenest sight.""And to protect us from those who rage within," chanted the others.Another pebble was set beside the second. And another. And another. As Renn listened, the hideous extent of the impending sacrifice revealed itself."This is the fox. For cunning..."This is the otter. For water skill..."This is the wolverine. For rage..."This is the bear. For strength ..."This is the lynx. For leaping..."This is the wolf..."166Renn shut her eyes. "... For wisdom ..."A hush fell. The ninth pebble lay waiting to be set in its place: to close the ring of eyes encircling the strike-fire.The Eagle Owl Mage extended a talon to grasp it. "This," she chanted, "is the man. For cruelty." Man.Renn's grip tightened on the stone. At last she knew why the Soul-Eaters had let the White Fox boy join them. And now Torak had taken his place.... ' The stone snapped. The bats exploded in a fluttering, squeaking cloud."Someone's there!" cried Nef, leaping to her feet."It's the boy!" boomed Thiazzi. "He's been listening!"Torchlight slid between the stone trees as the Soul-Eaters began to search the cave.Wildly Renn cast about for an escape; but in choosing her hiding-place, she'd crept too far from the tunnel. She couldn't get back without being seen.Nearer and nearer came the light, reaching for her. Nearer came the heavy tread of the Oak Mage.She did the only thing she could. She climbed up.The fissure was jagged as an axe-cut, and she skinned her palms as she groped for handholds. She167raised her head--couldn't see anything--and scrambled higher into the dark.The footsteps were almost upon her.Her fingers found a ledge. No time to think. She heaved herself onto it, praying that the rustling of the bats would mask the frantic scrabbling of her boots.It wasn't a ledge, it was a tunnel; she'd found a tunnel! Too low to stand up--she bumped her head-- dropped to all fours, and crawled in.The tunnel bent to the right--good--if she could get inside, the light wouldn't find her. But it was so narrow that she could barely squeeze in, and the roof was getting lower--she had to crawl on her belly, and push herself ahead on her elbows.Squirming like a lizard, she wriggled deeper. As she twisted her head to look back, she saw the yellow light flickering closer, nearly touching her boots. She wasn't . far enough in; they were going to find her....With a tremendous heave she pulled herself around the bend--just as the light snapped at her heels.Below her, a man's harsh breathing. The sharp tang of spruce-blood.She bit down hard on her lower lip.Then--from the other side of the cave--the thud of running feet.168"It wasn't the boy!" panted the Bat Mage. "He's been with Seshru all the time!""Are you sure?" said the Oak Mage, his voice shockingly close."It must have been the bats," said Nef."Well, from now on," gro
wled Thiazzi, "we'd better keep watch."His voice receded, taking the light with it. Darkness flooded back.Weak with relief, Renn slumped on her belly. For a long time she lay in the blackness, listening to the Soul-Eaters moving about, talking in low voices.At last their voices faded. They had left the forest of stone. The bats fluttered, then sank into silence. Still Renn waited, fearing a trap.When she was as certain as she could be that she was alone, she started to wriggle backward out of the tunnel.The hood of her parka snagged on the roof, and she kicked forward to unhook it--but the tunnel was too low; she couldn't move far enough to free herself.Irritated, she tried again. And again. She tried wriggling from side to side. The tunnel was too narrow; it didn't do any good.She lay on her belly, struggling to take in what had happened. Her arms were folded awkwardly beneath169her chest. Against her fists she felt the thunder of her heart.The truth crashed upon her. She was stuck.170TWENTYShe thought about screaming for help, but that would bring the Soul-Eaters. She thought about lying in this stinking weasel hole, dying of thirst. A quick death or a slow one. That was the choice.She was soaked in sweat, and the tunnel walls blew back the smell of her fear. She could no longer hear the drip of water; only her ragged breath, and a strange, uneven drum-drum-drum that was keeping pace with the thunder of her heart.It was her heart, she realized: her heart echoing through the rock as it thumped against her ribs.Suddenly she was horribly aware of the vast weight171of stone that pressed upon her, of the utter impossibility of movement. The earth had swallowed her. It had only to give the slightest twitch to crush her like a louse.No one would ever know. No one would find her bones and lay them to rest in the Raven bone-grounds. No one would put the Death Marks on her, to keep her souls together.Darkness lay on her face like a second skin. She shut her eyes. Opened them. No difference. She dragged her hand from under her, held it before her nose. Couldn't see her fingers. They didn't exist. She didn't exist.She couldn't get enough air. She took a great, shuddering breath--and the rock shrank tight around her.She panicked. Clawing, kicking, moaning, drowning in a black sea of terror. She collapsed, exhausted, grinding her mouth into the unyielding stone to keep back the whimpers.Deep in the earth, there is no time. No winter. No summer. No moon. No sun. There is only the dark. Renn lay for so long that she wasn't Renn anymore. Whole winters drifted over her. She became part of the rock.She heard demons cackling on the other side. Lights flashed. Red eyes glared at her, coming nearer. She was dying. Soon her souls would be scattered, and she'd172become a demon: - squeaking and gibbering in the endless heat of the Otherworld, hating and desiring all living things.But now more lights were coming: tiny, brilliant green needle-pricks that shimmered and danced, chasing the red eyes away. There was a humming in her ears, a humming of ...Bees?She jerked awake. Bees? In winter, in a cave in the Far North?The humming was nearer, and it was definitely bees. Although she couldn't see them, she could feel them, brushing against her cheeks. What were they? A message from her clan guardian? The spirits of her ancestors? Or a trick of the demons, waiting behind the rock?But they didn't feel evil. Shutting her eyes, she lay and listened to the humming of the bees....It's the Moon of the Salmon Run, and the blackthorn trees are in bloom, and the bees are humming. Renn is eight summers old: hunting with Fin-Kedinn, eager to try out the beautiful new bow he has made for her. She pauses on the riverbank to admire its gleaming golden curve, and the blackthorn blossom drifts down like summer snow, and catches on the manes of the forest horses who stand in the shallows.When she drags her eyes away from her bow, she's173startled to see that Fin-Kedinn has crossed the river and gone on ahead. Hurriedly she tumbles down the bank and splashes after him.The mares don't like her coming so close to their foals. They show the whites of their eyes, ready to kick.Renn isn't frightened, but to avoid them she flounders deeper, and the mud sucks at her boots. She's stuck.She panics. Since her father died, she's had nightmares about being trapped. What if the horses trample her? What if the Hidden People of the river pull her under?Suddenly the sunlight is blotted out, and Fin-Kedinn is standing over her. His face is as impenetrable as ever, but in his blue eyes there's a glint of laughter."Renn," he says calmly, "there's an answer to this. But you won't find it if you don't use your head."She blinks. Glances down. Then--wobbling--she steps out of her boots.Laughing, her uncle swings her high in his arms. And now she's laughing too, and squealing as he swings her down in a dizzying swoop to pluck her boots from the mud. Still laughing, he sets her on his shoulders, and wades to the bank, and around them the blossom is drifting, and the bees are humming....The bees were still humming, but she couldn't see them anymore because she was back in the weasel hole.174The thought of Fin-Kedinn was like a beam of light in the dark. Her fingers touched the polished slate wrist-guard on her forearm. He'd made it for her when he'd taught her to shoot."There is an answer," she whispered. "Use your head...."Her breathing slowed. Her chest was no longer heaving. The walls didn't seem to grip quite as tightly as before.Of course! she thought. Don't breathe so deeply, and you won't take up so much space!Keeping her breathing shallow was a small victory, and it cheered her greatly. She wasn't dead yet. If only there were some way of making herself narrower still.Maybe it was possible. Yes! Why hadn't she thought of it before?Slowly-painfully--she uncurled her right arm and stretched it forward as far as she could. Then she tilted her left shoulder back. Now she really was narrower, because she wasn't blocking the tunnel face on, but tilting sideways.The next bit would be harder. Bending her right arm back over her head, she clutched at her parka. Missed. Tried again, and grabbed the hood. Tugged. It was mercifully loose: Tanugeak had told her that the White Foxes made them like that because loose clothes are warmer. Like a snake sloughing off its skin, Renn175wriggled and pulled, wriggled and pulled--and at last the parka slid over her head.She lay panting, and the bees hummed giddily.Now for the birdskin jerkin. This was harder--no hood to grab hold of--but without the parka, she could move much more easily.The relief when the jerkin came off was overwhelming. For a while she lay gasping, feeling the sweat chilling her skin, touching the clothes bunched up in front of her. But now she was resting with a purpose. In only her leggings, she was half the size she had been, and could slip through the tunnel like an eel. She could get back to the forest of stone, and find Torak and Wolf.She started wriggling backward, but her leggings snagged on a spur. It didn't stop her for long, but to her surprise, the buzzing of the bees turned as fierce as hornets. What did that mean? Didn't they want her to go back?-Stretching her hand into the darkness before her, she felt cool air stinging her raw fingers. It wasn't merely the chill of drying sweat; it was a current of cold air. And if it was cold, it must be coming from outside.Pushing with her toes, she edged forward through the tunnel. It sloped steeply up, but now that she had more room to squirm, it was easier, and she could grasp projections jutting from the rocks, and pull herself along.176Still she hesitated. If she went forward--wherever that led--it would mean leaving Torak behind. She couldn't do that. She had to warn him that he was the ninth hunter in the sacrifice.And yet--if she went back, she would find herself once again in the cavern of the Soul-Eaters; and even if she could evade them, and somehow find Torak--even if they could rescue Wolf, and make their way through the tunnels to the mouth of the cave--how would they get out, when it was blocked by that great slab that only Thiazzi could move?She chewed her lip, wondering what to do.Fin-Kedinn often said that when things went wrong, the worst you could do was nothing. "Sometimes, Renn, you have to make a choice. Maybe it's a good one, maybe not. But it's better than doing nothing."Renn thought for a moment. Then she started wriggling forward.177TWENTY-ONEIn the forest of stone, the Soul-Eaters were making ready for the finding of the Door. Nef hobbled about dipping torches in pine-blood and setting them in place, while her bat flitted overhead. The veins in Thiazzi's temples bulged as he hauled rocks into a circle about the altar. Seshru fitted three masks with gutskin eyes for seeing into the Otherworld. Of Eostra there was no sign.Torak dreaded the return of the Eagle Owl Mage--
and yet he needed it too. He had to be certain that all four Soul-Eaters were here in this cave before he could slip away and find Wolf. Until then, he had to be the178apprentice Soul-Eater: grinding earthblood on a slab, while the blood of the owl stiffened on his forehead.After he'd killed it, Nef had put her heavy hand on his shoulder. "Well done. You've just taken the first step to becoming one of us."No I haven't, Torak had told her in his head.But he-knew what Renn would have said. "Where will it end, Torak? How far will you go?"He remembered an argument he'd had with Fin-Kedinn, when he'd begged the Raven Leader to let him go in search of the Soul-Eaters. In vain."Your father tried to fight them," Fin-Kedinn had said, "and they killed him! What makes you think you'd be any stronger?"At the time, Torak had raged against the Raven Leader's refusal, but now he understood what lay behind it. It wasn't only the evil of the Soul-Eaters that Fin-Kedinn feared. It was the evil within Torak himself.Once, the Raven Leader had told him the story of the first winter that ever was. "The World Spirit fought a terrible battle with the Great Auroch, the most powerful of demons. At last the World Spirit flung the demon burning from the sky; but as it fell, the wind scattered its ashes, and a tiny speck settled in the marrow of every creature on earth. Evil exists in us all, Torak. Some fight it. Some feed it. That's how it's always been."179Torak thought of that now: a tiny black seed in his marrow, waiting to burst into life."Bring me the earthblood," said Seshru, startling him. "Quickly. It's almost time."He lifted the heavy slab and carried it to the altar.How long before he could escape and find Wolf?The plan he'd come up with was dangerous--it might even kill him--but it was the only one he could think of. First he had to return to the stinking tunnel where the "offerings" were held; then he had to get as close to the ice bear as he dared, and then--"Put it there," ordered Seshru.He did as he was told, and made to withdraw--but her cold hand clasped his wrist."Stay. Watch. Learn."He had no choice but to kneel beside her.She'd painted the mask with lime, turning it glaring white. Now she dipped her forefinger in a paste of alder juice and earthblood, and reddened the mouth. Her finger worked in slow circles that made Torak dizzy. As he watched, the face began to live. The scarlet lips glistened with spittle. The mane of dead grass rustled and grew."Don't touch," whispered the Viper Mage. He jerked back with a cry.Laughter rippled through the Soul-Eaters. They were playing with him, making him feel one of them for180some purpose of their own."You want to know why we're doing this," said Nef, guessing the question in his mind."Why are we going to open the Door?" murmured Seshru. "Why are we going to let out the demons? ""To rule," said Thiazzi, coming to stand beside her. "To unite the clans and rule."Torak licked his lips. "But--the clans rule themselves.""Much good it does them," growled Nef. "Have you never asked yourself why the World Spirit is so fickle, so unpredictable? Why does it send the prey at some times, but not others? Why does it kill one child with sickness, but spare another? Because the clans don't live as they should!""They have different ways of sacrificing," said Thiazzi, "of sending their Dead on the Journey. This displeases the World Spirit.""There's no order to it," said Nef.Thiazzi drew himself up to his full height. "We know the-true way. We will show them.""But to do that," said Seshru, fixing Torak with her unfathomable gaze, "we must have power. The demons will give it to us."He tried to look away, but her eyes held his. "No one can control demons," he said.Thiazzi's laugh echoed through the cave. "You're181wrong. If only you knew how wrong!""The mistake others made in the past," said Seshru, "was to overreach themselves. Our brother who is lost summoned an elemental and trapped it in a great bear. Of course he couldn't control it. It was a magnificent madness."Magnificent? thought Torak. That madness had cost his father his life.Nef hobbled toward him. "The demons we summon," she declared, "will be as many as the bats that darken the moon--""--as many as the leaves in the Forest," boomed the Oak Mage. "We will flood the land with terror!""And after that..."--the Viper Mage stretched out her hands, then drew them toward her, as if grasping an invisible bounty--"we will call them back, and the demons will do our bidding, because we--and only we--possess that which forces them to our will."Torak stared at her. "What do you mean?"The beautiful mouth curved. "Ah. You'll see."Torak looked from Nef to Seshru to Thiazzi. Their faces were alight with fervor. While he had been plotting to rescue Wolf, they had been hatching a plan to gain dominion over the Forest."Soul-Eaters, they call us," said Thiazzi. He spat out a crumb of spruce-blood."A foolish name," said Nef.182"But useful," murmured Seshru with her sideways smile, "if it keeps them in fear."Torak rose uncertainly to his feet. "I--should go," he said. "I should guard the offerings.""From what?" said Thiazzi, blocking his path. "The Eye is shut. Nothing can get in.""Or out," said Seshru.Torak swallowed. "One of them might escape."The Viper Mage slid him a mocking glance. "He wants to get away from us.""I told you he was a coward," sneered Thiazzi."Here." Nef held out a length of shriveled black root. "Take it. Eat.""What is it?" said Torak.Seshru licked her lips, showing her little pointed tongue. "It'll send you into a trance.""This is part of being a Soul-Eater," said Thiazzi. "That is what you want. Isn't it?"All three were watching him.He took the root and put it in his mouth. It tasted sweet, but with an undertow of rottenness that made him gag.They had trapped him. First the owl. Now this. Where would it end? How was he ever going to find Wolf?183TWENTY-TWOThere was black fog in Wolf's head, and it told him that Tall Tailless wasn't coming to rescue him, not ever ever ever.Something had happened. He'd fallen prey to a Fast Wet, or been attacked by the bad taillesses. Otherwise he would have come by now.As Wolf paced the tiny stinking Den, he shook his head to get rid of the fog, but only succeeded in bumping his nose on a rock. The Den was far away from all the other creatures, and so small that he could only take a single pace before he had to turn around and go back again. Pace, turn. Pace, turn.184He ached to run. In his sleeps, he loped up hills and down into valleys; he rolled about in ferns, waggling his paws and growling with delight. Sometimes he leaped so high that he soared into the Up, and snapped at the Bright White Eye. But always when he woke, he was back in the stinking Den. He could have howled--if he'd had the spirit to howl. But what was the use? Nobody would hear him except the bad taillesses and the demons.Pace, turn. Pace, turn.Hunger gnawed at his belly. In the Forest, when he hadn't made a kill for a long time, hunger sharpened his nose and ears, and put a spring in his lope that sent him flying between the trees. But this hunger was so bad that it didn't even hurt.All the pacing was making him giddy, but he couldn't stop, even though it got harder with every step. His tail was much, much worse. He'd tried licking it better, but it didn't taste like himself anymore, and it didn't carry his scent. It smelled like Not-Breath prey that's lain in the Forest for many Lights and Darks. It tasted bad. The badness was making him sick. He could feel it seeping through him, eating up his strength.Pace, turn. Pace, turn.He was deep in the guts of the earth, and far from all other creatures. He missed the whimpering of the otter, and the fury of the wolverine; he even missed the185stupid snarling of that stupid bear. And yet--he wasn't alone. His ears rang with the squeaking of bats and the gibber of demons. He could smell them behind the rocks, hear the scrabbling of their claws. There were so many. It was a torment not to be able to attack: to bite and snap and tear, as he was meant to do. Hunting demons was what he was for. Pace, turn. Pace, turn.It was demons that had put the badness in his tail; it was demons that were blowing black fog through his head. Because of them, he'd begun to see and hear things that weren't there. Sometimes he saw Tall Tailless crouching beside him. Once he'd heard the high, thin yowl that the female made when she put the grouse bone to her muzzle.Now, beneath the bat-squeaks and the scratching of demons, he caught a new sound, a real one. Two taillesses coming closer: one small, one heavier.For a moment, hope leaped. Could it be Tall Tailless and the female?No. This wasn't his pack-brother coming to rescue him. It was the bad taillesses: Viper-Tongue and Pale-Pelt.Knowing he was too weak to fight, Wolf cowered in the Den. He heard the covering being scraped back, and saw a lump of bark lowered onto the floor.
He snapped up the wet. There was just enough to waken186thirst, but not enough to send it back to sleep.And yet--what was this? Another scent clung to Viper-Tongue's overpelt. A clean, well-loved scent: the scent of Tall Tailless!Wolf's joy swiftly turned to horror as he realized that this could only mean one thing. The bad taillesses had caught his pack-brother!He went wild. Yowling, hurling himself against the Den. He put up his muzzle to howl, but strong paws grabbed his head. He twisted--tried to bite--but he was too weak and they were too strong. Once again the hated rawhide was wound about his muzzle.Once again he was unable to howl.187TWENTY-THREEThe forest of stone was growing before Torak's eyes. Rocky trunks thrust upward with splintering cracks. Brittle branches spread with the jerky shudder of broken fingers.He shut his eyes, but still he saw it. He wondered if this was the "inner eye" that Renn had told him about: the one you used for Magecraft. He wished savagely that she were with him now.The black root was sweet and rotten in his mouth. He could feel it tugging at his souls, although he'd only chewed it for a moment, then hidden it under his tongue. He felt dizzy and sick, but more alert188than ever before in his life.He watched the Soul-Eaters circling the altar. Like the forest of stone, they had changed beyond recognition. The Bat Mage snarled through a wrinkled muzzle as she spread her leathery wings to shadow the cave. The Oak Mage towered over the stone trees, his gnarled bark crackling as he brandished twin rattles made of teeth and skulls. The Viper Mage glared with dead gutskin eyes through a hissing mane of serpents.Only the Eagle Owl Mage remained unchanged, as if rooted in stone.Forgotten in the shadows, Torak hung back. Now was the time to slip away: to go in search of Wolf. But the black root held him fast in an invisible web. He couldn't move.Sounds came to him more keenly than ever before. He heard every drip from the stone trees; every bat-squeak, every flicker of wet snake tongues. He knew why, and the knowledge sickened him. The blood of the owl had sharpened his hearing.Hating himself for doing nothing, he watched the Viper Mage whirl around and around, thrashing her snake head in dizzying circles. A serpent slithered past his face. He caught its split yellow stare, the black .lightning of its tongue.Suddenly the Viper Mage moved to the altar, and plunged both hands into a hollowed stone--then drew189them out, spattering red. Thrashing, swaying, she glided to the back of the cavern, and planted her palms on the rock.The Oak Mage and the Bat Mage bayed in ecstasy. Torak gasped.As the Viper Mage sprang away, her handprints smoked. The red stain was eating through the skin between this world and the Other.At last he understood the meaning of the yellow handprints he'd glimpsed on his way into the caves. They'd been made by someone trying to find the Door.And now, behind the serpent hiss and the rattle of tooth on bone--behind the groans of the earth itself-- Torak heard a sound that made his knees give, and the back of his neck crawl as if a spider were scuttling across it. A sound to suck the hope from the marrow, and stop the heart with dread: harsh, malevolent, rasping breath.Demons. Demons on the other side of the rock, lusting to be let loose.. In helpless horror he stared at the whirling, chanting Soul-Eaters. What should he do? He had to find Wolf. He had to stop them engulfing the world in terror.The Viper Mage was clutching the Walker's strike-fire and tapping it over the rock, pausing now and then to listen. Faster went the rattles. Faster went the tap-tap-tap of the black stone claw.Torak's head swam. He tried to move, but the190invisible web had him in its grip. Tap-tap-tap.Between the outstretched arms of the Viper Mage, the rock began to move.Torak blinked. It had to be just a flicker of torchlight....No. There it was again: like a hand pushing up beneath taut-stretched hide. Pushing up beneath the rock.This time there was no mistaking it. Behind the rock--in the burning chaos of the Otherworld--the demons were straining to break through. Smooth, blind heads tented and stretched the stone. Cruel mouths gaped and sucked. Savage claws scrabbled. The wall of the cavern was buckling, fragile as a day-old leaf. Not for long could it withstand such terrible, insatiable hunger.The Eagle Owl Mage rose and raised one arm, and Torak saw that she held a black oak mace surmounted by a fiery stone.The Soul-Eaters paused in their dance. "The fire-opal, " they breathed.Bewildered and fascinated, Torak sank to his knees--and the fire-opal filled the cavern with crimson light. It was the blistering heat at the heart of the fiercest ember. It was the clamorous scarlet of fresh blood on snow. It was the blaze of the angriest sunset, and the glare of the Great Auroch in the deep of winter. It was191beauty and terror, ecstasy and pain--and the demons wanted it. Their howls shook the cavern as they hurled themselves at the rock, redoubling their onslaught in their frenzy.Torak swayed. This was the secret power of the Soul-Eaters. With this they would bend the demons to their will."The fire-opal," they whispered, as the Eagle Owl Mage held the mace on high, and around her the stone trees thrashed in a soundless wind.As Torak watched, the Oak Mage and the Bat Mage gnashed their teeth until black spittle flew, and the Viper Mage planted her smoking palms against the rock--and threw up her head and cried, "The Door--is--found!"She staggered back, and Torak saw that on the rock she'd completed a great ring of handprints--and inside the ring, the demons were on the point of bursting through.At that moment, the Eagle Owl Mage lowered the fire-opal, shrouding it in her robes--and its scarlet light was quenched. The taut-stretched rock sprang back. The howls of the demons sank to a furious panting."The Door is found," hissed the Viper Mage, and slumped to the ground in a faint.The invisible web holding Torak snapped.He leaped to his feet and ran.192TWENTY-FOURTorak raced through the tunnels, skinning his knuckles and barking his shins. He stumbled, and the torch he'd snatched from the forest of stone lurched wildly. As he righted himself, a leathery wing fluttered past his face. He bit back a cry and staggered on.Twice he thought he heard footsteps, but when he paused, he caught only his own echo. He doubted that the Soul-Eaters would follow him. They didn't need to. Where would he go? The Eye of the Viper was shut. He closed his mind to that and ran on. Fragments of what he'd witnessed flashed before his eyes. The thrusting snouts of the demons, fighting to193break open the Door. The awful beauty of the fire-opal.He couldn't believe that it had held him for so long. What spell had it cast, that had made him forget Wolf? Was this how it had been for his father? Drawn in by his curiosity, by his fatal need to know--until it was too late.Too late. Terror seized him. Maybe it was "already too late for Wolf.As he ran, he spat out the black root, then bit it in two; crammed half in his medicine pouch, and chewed the other. The rotten under-taste made him gag, but he forced himself to swallow. No time for hesitation. He'd seen what the root had done to the Soul-Eaters. Now it had to work for him.With alarming suddenness the first cramps gripped. Clutching his belly, he staggered into the tunnel of the offerings, jammed the torch in a crack, and fell on all fours.He retched, spewing up a gobbet of black bile. His eyes were streaming; the tunnel was spinning. His souls were beginning to tug loose.Still retching, he crawled to the pit that held the ice bear. He caught the sound of furred pads on stone.Memory reached from the dark and pulled him down. A blue autumn dusk in the Forest. His father laughing at the joke he'd just made. Then, out of the shadows, the bear--194No! he told himself. Don't think about Fa, think about Wolf! Find Wolf.Shivering, he crawled closer, and rested his burning forehead against the rock, peering through the chink between the floor and the slab that covered the pit.Flinty eyes glared back at him. A growl shuddered through the rock. His spirit quailed. Even starved and weakened, the ice bear was all-powerful. Its souls would be too strong.More cramps convulsed him. He retched ...... and suddenly he was trapped in the pit, slitting his eyes against the painful blur of light. He was so hot, so terribly hot. Above him the frail body of a boy taunted him with the maddening scent of fresh meat. The blood smell was so strong that his claws ached as he paced and turned, and paced again.He caught the distant murmur of man-voices, and for a moment his mind turned from the blood smell, and he bared his teeth. He knew those voices. It was the evil ones who had taken him from the ice.As he remembered his lost home, dull pain coursed through him. They had robbed him of his beautiful cold Sea, where the whi
te whales sleep and the succulent seals swim; of the faithful wind that never failed to waft the blood smell to his nose. They had stolen his ice, his never-ending ice, which hid him when he hunted, and carried him wherever he wished to go, which was all195he'd ever known. They had brought him to this terrible, burning place where there was no ice; where the blood smell was everywhere, but never within reach.He growled as he thought how he would seize the heads of the evil ones and crush them in his jaws! He would slash their bellies and feast on their smoking guts and their sweet, slippery fat! Like the pounding of the Sea, the blood-urge thundered through him, and he roared till the rocks shook. He was the ice bear, he feared nothing! All, all was prey!Deep inside the marrow of the ice bear, Torak's souls struggled to gain mastery. The bear's spirit was the strongest he'd ever encountered. Never had he been so engulfed by the feelings of another creature.With a tremendous effort of will, he overcame--and the ice bear ceased to rage at the evil ones, and turned to the blood smells: the tantalizing web of scent trails that led out into the dark, like the dragmarks after he'd hauled a walrus over the ice.Close--maddeningly close--he smelled the blood of lynx and otter, bat and boy; of wolverine and eagle. Farther off, he smelled wolf.Its scent was fainter than the others, and tainted with a badness he didn't understand--but for a bear who could scent a seal through the thickest ice, it was easy to trace.The trail led down through the dark, and around to196the side of his striking-paw--then up again, to where the air smelled cooler. They thought they were cunning to hide the wolf, but he would find it. And when he'd broken free and killed all the others, he would kill the wolf, too. He would catch it in his jaws and shake it till its spine cracked....No! shouted Torak silently. For a moment the great bear faltered, and in the pulsing marrow of its bones, Torak's souls struggled to escape. He'd smelled enough. His plan had worked. He knew where the Soul-Eaters had hidden Wolf.The bear's souls were too strong.He couldn't get out.197TWENTY-FIVERenn burst from the weasel hole and toppled headfirst into the snow. After the heat of the caves, the cold was a knife in her lungs. She didn't care. She rolled onto her naked back and stared up into a blizzard of stars.From high overhead came the caw of a raven. She gasped a fervent thanks--and her clan guardian cawed back, warning her that it wasn't over yet.Her teeth were chattering. She was losing heat fast. Getting to her feet, she discovered that she couldn't find her parka, jerkin or mittens, which she'd pushed before her out of the hole.198After an increasingly desperate search, she fell over them. She bundled them on, and they warmed her in moments. She blessed the skill of the White Fox women.Above her the stars glimmered as clouds sped across the sky. No sign of the First Tree. And no moon, either.No moon? But surely it couldn't be the dark of the moon already?Yes it could. With a shiver she realized that she had no idea how long she'd been underground. She stared at the shadowy bulk of the mountain. Torak and Wolf were somewhere inside, bound for sacrifice in the dark of the moon. Which was now.She had to find them. She had to go back inside.As her eyes grew accustomed to the starlight, she realized that she didn't recognize her surroundings. Before her the weasel hole was a circle of blackness, but she couldn't see the standing stone, or the Eye of the Viper, only humped snow and charcoal rockfaces. For all she knew, she could be on the other side of the mountain.Frantic, she felt her way forward--tripped--and pitched into a snowdrift.A very hard snowdrift, with something solid underneath.She got to her knees and started to dig.A skinboat. No. Two skinboats: both bigger than the199one the White Foxes had given them, and stowed with paddles, harpoons, and rope. The Soul-Eaters had thought of everything.Drawing her knife, she slit the belly of each boat. There. See how far they got now!From deep within the mountain came a roar.She ran to the weasel hole. There it was again: the unmistakeable roar of an ice bear. She remembered the murderous chant of the Soul-Eaters. A bear for strength.The roars fell silent. She strained to listen, but from the dark came only a warm uprush of bat-stink. She pictured Torak, alone against the might of the Soul-Eaters. She had to find him.She thought fast. On her way through the weasel hole, she'd climbed steadily upward. That must mean that she was now higher up the mountain than when she'd started."So head down!" she cried.She ran, plunging into snowdrifts, pulling herself out, but heading down, always down.With breathtaking suddenness she rounded a spur-- and there was the standing stone and the Eye of the Viper. She never thought she'd be so glad to see them.The Eye was shut, blocked by the slab that the Oak Mage had pushed across it. But maybe she could move it just enough to crawl in.She put her shoulder against it and heaved. She200might as well have tried to shift the mountain itself.Steam misted from the bottom corner of the slab, where it didn't quite fit across the cave mouth. She tried to squeeze through the gap. It would be big enough for Wolf, but was just a few fingers too narrow for her.As she stood before the Eye, the truth settled upon her as stealthily as snow. There was only one way back inside. The way she had come."I can't," she whispered. Her breath swirled eerily in the gloom.She ran back up the trail, and stood panting before the weasel hole. It was tiny. A tiny, cruel mouth waiting to swallow her.She put back her head. "I can't!"Moonlight hit her smartly in the face.She blinked. She'd got it wrong. It wasn't the dark of the moon. Not yet. There--riding above the clouds-- was the thinnest of silver slivers: the very last bite that the Sky Bear hadn't yet caught. She still had one day left. And so did Torak and Wolf.As she gazed up at the pure, steady white light, Renn felt new courage steal into her. The moon was the eternal prey: eternally in flight across the sky, eternally caught and eaten, but always reborn, always faithfully lighting the way for hunters and prey--even in the very deep of winter, when the sun was dead. Whatever201happened, the moon always came back. And so would she.Before she could change her mind, she raced down the trail to the Soul-Eaters' sleds, where she and Torak had hidden their gear. Luckily there hadn't been any fresh snow, so she easily found her pack.First she gobbled down a few mouthfuls of blubber, which steadied her a little. Then she packed more blubber in her food pouch for Wolf and Torak, stuck her axe in her belt, and crammed the rest of what she thought she might need in her medicine pouch. Then she raced back to the weasel hole.The breath sawed painfully in her chest as she yanked her parka and jerkin over her head and rolled them up as small as they would go. The sweat on her skin froze instantly, but she ignored that as she tied her mitten strings around the bundled-up clothes, then fastened the other end to her ankle, so that she'd be dragging them behind her. She allowed herself one final glance at the moon, and muttered a quick prayer of thanks.The wind burned like ice, but the unclean warmth of the weasel hole was worse. As she crawled into the blackness, panic rose in her throat. She choked it back down.You did it once, she told herself. You can do it again. She put down her head and began to crawl.202***She never knew how long it took her to find her way back inside. Back through the ever-shrinking weasel hole, back through that final, heart-stopping narrowness--then out into the forest of stone, where-- amazingly--the Soul-Eaters were nowhere to be found: only a flicker of torchlight, and a grim circle of red handprints on the wall that turned her sick with fear.Something--maybe her clan guardian wheeling far overhead--guided her through the twists and turns and sudden jolting drops, until she stumbled into a fetid stench, and the uncertain light of a guttering torch.She was in-a low tunnel with blood-colored walls and smaller caves branching off it, blocked by slabs of stone. From behind the slabs she caught the scrabbling of claws, and guessed that this was where the "offerings" were confined."Torak?" she whispered.No answer, but the scrabblings stilled."Wolf?"Still nothing. Groping with her hands, she made her way through the gloom.The torch went out, plunging her into blackness-- and she tripped over something lying on the floor.She lay winded, waiting for disaster to strike. When it didn't, she slipped off her mitten to investigate. Her203hand touched the softness of seal hide. It was a body in a seal hide parka, lying on the floor."Torak?" she whispered.Silence. He was either sleeping, or ...Dreading what she might find, she moved closer. If he was dead...Her mind reeled.
His souls might be thronging the dark: angry, bewildered, unable to stay together without Death Marks. His clan-soul might have got separated, leaving behind a demon. A terrible thought, that her friend might have turned against her.No. She wouldn't believe it. Bringing her hand closer, she held it over where she guessed the face would be--and felt a faint warmth. Breath. He was alive!Abruptly she drew back her hand. Maybe it wasn't Torak. Maybe it was a Soul-Eater.Warily she touched the hair. Thick, short, with bangs across the forehead. A thin face, no beard; but scabbed, which could be snow-burn. It felt like Torak. But if she was wrong ...She had an idea. If it was Torak, she'd find a scar on his left calf. Last summer he'd been gashed by a boar, and had sewn it up quite badly, then forgotten to take out the stitches. In the end she'd had to do it for him, and he'd become impatient, and they'd bumped their204heads, and burst out laughing.Sliding her hand inside the boot, she ran it over the skin. Yes. Beneath her fingers she found the warm, smooth ridges of scarred flesh.Trembling with relief, she grabbed him by the shoulders. "Torak! Wake up!"He was heavy and unresponsive.She hissed in his ear. "Stop it! Wake up!"What was wrong with him? Had they given him a sleeping-potion?"Who's there?" a woman called gruffly.Renn froze.A faint glow of torchlight appeared at the end of the tunnel."Boy?" called the woman. "Where are you? Answer me!"Wildly, Renn groped in the dark for a hiding-place. Her fingers found the edge of a slab blocking one of the hollows, but it was too heavy, she couldn't move it. Find another. Fast.The footsteps came nearer. The torchlight grew brighter.Renn found a slab that she could just move, pushed it back--quietly, quietly--crawled inside, and pulled it shut.A thin line of light showed through the slit that205remained. She held her breath.The footsteps paused. Whoever it was, they were close.She turned her head from the torchlight, in case they felt her staring, and fixed her gaze blindly on the dark.From the back of the hiding-place, a pair of yellow eyes glared back at her.206TWENTY-SIXIn one horrified heartbeat, Renn glimpsed a beak sharp enough to slit a whale's belly; talons that could carry a reindeer calf to a cliff-top eyrie.Drawing in her legs, she shrank against the rock. The hollow was tiny: there was barely space for them both. Her weapons were useless. She pictured lightning-fast talons shredding her face and hands; the Soul-Eaters peering in at her ruined flesh, then finishing off what the eagle had begun."Boy!" called the Soul-Eater on the other side of the slab. The eagle hunched its huge wings and fixed its eyes on Renn.207She heard the scrape of a torch being stuck in a crack; the thin squeak of a bat."There you are!" said the Bat Mage. Renn froze. "Boy! Wake up!""So you found him," said another woman a little farther off. Her voice was low and musical, like water rippling over stones. Renn's skin prickled."I can't wake him up," said the Bat Mage. To Renn's surprise, she sounded concerned:"He took too much root," the other said scornfully. "Leave him. We don't need him till tomorrow."The eagle spread its wings as far as it could, warding Renn back. Back where? She had nowhere to go. She tried to make herself even smaller, and an eagle pellet crunched beneath her palm.The Soul-Eaters went silent. Had they heard?"What are you doing?" said the soft-voiced Soul-Eater."Turning him over," replied the Bat Mage. "Can't let him sleep on his back. If he's sick, he'll choke." "Oh Nef, why bother? He isn't worth--" She brokeoff."What is it?" said Nef."I feel something," said the other. "Souls. I feel souls, in the air around us."Silence. Again that high, thin squeak.208Renn blinked. The stink of bird droppings was making her eyes water and her nose run. She tried not to sniff."Your bat feels them too," said the soft-voiced one."There, my beauty," crooned the Bat Mage. "But whose souls? Could one of the offerings be dead?""I don't think so," murmured the other. "It's more ... No, it doesn't feel like one of them.""Still, we'd better check them."Terror settled on Renn like a covering of ice."Hold my torch," said the Bat Mage, her voice receding as she moved away.Renn heard the scrape of stone a few paces away, then the ferocious hiss of a wolverine."Well, he's not dead yet!" laughed the soft-voiced one.The Bat Mage grunted as she pushed back the stone.Another slab was scraped aside, nearer Renn's , hiding-place. She caught the squeak of an otter.One by one, the Soul-Eaters checked the offerings, drawing steadily closer to where she huddled. Her mind raced. There was no way out. If she bolted, they'd see her. If she stayed where she was, she'd be caught like a weasel in a trap. She had to stop them from looking inside. If she didn't, she was dead.A fox barked in the hollow next to hers. They were almost upon her. Think.209Only one thing to do.Screwing her eyes shut, she crossed her arms over her face--and kicked the eagle.It lashed out with an earsplitting klek-klek-klek--and .she felt a chill on her wrists as talons sliced a hair's breadth from her skin.On the other side of the slab, the Soul-Eaters stopped.The eagle shook itself angrily, and began preening its ruffled feathers.Renn cowered with her arms over her face, unable to believe that she was unhurt."No point checking that one," said the Bat Mage. "Though it sounds like she's hungry again.""Oh, leave her!" cried the other impatiently. "Leave the boy, leave them all! I need rest, and so do you! Let's go!"Yes, go! Renn pleaded silently.The Bat Mage hesitated. "You're right," she said. "After all, they've only got to live one more day."Their footsteps receded down the tunnel.Renn sagged with relief. With her fingertips she traced the zigzag tattoos on her wrists, and saw again Tanugeak's round, shrewd face. You'll be needing them, I think.It was some time later, and the eagle was becoming restive again, before Renn dared to move. As she210rubbed the feeling back into her legs, she heard someone stir on the other side of the slab. "You can come out now," whispered Torak.He still couldn't believe it was really her. "Renn?" he mumbled."Thank the Spirit, you're awake!" With her hair stained black, she looked eerily unfamiliar. But she was Renn. all right: showing her small, sharp teeth in a wobbly smile, and giving him awkward little pats on the chest."Renn ..." he said again. The dizziness seized him, and he shut his eyes.He wanted to tell her everything. About spirit walking in the ice bear, and getting trapped. About hearing Wolf howling--howling inside his head-and breaking free of the bear. Above all, he wanted to tell her how incredible, how wonderful it was that she'd made her way through the darkness, and found him.But when he tried, the bitter bile rose in his throat, and all he managed was "I'm--going to be sick."He got on all fours and retched, and she knelt beside him, holding back his hair.When it was over, she helped him stagger to his feet. As they moved into the torchlight, she saw his face for the first time. "Torak, what happened to you? Your lips are black! There's blood on your forehead!"211He flinched from her touch. "Don't, it's--tainted.""What happened?" she said again.He couldn't bring himself to tell her. Instead he said, "I know where they've got Wolf. Let's go."But as he staggered down the tunnel, she held him back. "Wait. There's something I've got to tell you." She paused. "The Soul-Eaters. They're not only after Wolf. They want to sacrifice you, too!"Then she told him a story that turned him sick all over again, about a chant she'd overheard in the forest of stone. "It's a charm that will give them great power, and protect them from the demons."His knees buckled, and he leaned against the wall. "The nine hunters. I heard them say it, but I never thought...." With a scowl, he snatched up the torch. "Come on. Not much time."Renn looked puzzled. "But--isn't Wolf here, with the others?""No. I'll tell you as we go."His head was clearing fast, and as he led her through the tunnels--trying to remember the scent trails smelled by the bear, and pausing to listen for sounds of pursuit--he told her of the message from across the Sea, which had prompted the Soul-Eaters to keep Wolf separate. Then he told her what he'd witnessed in the caves: The finding of the Door. The Soul-Eaters' plan for flooding the land with terror. The fire-opal.212Once again, Renn halted. "The fire-opal?. They've found the fire-opal?"He stared at her. "You know about it?" "Well--yes. But not much." "Why haven't you told me?""I never thought...." She hesitated. "It's somethingyou hear about in stories, if--if you grow up in a clan." "Tell me now."She moved closer, and he felt her breath on his cheek. "The fireopal," she whispered, "is light from the eye of the Great Auroch. That's why the demons are drawn to it."He met her gaze, and in the fathomless black he s
aw two tiny, flickering torches. "So whoever wields it," he said, "controls them."She nodded. "As long as it touches neither earth nor stone, the demons are in thrall, and must do the bidding of the bearer."He remembered the crimson glow in the forest of stone. "But it was so beautiful.""Evil can be beautiful," said Renn with startling coldness. "Didn't you know that?"He was still trying to take it in. "How old is it? When did it--""No one knows.""But now it's found," he murmured. She licked her lips. "Who has it? "213"Eostra, the Eagle Owl Mage. But after they found the Door, she disappeared."They fell silent, listening to the flutter of bats overhead and a distant trickle of water, wondering what else thronged the dark.It was Torak who spoke first. "Come on. We're nearly there."Again, Renn was puzzled. "How do you know where to go?"He hesitated. "I just do."They climbed higher, and eventually reached a dank little cave where a dirty brown stream pooled before disappearing down an echoing hole. A birchbark pail stood beside it, with a wovenbark pouch containing a few scraps of moldering cod. In a corner they found what appeared to be a pit, covered by a sturdy wattle screen weighted with rocks. Torak's heart raced. He knew--he knew--that Wolf was in the pit.Handing the torch to Renn, he rolled the rocks away and threw the screen aside.Wolf lay in a tiny, filthy hole scarcely bigger than he was. He was painfully thin: the bones of his haunches jutted sharply. From his matted fur rose a stink of rottenness. He lay on his belly with his head on his paws, not moving at all, and for one terrible moment, Torak thought he was dead.214"Wolf!" he breathed.The great silver head twitched--but the amber eyes were dull."His muzzle," whispered Renn, "look at his muzzle!"It was bound with a length of rawhide, cruelly tight.Rage burned in Torak's breast. "I'll fix that," he said between his teeth. "Give me your knife."Jumping into the pit, he cut the binding. "Pack-brother, " he said in a shaky gruntwhine, "it's me!"Wolf's tail didn't even twitch."Torak," Renn said uneasily."Pack-brother," Torak said again, more urgently."Torak!" cried Renn. "Get out!"Wolf's lips drew back in a snarl, and he staggered to his feet. The instant before he sprang, Torak grabbed the edge of the pit and heaved himself up--while Renn seized his parka and pulled with all her might. He shot out, and they shoved the screen and the rocks back on top just as Wolf leaped, hitting it with a thud.Renn clamped both hands over her mouth.Torak stared at her, aghast. "He doesn't know me," he said.215TWENTY-SEVENWolf leaped at the strange, half-grown tailless-- but the Den snapped shut, and he fell back onto the stone.The badness in his tail wouldn't let him rest. He circled until his hind legs shook so much that he had to lie down. His pelt felt hot and tight, and there was a buzzing in his ears. The black fog was hurting his head.From above him came the yip-and-yowl of the strange taillesses. He twitched his ears in bewilderment. He knew those voices. Or he thought he did. But although these taillesses sounded familiar, they smelled all wrong. The female smelled of fish-dog and eagle, and216the male--who sounded so like Tall Tailless--stank of the bad ones and of the great white bear. Was it Tall Tailless, or wasn't it? Wolf didn't know. He couldn't untangle it in his head.And yet, not long ago, he had caught the scent of his pack-brother, he was sure of it. He'd caught it on the overpelt of the viper-tongued female; and even though she'd wound the hated deerhide about his muzzle, he had howled for his pack-brother, howled for him inside his head. And for a moment---the swiftest of snaps--he'd heard an answer; and the sound of his pack-brother's rough, beautiful howls had been like gentle breath whiffling through his fur.Then the black fog had closed in again, and the beautiful howls had changed to the dull roar of a bear. I am angry! the bear had roared. Angry! Angry! Like all bears, this one was no good at talking, so it just kept saying the same thing over and over.A scraping above him. Light stung his eyes. Then the lump of birch bark dangled before his nose, and came to rest. Listlessly, he lapped up the wet.The strange taillesses were peering in at him. He smelled their confusion and fear. Now the half-grown male was leaning down almost within snapping range, giving soft grunt-whines. "Pack-brother! It's me!"That voice ... so familiar. So soothing to Wolf's aching head, like the feel of cool mud on sore pads.217But maybe Wolf was in the other Now, the one he went to in his sleeps. Maybe when he woke up, he would be alone again in this stinking Den.Or maybe it was another trick of the bad taillesses.Again the male was leaning in. Wolf saw the short fur on his head: much shorter than that of Tall Tailless. But he also saw a beloved, flat face, and bright wolf eyes.Confused, Wolf sniffed the furless paw which reached toward him. It smelled a little like Tall Tailless--but was it? Should Wolf lick it? Or snap?Wolf gave a warning growl, and Torak withdrew his hand."He doesn't recognize you," said Renn.Torak's fists clenched. "But he will." He stared into the tiny, squalid hole. The Soul-Eaters would pay for this. He didn't care if it took him the rest of his life, he would hunt them down and make them pay for what they'd done to Wolf."How much time do we have?" asked Renn, wrenching him back to the present. "Where are the Soul-Eaters?"He shook his head. "We're well out of earshot from the forest of stone; and from what Seshru said, they'll be resting. I don't think they'll come up here until--until tomorrow, when they open the Door. But that's just a guess."218Renn nodded grimly. "One thing's for sure. We won't get far with Wolf like this. He needs food and medicine. Fast."Opening her food pouch, she withdrew a slab of blubber, and dropped it into the pit. Wolf fell on it and gulped it down without even chewing."Good that you thought to bring food," said Torak."I haven't finished," muttered Renn. She pulled up the birchbark bowl on its cord, filled it with small, dark pellets from her food pouch, and lowered it into the pit. Wolf's black nose twitched. He heaved himself to his feet, and snuffled them up."Lingonberries," said Renn.For the first time in days, Torak grinned. Then his gaze returned to Wolf, and his grin faded. "He will get better. Won't he?"He saw her struggling to compose her face in an encouraging smile."But--Renn," he faltered, "it can't be that bad."Taking the sputtering torch, she held it over the pit. "Look at his tail!"Wolf gave a fierce growl. Stay away!Torak went cold. The tip of Wolf's bushy silver tail was matted with dried blood; but it wasn't that which turned him ill with fear. It was the slimy greenish-black flesh that showed through in patches. Flesh that stank of rottenness.219"It's the blackening sickness," said Renn. "It's poisoning him. The worms of sickness are eating him up from inside.""But once we get him out into the snow, he'll be better--""No, Torak, no. We've got to stop this now, or it'll be too late."He knew what she meant, but he couldn't face it. "There must be something you can do! After all, you know Magecraft!""If there was, don't you think I'd have done it? Torak, it's killing him! You know this!" She met his eyes. "There's only one thing to do. We've got to cut it off.""You know I'm right," Renn said again, but she could see that Torak wasn't listening.Fearfully, she glanced over her shoulder. So far, there had been no sign of the Soul-Eaters.She turned back to him. "Do you trust me?" she said."What?""Do you trust me?" "Of course I do!""Then you must know that I'm telling the truth! Now tell him. Tell Wolf what we have to do to make him better."He hesitated; then, slowly, he lowered himself into220the pit, talking quietly in wolf talk.Wolf raised his head and gave a warning growl. To Renn's horror, Torak ignored it. He crouched, keeping his eyes steady but his gaze soft.Wolf's hackles were stiff, his ears flat back.Suddenly he lunged, snapping the air a hand's breadth from Torak's face. The clash of the great jaws rang through the cave.Torak put his head still closer, and snuffled at the black lips.Wolf went on growling, staring at Torak with eyes grown dark and threatening.Torak drew back, and rose to his feet. "He didn't understand," he said dully."Why not?""I--I couldn't find a way to say it, to tell him this will make him better. Because in wolf talk there is no future.""Oh," said Renn.Slowly she drew the axe from her belt: the axe she had known--with the knowledge that came to her sometimes--that she would need. "Take it."Torak didn't answer. He was staring at the axe."We'll only--cut off the tip," she said. "About the length of your thumb." She swallowed. "Torak. You've got to. He's your pack-brother."He took the axe. Weighed it in his hand.221Wolf raised his head, then slumped onto his side, his flanks heaving.Torak brac
ed his legs and raised the axe.Renn felt sick. It was the vision of the White Fox elder.Slowly Torak- lowered the axe. "I can't" he whispered. He glanced up at her, his eyes glistening. "I can't."After a moment's hesitation, Renn let herself down into the pit. There was just enough room for her to stand beside him. She took the axe from his hand.Wolf cast her a narrow glance, and drew back his lips to show his fearsome teeth."We should bind up his muzzle," she breathed."No," said Torak."He'll bite!""No!" he said fiercely. "If I bind his muzzle now, he'll think I'm no better than the Soul-Eaters! If I don't--if I trust him not to hurt me--then maybe--maybe--he'll trust me to let us help him."For a moment they stared at each other. She saw the conviction in his face, and knew his mind was made up."I won't let him bite you," he said, placing himself between her and Wolf's jaws. As he went down on his knees, Wolf raised his head and sniffed his fingers, then lay back again.With his left hand, Torak stroked the fluffy fur behind222Wolf's ears, whiffling and gruntwhining under his breath. His right hand passed gently over Wolf's flank, then over the haunch. When he reached the base of the tail, Wolf's muzzle wrinkled in a snarl.Torak's hand continued--slowly--down the tail.Wolf growled until his whole body shook.Torak froze.Then his fingers moved a little farther, till they'd nearly reached the rottenness at the tip. His hand closed over the tail, holding it down.With blinding speed, Wolf lunged--and seized Torak's other wrist in his jaws. His teeth clamped tight around the bone, denting the skin but not piercing it: poised to crush.Renn held her breath. She'd once seen Wolf crack the thighbone of an elk. He could sever Torak's wrist as easily as snapping a twig.Wolf's great amber eyes fixed on Torak's: waiting to see what he would do.Torak's face glistened with sweat as he met Wolf's gaze. "Get ready," he told Renn.She rearranged her icy fingers on the axe-hilt.Torak never took his eyes from Wolf's. "Do it," he said.223TWENTY-EIGHTWolf's tail still hurt, but it was a clean hurt, and the badness was gone. The black fog was gone too, and with it the last of his doubts. This half-grown male really was Tall Tailless.It was the black fog that had made him glare at his pack-brother, and take his forepaw in his jaws. If you harm me, Wolf had told him with his eyes, I bite. But the gaze of Tall Tailless had been steady and true; and suddenly Wolf had remembered the time when he was a cub, and was choking on a duck bone, and Tall Tailless had grabbed his belly and squeezed. Wolf had224been so outraged that he'd twisted around to bite, but Tall Tailless had kept squeezing, and the duck bone had shot out of Wolf's muzzle--and he'd understood. Tall Tailless had been helping him.This was why Wolf had let the pack-sister cut his tail with the big stone claw. This was why he hadn't bitten his pack-brother's forepaw. Because they were helping him.Now it was over, and the pack-sister was leaning against the side of the Den, panting, while Tall Tailless sat with his head in his forepaws, shaking all over.Wolf went to sniff the bit of tail that lay upon the stone: the bit of tail that had been Wolf, but was now just a scrap of bad meat, not worth eating. Then he nose-nudged Tall Tailless under the chin to say sorry for glaring at him, and Tall Tailless made an odd gulping noise, and buried his muzzle in Wolf's scruff.After that, things got better. The pack-sister gave Wolf more lingonberries, and delicious slithery chunks of fish-dog fat, and he felt his strength racing back. Tall Tailless sat beside him, scratching his flank, and the pack-sister dipped the bitten end of his tail in a thin mud that smelled of honey and wet ferns. Wolf let her do this, because he knew that she was making him better.Putting his muzzle between his paws, he shut his225eyes, and gave himself up to the scratching of his pack-brother, and the wonderful cool mud that was chasing away the last of the badness.Wolf recovered with a speed that astonished and gratified Renn. Already his fur seemed sleeker, and his nose had lost that dull, hot look. At the end of his tail--now a thumb length shorter than before--the wound smelled clean and fresh. To her surprise, Wolf had let her dress it with a salve of elder and meadowsweet in chewed blubber. He'd even let her bind it in wovenbark, which he'd made only a halfhearted attempt to eat.It was Torak who couldn't watch; who seemed unable to bear the sight of the wound, as if he felt the pain more than Wolf himself."He really is getting better," said Renn, to reassure him. "I think wolves heal faster than we do. Do you remember last autumn in the Moon of Roaring Stags, when he went after blackberries and tore his ear? Three days later, there wasn't even a scab.""I'd forgotten that." He forced a smile. "And your salve is helping, too.""He's getting stronger all the time," she said, drawing her medicine pouch shut. "I think we should--"A bat fluttered overhead, and of one accord they paused to listen.Nothing.226Three times during the day--this strange underground day that felt more like-night--Torak had made his way back to the forest of stone, and stolen a freshly dipped torch, and checked that the Soul-Eaters were still sleeping off their trance. But they couldn't count on that for much longer."We should get him out of this pit," said Renn. "We can make a sling of our belts, and haul him out. If he'll let us.""He'll let us. You said Thiazzi's blocked the cave mouth?""Yes. We might be able to shift it." "We'll have to. It's the only way out." "No it isn't." Reluctantly, she told him about the weasel hole.Normally he would have wanted to know everything about it, including why she hadn't told him sooner; but instead he seemed distracted. She wondered if he was worrying about the same thing that had begun to trouble her.She watched him nuzzle Wolf's scruff. Wolf flicked one ear, and they exchanged one of those speaking glances that used to make her feel left out; but she didn't mind anymore, she was just glad that Torak had his pack-brother back."The blood of the nine hunters," he said suddenly. "It's to protect them from the demons, isn't it, when they open the Door?"227She nodded. "I've been thinking about that, too. Even for the Soul-Eaters, it's going to be incredibly hard to keep the Door open for more than a few heartbeats. But that'll be enough."They pictured demons spreading like a black flood over the snow. Across the ice. Toward the Forest."And the fire-opal," said Torak, "it will give them control once the demons are out.""Yes."He passed his hand over Wolf's flank, and Wolf stirred his tail in acknowledgment, taking care not to thump it."How can it be destroyed?" said Torak. "Hammered? Thrown into the Sea?"Her fingers tightened on her medicine pouch. "Nothing so simple. You can only rob it of its power by burying it under earth or stone. And ..." She hesitated. "It needs a life. A life buried with it. Otherwise it won't be appeased."Torak rested his chin on his knees and frowned. "When I put the Death Marks on my father," he said, surprising her, "I didn't do it very well. Especially not here, for the clan-soul." He touched his breastbone. "He had a scar, where he'd cut out the Soul-Eater tattoo."Renn swallowed."I couldn't go back and make things right for him,"228he went on. "Gather his bones, lay them to rest in the Wolf Clan bone-ground--wherever that is--because ever since then, in one way or another, I've been fighting the Soul-Eaters." He paused. "I left him because he told me to. Because he knew it was my destiny to fight the Soul-Eaters. I don't think I can turn my back on that destiny now."Renn didn't reply. This was what she'd feared.She wished desperately that they could find their way out of these horrible caves, retrieve their skinboat, and get back to the White Foxes. Then Inuktiluk could take them, on his dogsled to the Forest, and they would be with Fin-Kedinn again, and it would be over. But she knew this wasn't going to happen.Torak raised his head, and his gray eyes were steady. "This isn't about rescuing Wolf anymore. I can't just run off and leave them to open the Door.""I know," said Renn."Do you?" His face was open and vulnerable. "Because I can't do this on my own. And I can't ask you to help. You've already done so much."That annoyed her. "I know what we've got to do just as well as you do! We've got to make sure that Wolf is free, and then"--she caught her breath--"then we've got to stop them from opening the Door."229TWENTY-NINEAfter something of a struggle, they managed to haul Wolf out of the pit, and headed off. Their way led through the tunnel of the offerings, where they were relieved to find no sign of the Soul-Eaters, although they'd been there recently. The hole that had held the lynx was empty.Torak was wondering what this meant when Wolf gave a low, urgent uff!"Hide!" Torak whispered--but Renn
knew enough wolf talk to recognize the warning, and was already scrambling into the lynx's hollow. Torak pushed the slab across it, and an instant later, Nef's bat flitted past his face.230"Boy?" called Nef from the end of the tunnel. "Where are you?"Torak glanced behind him at Wolf, whose amber eyes glowed in the torchlight. If Nef saw him ...As the Bat Mage limped toward them, Wolf turned and melted into the dark. Torak breathed out in relief. He shouldn't have doubted Wolf. If he didn't want to be seen, it didn't happen."I'm here," he said, struggling to keep his voice steady."Where have you been?" snapped Nef.Rubbing his face, he tried to look bleary. "I was asleep. That root... my head hurts.""Of course it hurts! You've got to be strong to be a Soul-Eater!"To Torak's alarm, she stopped right outside Renn's hiding-place, and leaned her hand on the rock.He edged away, in the hope that she would follow.She didn't. Propping her torch against the wall, she squatted on her haunches. "Strong," she repeated, as if to herself, "you've got to be strong? She opened her hands and stared at them. They were dark with blood."The lynx," said Torak. "You've killed it. The sacrifice has begun."As Nef held her tainted hands before her, her fists clenched. "It has to be done! The few must suffer for the good of the many!"231Torak licked his lips. He had to get rid of the Bat Mage before she discovered Renn. And yet... "You don't have to do this," he said. Nef's head jerked up. "The sacrifice. The Door." "What?" snarled the Bat Mage. "These are demons!""That's the beauty of it! Demons don't know right from wrong! We can bend them to our will! Don't you see? This is our chance to make things right! To enforce the way of the World Spirit!""By breaking clan law?"Nef stared at him. Suddenly she lurched to her feet, snatched the torch, and brought it close to his face: so close that he heard the sputtering hiss of pine-blood. "You were a coward," she said, "groveling, whining--but not anymore. Why did you hide your true nature?"Torak did not reply.She lowered the torch. "Ah, but what does it matter now?" A patch of darkness cut across the light, and dropped onto her shoulder. As Torak watched her stroke the soft bat fur, he wondered how she could caress her clan-creature, and yet stain her spirit with sin."The Opening of the Door is nearly upon us," said Nef. "You have work to do. Bring the offerings to the forest of stone."232He stared at her. "You mean--" "We're going to kill them. We're going to kill them all!"He swallowed. "Where--where are you going?" "Me?" barked Nef. "I'm going to take care of the wolf.""What were you thinking?" whispered Renn after the Bat Mage had gone. "Arguing with a Soul-Eater? With me right there, waiting to be discovered?""I thought I might be able to change her mind," said Torak."Torak, she's a Soul-Eater!"She was right; but he didn't want to admit it."Come on," he said brusquely. "When she finds Wolf gone, she'll raise the alarm. We've got to free the offerings and get out of here!"Swiftly, straining their ears for footsteps, they worked their way down the tunnel, heaving rocks aside and setting the captives free. The fox and the otter fled the moment there was a gap big enough to wriggle through. The eagle gave them an outraged glare, hitched its bedraggled wings, and swept off into the dark. The wolverine was a spitting bundle of rage, and would have attacked them both if Wolf hadn't emerged from the shadows and seen it off."Phew!" panted Renn. "That's gratitude!"233"Do you think they'll find their way out?" said Torak.She nodded. "That gap between the slab and the cave mouth. They'll get through." "And Wolf?""It's big enough for him. But not for us. And I don't think we should count on being able to shift that slab.""You mean--we'll have to use the weasel hole."The blood drained from her face. "If we get the chance."They fell silent. They hadn't been able to come up with a plan for stopping the Soul-Eaters, other than making their way to the forest of stone, and doing-- something.Wolf's claws clicked as he trotted to the end of the tunnel, then abruptly stopped. He stared into the pit of the ice bear.With a sense of foreboding, Torak went to investigate. What he saw made him weak in the knees. "We'll have a better chance than these two," he said."What do you mean?" said Renn.He moved aside to let her see.The Soul-Eaters had slaughtered the ice bear and skinned it, leaving the reeking, steaming carcass in the pit. They'd done the same to the lynx, then tossed its corpse onto the bear's.Renn sagged against the cave wall. "How could they?234They've just left them to rot."This is evil, thought Torak. This is what evil looks like.In death the ice bear seemed pathetically smaller. Torak's heart twisted with pity. "May your souls find their way back to the ice," he murmured. "May they be at peace.""Torak ..." Renn's voice seemed to come to him from a distance. "It's time. We've got to go. We've got to stop them from opening the Door!"In the forest of stone, the rite of the Opening had already begun.As Torak crouched in the shadows at the mouth of the cavern, his spirit faltered. Wolf trembled against him. Renn stood rigid.The stone trees were spattered with scarlet. Acrid black smoke snaked from the altar, where the Soul-Eaters had made an offering of their own hair. The Oak Mage and the Viper Mage prowled the shadows, jabbing at the dark with three-pronged forks, fending off the vengeful souls of the murdered hunters. Both were unrecognizable in their dead-eyed masks, their painted lips flecked with black foam. Both were stripped to the waist, clad only in slimy, glistening hides.The Viper Mage wore the lynx pelt: its gaping head set upon her own, its sleek hide rippling down her back235as she brandished the Walker's strike-fire.The Oak Mage had become the ice bear. With his hands thrust inside the forepaws, he wove between the stone saplings, hissing, slicing the air with his claws.Only the Eagle Owl Mage was unchanged. Rooted to the stone, she faced the wall where the red handprints marked the Door. Her corpse hands covered the mace on which the fireopal was set.With a supreme effort, Torak shook himself free of the spell. Whatever they did, they had to act fast. Any moment now, and Nef would raise the alarm."The torches," he breathed in Renn's ear. "I can't see more than three. If we can put them out, then maybe ..."Renn didn't stir. She couldn't seem to take her- eyes off the Soul-Eaters."Renn!" He shook her shoulder. "The torches! We've got to do something!"She dragged her gaze away. "Here," she whispered. "Take my knife. I'll keep my axe."He nodded. "The weasel hole. Where is it?""There, behind that greenish sapling. There's a big crack, you've got to climb up--""All right. We should be able to reach it, when the time comes."Suddenly he knelt, and pressed his face against Wolf's muzzle. Wolf gave a faint wag of his tail, and licked his ear.236"He'll find the other way out," breathed Torak as he straightened up. "He's got a better chance than we have.""And before then?" said Renn. "How do we stop them?"Torak stared at the circling, hissing Soul-Eaters. "You see if you can douse the torches, while I keep them talking--""While you what?"Before she could stop him, he'd risen to his feet, and stepped out into the light.With startling speed the lynx and the ice bear spun around, and stared at him with dead gutskin eyes."The ninth hunter is come," said the Oak Mage in a voice as lethal as a bear's."But his hands are empty," hissed the Viper Mage. "He was to have brought the eagle, the wolverine, the otter, the fox."The talons of the Eagle Owl Mage tightened around the head of the mace. "Why has it failed?"Torak opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. What was Renn doing? Why were the torches still burning?Desperately, he sought for some way of grabbing the fire-opal, and stopping them from opening the Door-- of achieving the impossible.A shout rang through the cavern--and Nef hobbled237in. "The wolf is gone!" she shouted. "It's the boy, I know it is! He set the wolf free! He set them all free!"Three masked heads turned toward Torak."Free?" said the Viper Mage with appalling gentleness.Torak edged backward.The Bat Mage blocked his way.The Oak Mage wiped the black froth from his painted lips and said, " 'The Wolf lives.' That was the message from our brother across the Sea. What did it mean, we asked ourselves.""Then a boy came," said the Viper Mage. "A boy who wore the tattoo of the White Foxes, but didn't look like one. I felt souls in the air around me. What does this mean, I asked myself."Torak's hand tightened on his knife. And still the torches burned, and still the Soul-Eaters bore down on him."Who are you?" said the Oak Mage. "What are you?" said the Viper Mage.238THIRTYTall Tailless was surrounded. Bravely he faced them, clutching the big claw; but against three full-grown taillesses, he didn't stand a chanc
e.Wolf lowered his head and crept forward. The bad ones didn't hear him. They didn't know he was there.Swiveling one ear, he heard the stealthy padding of the female, a few pounces away. A sizzling hiss, and that part of the Den went dark. Good. She was helping him. Wolf could see in the dark, but the bad ones couldn't.Tall Tailless said something defiant in tailless talk, and the pale-pelt who stank of bear gave a cruel laugh.239Then another part of the Den went dark. And another.Suddenly, Stinkfur and Pale-Pelt leaped at Tall Tailless. He didn't dodge quickly enough--it didn't matter--Wolf was quicker than any of them. With a snarl he sprang at Pale-Pelt, knocking him to the ground and sinking his teeth into a forepaw. Pale-Pelt roared. Bones crunched. Wolf leaped away, gulping bloody flesh.As he ran, his claws skittered on stone and he nearly went down, wobbling as he righted himself, because his newly shortened tail didn't give quite the balance it had before. He'd have to be careful, he thought as he raced through the dark to help his poor, blind pack-brother, who was still trying to get away from Stinkfur.Not far off, the pack-sister held a glowing branch in one paw, narrowing her eyes as taillesses do when they cannot see.Meanwhile, the Viper-Tongue had not been idle. She'd found her way through the silent trees, and past the Stone-Faced One to the end of the Den, where she was scraping a claw over the rock, hissing and whining in a way that made Wolf's pelt shrink with dread. He heard the clamor of demons. He didn't know what she meant to do, but knew that he had to stop her.And yet--Tall Tailless needed him! In his blindness, he was blundering toward Stinkfur!Wolf faltered.He decided in a snap--and leaped to the aid of his240pack-brother, bodyslamming him out of the path of the bad one. Tall Tailless slipped--steadied himself--and grabbed his pack-brother's scruff. Wolf led him to safety through the trees.But it was too late to stop Viper-Tongue. Her whines rose to a hide-prickling scream as she spread her forepaws wide--and suddenly in the rock, a great mouth gaped.Stone-Face gave a triumphant howl that pierced Wolf's ears like splintered bone. Then she lifted her forepaw high. The Den filled with the hard gray glare of the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Cold--and the demons poured forth.Tall Tailless let go of Wolf's scruff and fell to his knees. The pack-sister dropped the glowing branch and covered her ears with her forepaws. Wolf shrank trembling against Tall Tailless, as the terror of the demons blasted his fur.He knew he had to attack them--it was what he was supposed to do--but there were so many! Slithering, swooping, scrabbling over one another in their hunger for the cold gray light. Wolf saw their dripping fangs and their cruel, bright eyes. There were so many....But suddenly, he smelled rage.The female tailless had shaken off her fear, and was snarling with rage!In amazement Wolf watched her snatch up the 241still-glowing branch, and hurl it at Viper-Tongue. It struck her full in the back--when she threw something, the female rarely missed-and Viper-Tongue howled with fury. Her forepaws lifted away from the rock, and the gaping Mouth crashed shut.But even in so short a time, the demons had come pouring from it, and now the forest of stone thronged with them: swarming about the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Cold. And still Stone-Face held it high, forcing them to her will. And Wolf sensed that neither Tall Tailless nor the female--nor he himself--dared attack her, for they knew that she was the very evil of evils.He was wrong.The pack-sister's attack had roused Tall Tailless, and now he barked to her, and she turned and tossed him her great claw: the one that had bitten off part of Wolf's tail.Tall Tailless caught it in one forepaw--then ran toward Stone-Face--toward the demons!Terror dragged at Wolf's paws, but he loved his pack-brother too much to forsake him now. Together they ran through the fog of fear. Then Tall Tailless drew back his forepaw and swung the great claw--not at Stone-Face, not at the demons--but at a thin stone sapling towering overhead.Clever Tall Tailless! The trunk cracked--teetered-- and crashed down. The demons screeched and242skittered away like ants from an auroch's hooves, and Stone-Face was brought down, and the Bright Beast flew from her forepaw, clattering across the floor--and its cold light was swallowed by the Dark.As one, the demons howled. They were free! And now they were spreading through the Den like a great Fast Wet, and Wolf hid with Tall Tailless in the thicket of stone, his heart bursting with terror and despair as they swept past him.Already he could hear the bad taillesses fighting among themselves, blaming one another for the loss of the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Cold. Only Wolf saw the pack-sister stumble upon it and snatch it up, and hide it in the scrap of swansfoot hide that hung about her neck.Then she grabbed Tall Tailless by the forepaw, and dragged him by the dim glow of the branch toward a smaller Den high in the side of the main Den; a narrow Den like a weasel's tunnel, through which flowed the clean, cold smell of the Up.With a pang, Wolf realized what they meant to do. They meant to go by a path he couldn't take. His tail drooped as he watched them peel off their overpelts and make ready to go.Tall Tailless knelt. Go! he told Wolf. Find the other way out! Meet us in the Up! And Wolf wagged his tail to reassure him, because he sensed his pack-brother's worry, his unwillingness to leave him.243Then they were gone, and Wolf turned on one paw and raced from the Den, following the clean, cold scent pouring in from the Up.Torak was lost in an endless tunnel of crawling and gasping, and more crawling. This terrible, terrible hole. How had Renn managed it, not once, but three times?It was night when they dropped exhausted into the snow. A windy night in the dark of the moon, with only the glow of stars on snow to light the way--and no sign of Wolf.At least, not yet, Torak told himself. But he'll make it out. If anyone can, it's Wolf.After the warmth of the caves, the cold was merciless, and their teeth chattered too hard for speech as they struggled to untie their bundled-up clothes and yank them on."The fire-opal," panted Torak at last. "I saw it fall-- it touched rock. That means the demons are free!"Renn gave a terse nod. In the starlight her face was pale, and her black hair made her look like someone else."Did you see where it fell?" said Torak. "Did one of them pick it up?"She opened her mouth-then shook her head. "Come on," she muttered, "we've got to reach the skinboat before they get out!"244He didn't know if she meant the Soul-Eaters or the demons. He didn't ask.Floundering through the snow, they made their way around the spur. The Eye of the Viper was shut, but as they reached it, Torak glimpsed a small, pale shape slip through a gap and race away. His heart leaped. The white fox had found the way out!He turned to Renn, and saw that she was smiling. At least someone had escaped.As they watched, they saw the scuttling darkness of the wolverine--who for once was more intent on getting away than on biting anyone. Then the eagle emerged: ungainly in the snow, until she spread her wings and lifted into the sky."Go safely, my friend," Renn said softly. "May your guardian fly with you!"Then came the otter: pausing for a moment to dart Torak a penetrating glance before streaking off down the mountain. And finally--when Torak was turning sick with dread-Wolf.He had a struggle to squeeze through the hole, but once he was out, he simply shook himself and came bounding down to them with his tongue hanging out, as casually as if he fled demon-haunted caves every night of his life.When he reached Torak, he rose lightly on his hind legs, put his forepaws on Torak's shoulders, and covered245his face in wet wolf kisses.Heedless of the Soul-Eaters--heedless of demons-- Torak snuffle-licked him back. Then together they raced down to the sleds, and Wolf bounded about in circles while they hurriedly retrieved their packs.Down the mountain they ran, with Wolf pausing to let them catch up. At the head of the iced-in bay, he helped them find their skinboat, buried beneath a fresh fall of snow.But when the skinboat was in the water, and hastily loaded with their gear, when Renn and Torak had taken their places--Wolf refused to jump in."Can't you make him?" cried Renn.With a sinking feeling, Torak took in the set of Wolf's ears, and the stubborn spread of his paws. "No," he said. He heaved a sigh. "He hates skinboats. And he's better off going overland. They'll never catch him.""Are you sure?" said Renn."No!" he snapped. "But it's-what he has to do!" Of course he wasn't sure. Even in the Forest, a lone wolf's life is a short one--but out here, on the ice?There wasn't even time to say good-bye. As 'Wolf stood looking down at him, their eyes met briefly--but before Torak could speak, Wolf h
ad turned and sped away, a silver streak racing over the snow.The sun was just cresting the mountain as they246brought the boat about and headed south, slicing the water with their paddles. Luckily the wind was behind them, so they made good speed.When they were out of arrowshot, Torak turned."Look," said Renn.The mountainside was still in shadow, but Torak saw, stark against the gray snow, a darker shadow pouring down the slope."Demons," he said.Renn met his gaze, and in the gloom her eyes were blacker than the Sea."We failed," she said. "The demons are loose upon the world."247THIRTY-ONEFar away on the northernmost edge of the Forest, the sun rose over the High Mountains. Around the Raven camp, birch trees stirred uneasily as they dreamed."Demons," said Saeunn, crouching on a willow mat to read the embers. "I see demons coming from the Far North. A black flood, drowning all who stand in its path."Only Fin-Kedinn heard her. The hunting had been good, and the rest of the clan was asleep, their bellies full of baked red deer and rowanberry mash; but the Raven Leader and his Mage had sat up all night at the entrance to his shelter, while the stars faded and the sky248turned gray, and around them the Forest slept on in the hushed radiance of a heavy snowfall."And there can be no doubt?" said FinKedinn. "It is the work of the Soul-Eaters?"As the Raven Mage stared into the embers, the veins on her bald pate throbbed like tiny snakes. "The fire spirit never lies."An ember cracked. Snow pattered down from the spruce tree overhead. Fin-Kedinn glanced up--and went very still."We've come too far north," said Saeunn. "If we stay here, there'll be nothing between us and the demons!""What about Renn and Torak?" said Fin-Kedinn, his eyes fixed on the spruce."What about the clan?" retorted Saeunn. "Fin-Kedinn, we must go south! We must head for the Widewater, take refuge at the Guardian Rock! There I can weave spells to protect us, set lines of power about the camp."When Fin-Kedinn did not reply, she said, "This must be the end to what you've been thinking."The Raven Leader dragged his gaze back to the Mage. "And what have I been thinking?" he said in a quiet voice that would have made any other clan member blanch.Saeunn was undaunted. "You cannot lead us into the Far North."249"Oh, I wouldn't lead 'you, Mage. I'd make sure that you stayed here, in the Forest--""I'm not thinking of myself, but of the clan, as you well know!""And so am I.""But--""Enough!" With a slicing motion of his palm, he cut . short their talk. "When I tell you how to do Magecraft, you may tell me how to lead!"Again he raised his head, and this time he spoke not to Saeunn, but to the creature who stared down at him from the spruce tree: the eagle owl with the feathered ears and the fierce orange glare, who sat watching. Listening."I won't lead the clan out of the Forest," said Fin-Kedinn without dropping his gaze. "I swear it on my souls."The eagle owl spread its enormous wings and glided north.250THIRTY-TWOTorak and Renn made good speed, and for a while, relief at having escaped the caves raised their spirits. It was good to be out in the brilliance of ice and Sea and sky; to hear Wolf's brief, reassuring howls drifting from the east--I'm here! I'm here!--and to howl back an answer."They'll never catch us now!" yelled Renn. She told Torak how she'd slashed the Soul-Eaters' skinboats, and he laughed. Wolf was free, and they were heading back to the Forest. Soul-Eaters and demons seemed very far away.Then, quite suddenly, the day turned. Flinty clouds251darkened the sun. Fog crept in from the Sea. Torak's head ached with fatigue. His paddle was heavy in his hands."We've got to rest," said Renn. "If we don't, we'll capsize, or crash into an ice mountain."He nodded, too exhausted to speak.It took all their strength to haul the skinboat out of the water, and drag it across the sea ice to the shelter of an ice hill; to prop it up on shoresticks, and pack snow over it for a makeshift shelter.As he worked, Torak remembered the sudden stillness that had come over the Viper Mage. "What are you?" she had said. She had sensed his souls in the tunnel of the offerings, as they were making their way back to his body; maybe she had guessed that he was a spirit walker.From far away came the deep oo-hu, oo-hu of an eagle owl.Renn paused with her mittens full of snow. Her face was taut. "They're after us." "I know," said Torak. Oo-hu, oo-hu.He searched the sky, but saw only fog.Renn had already gone inside the shelter, and he was alone on the ice. Sounds came to him unnaturally loud: the moaning of the wind, the distant boom of crashing ice. His head ached, his eyes stung. Even the252shelter and the hill were strangely blurred.Out of the corner of his vision, he caught movement. He spun around.Something small and dark, flitting from ridge to ridge.His mouth went dry. A demon?He wished Wolf were here. But he hadn't heard a howl since midafternoon.Drawing his father's knife, he went to investigate.Nothing behind the ice hill. But he had seen it.He sheathed his knife and crawled into the shelter. Renn was already huddled in her sleeping-sack. He didn't tell her what he'd seen.They were too exhausted to pound blubber for the lamp, or to force down more than a few bites of frozen seal meat. Renn fell asleep instantly, but Torak lay awake, thinking about that dark shape flitting from ridge to ridge.The demons were out there. He could feel them sapping his spirits, quenching courage and hope.And it's your fault, he thought. You failed, and now they're loose. It was all for nothing.He woke feeling stiff and sore. His eyes felt as if someone had rubbed sand in them. He couldn't think of a single reason for getting up. The demons were loose. It was no use fighting back.253Outside, Renn was moving about in the snow. Why did she have to make so much noise? Surely she knew that every crunch of her boots was ramming another icicle into his head.To put off going outside, he checked what remained of his gear. In. the rush to get away, he'd left behind his axe and bow, but his waterskin was still around his neck,, his tinder pouch and medicine pouch on his belt, and Fa's knife safe in its sheath.The hilt felt curiously hot. Maybe it was an omen. He should probably ask Renn. But that would only give her a chance to boast about how much more she knew than him. The thought filled him with unreasonable rage.When he couldn't put it off any longer, he crawled outside.Overnight, the breath of the World Spirit had swallowed the world. The ice--the Sea--it had taken it all. The wind had gone. Without it, the cold wasn't so biting; but the boom of breaking ice was closer.That's all we need, thought Torak. The thaw is coming."You look terrible," snapped Renn. "Your eyes--you should've worn your snow-visor." "I know," growled Torak. "Then why didn't you?"Her voice was so grating. She was always telling him what to do. And she, of course, had worn her visor254all day, because she never forgot anything.In prickly silence they dismantled the shelter, and carried the skinboat to the edge of the ice, then went back to fetch their gear."Just as well I thought to slash their boats," boasted Renn, "or they'd have caught up with us by now.""Boats can be mended," Torak said nastily. "You won't have slowed them down for long."She put her hands on her hips. "I suppose you think I should've made a better job of it? Well, I didn't have time, I had to go and rescue you!""You didn't rescue me!" spat Torak.She snorted.To give her something to snort about, he told her why the Soul-Eaters were coming after them: about the spirit walking, and Seshru sensing his souls.Her jaw dropped. "You were spirit walking? And you never told me?""So? I'm telling you now."She was silent. "Anyway, you're wrong," she said. "They're not following us because of that.""Oh no? What makes you so sure?""It's the fire-opal. I took it. That's why they're after us.""Why didn't you tell me?" cried Torak."I'm telling you now. There wasn't time before."255"There was plenty of time!" he shouted."Don't shout at me!" shouted Renn.He was shaking his head. "So it's not only the Soul-Eaters who are after us, it's the demons as well!""I did mask it," she said defensively. "I've got herbs, and I put it in a swansfoot pouch that Tanugeak gave me."He threw up his arms. "Oh, well, that makes it all right! How could you be such a fool?""How could you? You were the one who spirit walked!"Her voice rang out across the ice. The silence that followed was louder. They stood glaring at each other, chests heaving.Torak passed his hand over his face, as if he'd just woken up. "What are we doing?" he said.Renn shook her head to clear it. "It's the demons. They're making us fight." She hesitated. "I think they can smell the fire-opal. Or--sense it."He nodded. "That must be it.""No, no, I mean, I know they can." She caught her lower lip in her teeth. "I heard noises in the night.""What kin
d of noises?"She shuddered. "I stayed awake to keep watch. Then I heard Wolf. He was howling, the way he does before he goes hunting. After that they were gone."He took a few paces, then turned back to her.256"We've got to get rid of it.""How? We'd have to bury it in earth or stone--and there isn't any out here, there's only ice!"They stared bleakly at each other.Renn opened her mouth to speak ...... and an earsplitting crack split the air, as a fine black line zigzagged across the ice a hand's breadth from her boots.She stared at her feet.The sea ice gave a sudden heave, and she staggered back.The black line was now a channel of water as wide as a paddle blade."A tide crack," said Torak in disbelief.Time seemed to slow. He saw that he stood on the landfast ice--the side that held the boat and their provisions--while Renn stood on the other side: the side that was breaking away. "Jump," he told her.The floe lurched. She braced her legs to keep from falling."Jump!" he cried.Her face was blank with shock. "I can't. It's too late."She was right. The crack was already more than two paces wide."I'll get the boat," he said. He raced over the ice toward the skinboat--stumbled--staggered upright257again. Why couldn't he see properly? Why was everything taking so long?He'd nearly reached the boat when it rocked-- teetered--and slid gracefully off the ice, into the Sea. With a cry he lunged for it--but the waves sucked it just out of reach. He howled with rage--and the Sea Mother splashed salt water in his eyes, laughing at him."Torak!" Renn's voice was muffled by the fog.He got to his feet--and was horrified to see how far she'd drifted."Torak!"He ran to the edge of the ice--but he was powerless; he could only watch as the Sea bore her away, and the breath of the World Spirit closed in around her.Then there was nothing left but silence.258THIRTY-THREEThe ice gave another lurch, jolting Torak to his senses. He had to get away from the edge, or he'd be next. The fog was so thick that he could hardly see; or were his eyes getting worse? Even this weak light felt like hot needles drilling into his skull.In a blur he cast about for their remaining gear. Apart from what he had on him, there was a snow-knife, the sleeping-sacks, and no food. He thought he remembered seeing Renn stowing a food pouch in the skinboat, and hoped he was wrong, hoped she had it with her-- The sleeping-sacks? He had both?. Oh, Renn.259At least she had her bow with her, but...He stopped short. She had the fire-opal. The demons would be after her.As he recalled how he'd shouted at her, he burned with shame. Taking the fire-opal had been the bravest thing she could have done. Then she'd stayed awake all night, keeping Watch. "And all you could do was shout," he said in disgust.The fog whirled before his eyes, melting into a searing red blur. He squinted. Put his hand before his face. The red blur didn't change. He couldn't see."Snow-blind," he said aloud--and the fog reached icy fingers down his throat. He'd never felt so vulnerable.He did the only thing he could. He put his hands to his lips and howled.Wolf didn't come. Nor did he send back an answering howl. Which must mean that he was out of earshot--and knowing Wolf's ears, that was a long way away indeed.Again Torak howled. And again.Silence. No wind. Just the insidious lapping of the Sea, and a horrible, waiting stillness. He pictured dark shapes flitting from ridge to ridge. He sensed that he was not alone."Get away from me," he whispered to the demons.He thought he heard laughter.260"Get away!" he shouted, waving his arms. More laughter.With a sob, he sank to his knees. Tears stung his eyes. Angrily he dashed them away.If Renn were here, she'd be reaching for her medicine pouch.That kindled a tiny spark of courage. Slipping off his mittens, he fumbled for his own pouch, found some elder leaves by their smell, and chewed them. They stung terribly when he pressed them to his eyes, but he told himself they were doing him good.Then he had another idea. He found his mother's medicine horn, and shook a little powdered earthblood into his palm.Suddenly, the air around him crackled with tension. Maybe the demons didn't like earthblood.Mixing the red powder to a paste with spit, he daubed what he hoped was the sign of the hand on his forehead--remembering too late that he should have rubbed off the owl blood first. He didn't know if that would stop it working. He only knew that you made the sign of the hand to protect yourself, and he needed all the protection he could get.He struggled to his feet--and this time he heard a hiss, and the scrabble of claws. Maybe they were shrinking back from the mark of power."Get away from me," he told them shakily. "I'm not261dead yet. Neither is Renn."Silence. He didn't know if they were listening or mocking.On hands and knees, he found the sleeping-sacks and strapped them on his back; then stuck the snow-knife in his belt. He forced himself to think. The thaw was coming, so he had to get farther inland. Then head off and find Renn.The day before, the current and the wind had carried , them south. The ice floe, too, had carried Renn south."Head south," he said out loud. And maybe the floe would get stuck in landfast ice, and she'd find her way ashore.But where was south?He took a few steps, but kept stumbling. The ice was so uneven, all these little ridges....Ridges. The wind blowing the snow into ridges. Blowing mainly from the north!"Thank you!" he shouted. He thanked Inuktiluk, too, for advising him to make an offering. The wind must have liked those boar tusks, or it wouldn't be helping him now.Groping with his mittens, he felt the shape of the ridges. Then he stood up, and squared his shoulders. "Not dead yet," he told the demons. "Not dead yet!" he shouted.He started south.262***It was agonizingly slow going. At times he heard a shuddering crunch, and the sea ice bucked beneath him. He probed the way ahead with the snow-knife. But if he did hit a patch of thin ice, it would probably be too late.What had Inuktiluk said? Gray ice is new ice, very dangerous.... Keep to the white ice. Not much use when he couldn't see--when his next step might take him onto thin ice, or down a tide crack.He struggled on. The cold sapped his strength, and he began to feel weak with hunger. How he was going to find food when he had neither harpoon, bow, nor sight was beyond him.After a while he heard the sound of approaching wings. The sky was a pinkish blur; he couldn't even make out a darker blur flying toward him.Owls fly silently, so it couldn't be the eagle owl; and these wingbeats had a strong, steady rustle that he recognized.Wsh, wsh, wsh. The raven flew lower to inspect him. Then, with a short, deep caw, it flew away.His belly tightened. That caw had sounded muffled, as if the raven had food in its beak. Maybe it had found a carcass, and was flying off to hide its cache. Maybe it would be back for more.Not long afterward he heard it return. He strained to263listen. He ran toward it.Just when he was giving up hope, he heard the bark of a white fox, and the sonorous caws of ravens at a kill-site. Meat! From the clamor, there were lots of them, so it must be a big carcass. Maybe a seal.His foot struck something solid, and he fell. The ravens erupted into the sky in a wild clatter of wings, and the white fox uttered short barks that sounded suspiciously like laughter.Torak groped for what had tripped him. It wasn't a wind ridge, but a smooth hummock of ice, twice the size of his head. Puzzled, he found another, a little farther off. Then more of them, in a curving double line.His heart began to thud. These weren't hummocks. They were tracks. The tracks of an ice bear. Inuktiluk had told him how the bear's weight packed the snow hard, then the wind blew away the surrounding snow, leaving perfect, raised paw prints.In his mind Torak saw the seal basking in the sun beside its breathing hole, oblivious of the ice bear stalking it downwind. Noiselessly the bear creeps closer, hiding behind every ridge and hummock. It is patient. It knows how to wait. At last the seal slips into a doze. The bear gathers itself for the silent charge.... The seal is dead before it knows what struck.At the carcass, the ravens had noisily resumed their264feast, having apparently decided that Torak posed no threat.They wouldn't be feeding if the bear were still close--would they? He was desperate to believe that. And by the sound of it, there were a great many ravens, as well as that fox; which must mean that the bear had left plenty of meat. Inuktiluk had said that when the hunting was good, ice bears take only the blubber, and leave the rest.But what if it was hungry again? What if it was stalking him right now?Suddenly the ravens burst skyward. Something had frightened them.Torak's breath hammered in his chest. Reaching inside his parka, he drew his father's knife.He pictured the great bear hunting him: placing its huge, f
urred paws soundlessly on the ice.He got to his feet. The silence was deafening. He braced himself, and waited for the White Death to come for him.Wolf knocked him backward into the snow, and covered his face in snuffle-licks.Wolf loved surprising his pack-brother. No matter how often he did it, Tall Tailless never knew he was coming, and Wolf never tired of it: the stalk--the pounce--the head-over-paws tumble.265Now, in an ecstasy of play-biting and tail-lashing-- with his newly shortened tail, which he was fast getting used to--he clambered over his pack-brother. He was so happy he could howl! All thought of demons and bad taillesses and stranger wolves was chased away. After being crushed and cramped for so long, he was free to stretch and leap and lope! To feel the Bright Soft Cold beneath his pads, and clean wind in his fur! To play with his pack-brother!As often happened when Wolf ambushed him, Tall Tailless was both cross and delighted. But Wolf sensed that this time, he was also in pain.Where was the pack-sister? She'd been with Tall Tailless when they'd set off in the floating hide. Had she got lost on the Great Wet?And Tall Tailless was being strangely clumsy. After his first joyful greeting, he'd made an awkward lunge at Wolf's muzzle, missed,-and tried to lick his ear. Which was odd. Now his forepaw swung out and biffed Wolf hard on the nose. Wolf was startled. He hadn't done anything wrong.Going down on his forelegs, he asked Tall Tailless to play.Tall Tailless ignored him.Wolf gave an aggrieved whine, and cast his pack-brother a questioning glance.Tall Tailless stared--he actually stared--right past Wolf.266Wolf began to be worried. To stare like that must mean that Tall Tailless was extremely displeased. Perhaps Wolf had done something wrong without knowing it.