Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Read online

  When at last he slept, his dreams were haunted. He crouched on a dark hillside, frozen in horror as a faceless Soul-Eater crawled towards him. He scrambled back. His hand met a scaly softness that wriggled and bit. He tried to run. Tree-roots coiled clammily about his ankles. A winged shadow swooped with a leathery thwap. The Soul-Eaters were upon him, and their malice beat at him like flame . . .

  He woke.

  It was dawn. The breath of the Forest misted the trees. He knew what he had to do.

  ‘Is Oslak any better?’ he asked Vedna as he left the shelter.

  ‘The same,’ she said. Her eyes were red, but the glare she gave him warded off sympathy.

  He said, ‘I need to talk to Fin-Kedinn. Have you seen him?’ ‘He’s downriver. But you leave him be.’

  He ignored her.

  Already the camp was busy. Men and women crouched on the walkway with spears, while others woke the fires for daymeal. In the distance came the ‘tock! tock!’ of hammer on stone. Everyone was trying not to think about Oslak and Bera, tied up in the sickness shelter.

  Torak followed the path downstream: past the rapids, and round a bend which took him out of sight of the camp. Here the Widewater flowed less turbulently, and the salmon were fleeting silver darts in the deep green water.

  Fin-Kedinn sat on a boulder by the river’s edge, making a knife. His tools lay beside him: hammer-stones, shapers, beaker of black, boiled pine-blood. Already a small pile of needle-sharp stone flakes nestled in moss at his feet.

  As Torak approached, his heart began to pound. He admired the Raven Leader, but was scared of him too. Fin-Kedinn had taken him in after Fa was killed, but he’d never offered to foster him. There was a remoteness about him, as if he’d decided not to let Torak get too close.

  Clenching his fists, Torak stood on the bank. ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said.

  ‘Then talk,’ said Fin-Kedinn without looking up.

  Torak swallowed. ‘The Soul-Eaters. They sent the sickness. It’s my destiny to fight them. So that’s what I’m going to do.’

  Fin-Kedinn went on studying a round, buff-coloured stone the size of his fist. It was a Sea egg: a rarity in the Forest. The Ravens used mostly slate, antler or bone for their weapons, because flint – in the form of Sea eggs – was found only on the coast, where the Sea clans traded them for horn and salmon skins.

  Frustrated, Torak tried again. ‘I have to stop them. To put an end to this!’

  ‘How?’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘You don’t know where they are. None of us does.’ With his hammer-stone he tapped the Sea egg, checking from the sound that the flint was free from flaws.

  Torak flinched. That ‘tock! tock!’ brought back painful memories. He’d grown up to the sound of Fa knapping stone by the fire. It had made him feel safe. How wrong he had been.

  He said, ‘Renn told me there have been powerful sicknesses like this in the past – but also a cure. So maybe -’

  ‘That’s what I’ve spent all night trying to find out,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘There’s a rumour that one of the Deep Forest Mages knows a cure.’

  ‘Where?’ cried Torak. ‘How do we get it?’

  Fin-Kedinn struck the Sea egg a hard blow which took the top clean off. Inside, the flint was the colour of dark honey, threaded with scarlet. ‘Not so fast,’ he told Torak. ‘Think first. Impatience can get you killed.’

  Torak threw himself down on the bank, and tore at the grass.

  Using a small antler club, Fin-Kedinn struck flakes off the core, deftly controlling their size by the speed and slant of the blow. Tock! Tock! went the hammer, telling Torak to wait.

  Eventually, Fin-Kedinn spoke. ‘In the night, an Otter woman came in a canoe. Two of them have fallen sick.’

  Torak went cold. The Otter Clan lived far in the east, on the shores of Lake Axehead. ‘Then it’s everywhere,’ he said. ‘I have to get to the Deep Forest. If there’s even a chance . . .’

  Fin-Kedinn sighed.

  ‘Who else could you send?’ said Torak. ‘You’re needed here. Saeunn’s too old for the journey. Everyone else has to guard the sick, or hunt, or catch salmon.’

  Fin-Kedinn chose a thumb-length antler shaper, and sharpened a flint flake with delicate grinding motions. ‘The people of the Deep Forest rarely concern themselves with us. Why do you think they’d help?’

  ‘That’s why it should be me!’ insisted Torak. ‘My mother was Red Deer Clan! I’m their bone kin, they’d have to listen to me!’ But he’d never known his mother, who had died when he was born, and he spoke with more assurance than he felt.

  A muscle worked in Fin-Kedinn’s jaw as he took up the haft of the knife: a length of reindeer shin-bone with a groove in it to take the flint. Dipping a sharpened flake in pine-blood, he slotted it into the bone. ‘Has it not occurred to you,’ he said, ‘that this might be exactly what the Soul-Eaters want?’ He raised his head, and his blue eyes burned with such intensity that Torak dropped his gaze. ‘Last winter after you fought the bear, I forbade anyone to speak of it outside the clan. You know this.’

  Torak nodded.

  ‘Because of that, the only thing the Soul-Eaters know is that someone in the Forest has power. They do not know who.’

  He paused. ‘They don’t know who, Torak. Nor do they know the nature of that power. None of us does.’

  Torak caught his breath. Fin-Kedinn’s words echoed what Fa had said as he lay dying. All my life I’ve kept you apart . . . Stay away from men, Torak! If they find out what you can do . . .

  But what could he do? For a time he’d thought Fa had meant his ability to speak wolf; but from what Fin-Kedinn had said, there had to be more.

  ‘This sickness,’ said the Raven Leader, ‘it could be a trick: the Soul-Eaters’ way of forcing you into the open.’

  ‘But even if it is, I can’t just do nothing. I have to help Oslak. I can’t stand it seeing him like this!’

  The hard face softened. ‘I know. Neither can I.’

  There was silence while Fin-Kedinn slotted in more flint, and Torak stared across the river. The sun had risen above the trees, and the water was dazzling. Squinting, he made out a heron on the far bank; a raven wading after scraps of salmon.

  The blade was complete: about a hand long, and as jagged and sharp as a wolverine’s jaw. To finish it, Fin-Kedinn wound finely split pine root around the haft to make a warm, sure grip. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Show me your knife.’

  Torak frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. Show it to me.’

  Puzzled, Torak unsheathed the knife which had been his father’s, and handed it over.

  It had a beautiful leaf-shaped blade of blue slate, and an antler haft bound with elk sinew. Fa had told him that the blade was of Seal Clan making. Fa’s mother had been a Seal, and she’d given it to him when he’d reached manhood; he’d fitted the hilt himself. As he lay dying, he had given the knife to Torak. Torak was very proud of it.

  But as the Raven Leader handled it, he shook his head. ‘Too heavy for a boy. A Mage’s knife, made for ceremony.’ He handed it back. ‘He was always too casual about such things.’

  Torak longed for him to say more, but he didn’t. Instead he set the new knife across his forefinger, appraising it with a critical eye. It lay level, perfectly balanced.

  Beautiful, thought Torak.

  The Raven Leader flipped it round, caught it by the blade, and held it out. ‘Take it. I made it for you.’

  After a moment’s astonishment, Torak took it.

  Fin-Kedinn cut short his thanks. ‘From now on,’ he said, rising to his feet with the aid of his staff, ‘keep your father’s knife hidden. Your mother’s medicine horn, too. If anyone asks about your parents, don’t speak of them.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Torak.

  But Fin-Kedinn wasn’t listening. He’d gone still, staring at the river.

  Torak shaded his eyes with his hand, but couldn’t see much for the glare. Only the heron on the far bank, and a log in midstre
am, sliding downriver.

  In the camp, a woman began to keen: a tearing sound that rose above the rapids and chilled Torak’s blood.

  Men and women came running down the trail.

  Torak gasped.

  That wasn’t a log floating downriver.

  It was Oslak.

  SIX

  Oslak had taken no chances. He’d gnawed through his bindings, slipped out of the sickness shelter, and climbed the Guardian Rock. Then he’d thrown himself off.

  The fall had probably killed him. At least – Torak hoped so. He couldn’t bear to think of him being alive when he’d hit the rapids.

  The Raven camp was stunned into silence when he reached it. Vedna had stopped keening, and stood stony-faced, watching the men bring the body on a litter. They took great care not to touch it with their bare hands. No-one wanted to risk angering the dead man’s souls, which were still in the camp.

  As they set down the litter by Oslak’s shelter, Saeunn crouched beside it, and – with her finger protected by a leather guard – daubed the Death Marks in red ochre on the body, to help the souls stay together on their journey. Soon the Ravens would carry him into the Forest. It was vital that this was done swiftly, so that his souls would not be tempted to stay in camp.

  Fin-Kedinn stood a little apart, his face a mask of granite. He betrayed no grief as he gave orders to double the watch on Bera, and to empty Oslak’s shelter of all but his belongings, which would be burnt when it was put to the fire. But Torak could tell that he was taking it hard. The Raven Leader had told Oslak that he would keep him safe. He would not easily forgive himself for having failed.

  Guilt.

  Torak felt it too, weighing him down.

  Well, the time for doing nothing was over. When the Ravens took the body into the Forest, he would stay behind, not being part of the clan – and that would be his chance to slip away: to make for the Deep Forest, and seek the cure.

  But first there was something he had to do.

  As the rites began and women fetched clay for the mourning marks, he made his way quietly to the foot of the Guardian Rock. If his suspicion was right – if the creature with the face of leaves had anything to do with Oslak’s death – then it might have left tracks.

  The Guardian Rock was almost sheer on the side which faced the river, but on its eastern side it was more like a steep hill, which could be climbed if one was careful. Many feet had trampled the mud at its base, and some had tracked mud up this eastern flank.

  The message in the mud was confused, but Torak made out a faint line of narrow, day-old prints: that was Saeunn, climbing to the top. He saw paw-marks criss-crossed by sharp little four-toed prints: that was a dog scampering up, and being teased by a raven. And over there, a man’s prints. Torak saw only the toes and the balls of the feet. Oslak had been running as fast as he could.

  A lump rose in Torak’s throat. He forced it down. Grieve later, when you’re on your way.

  Slowly he followed Oslak’s tracks up the rock.

  Oslak had dislodged pebbles and moss as he ran. At one point he’d slipped, grazing himself: here was a tiny smear of blood. Then he’d run on.

  He was running as fast as he could, thought Torak. As if all the demons of the Otherworld were after him.

  At the top, Torak found what he’d been dreading. Another set of prints: much smaller than Oslak’s. They were faint, but he saw enough to know that whatever had made them had not been running – but standing: standing quite still, a short way back from the edge. Watching Oslak leap to his death.

  The footprints were small, like those of a child of maybe eight or nine summers.

  Except that this print had claws.

  The clan was getting ready to leave when Torak found Renn by the long-fire, grinding earthblood for the burial rites.

  Her face was streaked with river clay – the Raven way of mourning – but tears had cut runnels down her cheeks. Torak had never seen her cry. As he approached, she blinked hard.

  ‘Renn,’ he said, squatting beside her and speaking softly so as not to be overheard, ‘there’s something I’ve got to tell you. I went up the Guardian Rock, I -’

  ‘What were you doing up there?’

  ‘I found tracks.’

  Saeunn called to Renn from across the clearing. ‘Come! We’re leaving!’

  ‘There’s something in the camp,’ Torak said urgently. ‘I saw it!’

  Again the Raven Mage summoned Renn.

  ‘Torak, I’ve got to go!’ she said. Pouring the ground ochre into her medicine pouch, she got to her feet. ‘We won’t be gone long. Tell me when I get back. Show me the tracks.’

  Torak nodded, but didn’t meet her eyes. He wouldn’t be here when she got back. And he couldn’t tell her he was going, because she’d try to stop him, or insist on coming too. He couldn’t let her do that. If Fin-Kedinn was right, if there was even a chance that he was walking into a Soul-Eater trap, he wasn’t going to risk her life as well as his own.

  ‘I’m sorry you can’t come too,’ said Renn, making him feel worse. Then she ran to take her place at the head of the clan beside her uncle, Fin-Kedinn.

  The Ravens moved off, and Torak watched them go. He knew that they would carry Oslak’s body a good distance from the camp before building the Death Platform: a low rack of rowan branches on which they would lay the corpse, facing upriver. Like the salmon, Oslak’s souls would make their final journey upstream, towards the High Mountains.

  The rites at the Death Platform would be brief, and after saying farewell, the clan would leave his body to the Forest. As he’d fed on its creatures in life, so they would feed on him in death. Three moons later, Vedna would gather his bones and take them to the Raven bone-ground. But for the next five summers, neither she nor anyone else would speak his name out loud. This was strict clan law: to prevent the dead man’s souls from troubling the living.

  Standing in the clearing, Torak watched till they were gone. When the last Raven had been swallowed by the Forest, the camp felt eerily lonely. Only the dogs remained to guard the salmon.

  Quickly, Torak ran to fetch his things. He crammed his light wicker pack with his few belongings: cooking-skin, medicine pouch, tinder pouch, fish-hooks; his quiver and bow, his rolled-up sleeping-sack; Fa’s knife, wrapped in rawhide; his mother’s medicine horn. As he stuck his small basalt axe in his belt, he tried not to think of the last time he’d been forced to pack in a hurry. It had been last autumn, as Fa lay dying.

  Torak’s hand tightened on the hilt of the knife Fin-Kedinn had made for him. It was lighter and easier to use than his father’s; but nothing would ever replace Fa’s knife.

  Don’t think about that now, he told himself. Just get out of here before they come back. And this time, don’t forget food.

  After what had happened to Oslak, he couldn’t face salmon: not the smoked meat, nor the Ravens’ flat cakes of dried flesh pounded with juniper berries. Instead he cut some strips of elk meat hanging from the rafters in Thull’s shelter. They’d keep him going till he reached the Deep Forest.

  But how long would that take? Three days? Five? He didn’t know. He’d never been near it, and had only encountered two Deep Forest people: a silent Red Deer woman with earthblood in her hair, and a wild-eyed Auroch girl, her scalp weirdly caked in yellow clay. Neither had shown any interest in him, and despite what he’d told Fin-Kedinn, he didn’t expect much of a welcome.

  On his way out of camp, he passed the Leader’s shelter – and that was when it hit him. He was leaving the Ravens, perhaps for good.

  First you lost Fa, then Wolf. Now Oslak, and Fin-Kedinn and Renn . . .

  It was dark inside the shelter. Fin-Kedinn’s corner was neat and spare, but Renn’s was a mess: her sleeping-sack crumpled and littered with arrows she hadn’t finished fletching. She would be furious that he’d gone without her, and there was no way of saying goodbye.

  He had an idea. Outside the shelter he found a flat white pebble. Running to the neare
st alder tree, he muttered a thanks to its spirit, cut off a strip of bark, and chewed. Spitting the red mix of saliva and tree-blood into his palm, he painted his clan-tattoo on the stone: two dotted lines, one with a break in the middle. The break wasn’t part of the tattoo, it was a small scar on his cheek, but when Renn saw it she would know it was from him.

  As he finished making the sign, he stopped. His finger was stained red with alder juice: the same juice he’d used last autumn, in Wolf’s naming rite. He’d daubed it on the cub’s paws, and been exasperated when Wolf kept licking it off.

  ‘Don’t think about Wolf!’ he cried aloud. ‘Don’t think about any of them!’

  The empty camp mocked him silently. You’re on your own now, Torak.

  Hurriedly he shoved the pebble under Renn’s sleeping-sack, then ran into the sunlight.

  The Forest was full of birdsong, and achingly beautiful. He could take no joy in it.

  Shouldering his bow, he turned east, and started for the Deep Forest.

  SEVEN

  Sorrow ran with Wolf like an unseen pack-brother. He missed Tall Tailless. He longed for his odd, furless face and his wavering howl; for the strange, breathless yip-and-yowl which was his way of laughing.

  Many times Wolf had loped off alone to howl for him. Many times he’d run in circles, wondering what to do. He was caught between the Pull of the Mountain, and the Pull of his pack-brother.

  The other wolves – the wolves of his new pack – were puzzled. You have us now! And you’re not yet full-grown, you have much to learn! You don’t know how to hunt the great prey, how would you survive on your own? Stay here with us!

  They were a strong, close pack, and there had been times when he’d been happy on the Thunderer’s Mountain. They’d played uproarious games of hunt-the-lemming; they’d leapt into lakes to frighten ducks. But the other wolves did not understand.

  Wolf was thinking of this as he raced to his favourite ridge to catch the smells wafting from the Forest.

  The Forest was many lopes away, but he caught the muzzle-watering scent of a newborn fawn, and the sharp smell of tree-blood oozing from a wind-snapped spruce. He heard the slow sucking sound of a boar turning over in its wallow, and the squeak of an otter cub falling off a branch. He longed to be in the Forest with Tall Tailless.