Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Page 24

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

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

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

  Something was wrong. The coarse brown fur was matted with sweat. The small eyes were dull, and rimmed with red.

  Torak let fall the waterskin and backed away.

  The boar gave a squeal of rage.

  And charged.

  NINE

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

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

  The tree shuddered. Torak clawed bark.

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

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

  ‘But I’m your friend,’ he whispered.

  The boar gave a wheezy roar and thundered off into the Forest.

  When it did not come back, Torak blew out a shaky breath. But he knew it was too soon to climb down. Boars are cunning; they know how to lie low. This one could be anywhere.

  His legs were cramped, and as he shifted position, pain shot through his right calf. Glancing down, he was startled to see that it wasn’t mud which had made him slip, but blood. The boar’s tusk had caught him on the calf, but in the shock of the attack he hadn’t felt it. Nothing he could do about it now.

  The rain eased, and the sun came out. Around him he saw holly and oak trees, with an undergrowth of bracken and foamy meadowsweet. It all looked so peaceful.

  The boar’s mustardy scent hung in the air. It could be five paces away and he’d never know it. Not till it was too late.

  Below him a redstart alighted on a clump of burdock, scattering raindrops. He thought, it wouldn’t have come if the boar were near.

  To make sure, he drew his knife, and with a quick apology to the willow’s spirit, lopped off a small branch and tossed it down.

  The redstart flew off. The bracken exploded.

  Clasping the tree, Torak watched the boar savage the branch he’d let fall: tusking and trampling it to a mess of pulped fibres. If he’d jumped down, that would have been him.

  The boar tossed the shredded stick into the bracken, wheeled round and lowered its head. Then it threw itself against the tree.

  Its shoulder hit the trunk like a boulder thudding to earth. Willow leaves fell like rain. Grimly, Torak clung on.

  Again the boar struck.

  And again.

  And again.

  In a flood of panic, Torak saw what it was doing. It was trying to knock down the tree.

  And it could do it, too, because – he realised with mounting horror – he’d climbed the wrong tree. Instead of the sturdy oaks and hollies which could have withstood a rampaging boar, he’d chosen a slender willow with a trunk only slightly thicker than he was.

  Oh, very clever, Torak, he snarled inside his head.

  Another thud – and this time, a loud splintering. Below him, a wound gaped in the bark. He saw pinkish-brown wood, and glistening tree-blood . . .

  Do something. Fast.

  The nearest oak was maybe within reach, if he edged along this branch -

  He jerked back. Don’t even try. The branch might look strong, but it’d take never his weight. This tree was a crack willow, and its wood was notoriously brittle. So not only had he picked the smallest tree within reach, but also the most fragile.

  With startling suddenness, the boar stopped. Torak found its silence almost more terrifying than its rage.

  He knew that this would be a fight to the death – and that he would probably lose. His axe, bow and arrows hung neatly on the holly, two paces out of reach.

  Hope drained out of him like water into sand. There was no way out. He was going to die.

  Without knowing what he was doing, he put his hands to his lips and howled. Wolf! Where are you? Help me!

  No answer came to him on the wind. Wolf was far away on the Mountain.

  And this part of the Forest seemed empty of people. No-one would hear his cry and come to his aid.

  Howling made him feel vulnerable, but in a strange way it also gave him strength. You are a member of the Wolf Clan, he told himself. You are not going to die like a squirrel up a tree.

  Swiftly, before doubts set in, he cut a switch of willow a bit longer than his arm, and stripped it of side-branches. He squared off the tip, then split its end lengthways to make a tight, springy fork. The distance to his weapons was about two paces. Maybe – maybe – he could use the forked stick to hook the thong at the end of his axe, and lift it off the holly.

  Beneath him, steam rose from the boar’s sweat-blackened hide as it followed his every move.

  Luckily, the willow branch which extended closest to the holly was also the sturdiest. Torak edged along it as far as he dared, holding the forked stick at full stretch.

  It didn’t reach far enough.

  He edged back again. Whipping off his rawhide belt, he looped it round the willow trunk, knotted it, and grasped its free end. That let him lean out further.

  This time – yes! He hooked the forked stick through the axe-handle loop, and slowly lifted it off the holly branch.

  The axe was heavy. The forked stick bent – and Torak watched helplessly as the axe slid off the end and thudded into the mud.

  The boar squealed, hooked its tusks under the shaft, and tossed it into the bracken.

  Torak could not allow himself to be disheartened. Still at full stretch, he moved the forked stick towards his bow. Gently, gently he eased it under the bowstring. The bow was much lighter than the axe – merely a strip of yew wood strung with sinew – and he lifted it easily off the branch.

  As soon as he had the bow slung over his shoulder, hope surged through him. ‘You see that?’ he shouted at the boar. ‘You didn’t think I could do it, did you?’

  Now for the arrows. Still gripping his belt, Torak strained to reach his quiver with the forked stick. He hooked it. It was light, a wovengrass cone, but as he drew it towards him it tilted, and arrows spilled into the mud. He jerked the quiver towards him – just in time to save the last three.

  For a moment he felt ridiculously pleased. ‘Three arrows!’ he yelled.

  Three arrows. To kill a full-grown boar. That would be like trying to fell a bull elk with a bunch of flowers.

  The boar snorted and resumed its attack on the trunk. The willow didn’t have long to go.

  Crouching in the shivering tree, Torak struggled to take aim. Branches hampered his draw arm – he couldn’t get a clear shot . . .

  He loosed an arrow. It thudded into one shoulder. The boar roared, but went on tusking the roots. That arrow had done as much damage as a gnat bite.

  Clenching his teeth, Torak loosed another. It glanced harmlessly off the thick skull.

  Use your wits, Torak. Hit a boar on the skull or the shoulder bone and you won’t do any damage. Hit behind the shoulder, and you’ve got a chance at the heart.

  Another splintering crunch – and the willow lurched wildly. Now Torak was barely out of reach.

  The boar wheeled round for another attack. Just before it charged, Torak glimpsed paler fur behind its foreleg – took aim
– and let fly.

  The arrow stuck deep. The boar squealed – and crashed onto its side.

  Silence.

  All Torak could hear was his own gasping breath, and the rain pattering in the bracken.

  The boar lay still.

  Torak waited as long as he could bear. When it didn’t move, he lowered himself down to the ground.

  Standing on the torn earth with the willow dying behind him, he felt exposed. He had no arrows and no axe; only his knife.

  It must be dead. Its foam-flecked sides weren’t moving. But he would take no chances. The carcass was three paces away. He wouldn’t go near it till he was better armed.

  Stealthily, he made his way behind the wreck of the willow, searching the bracken for his axe.

  Behind him the boar staggered to its feet.

  Desperately Torak scanned the bracken. It had to be somewhere . . .

  The boar threw itself into a charge.

  Torak saw his axe – lunged for it – whirled round, and sank it into the massive neck.

  The boar fell dead.

  Torak stood, his legs braced, his chest heaving; both hands clutching his axe.

  Rain streamed down his cheeks like tears, and fell sadly on the leaves. He felt sick. Never in his life had he killed prey when he didn’t need meat. Never had he killed a friend.

  Letting go of the axe, he knelt and put a shaky hand on the hot, bristly pelt. ‘I’m sorry, my friend,’ he told the boar. ‘But I had to do it. May your souls – be at peace.’

  The glazed eye met his sightlessly. The boar’s souls had already left. Torak could feel them. Close. Angry.

  ‘I will treat you with respect,’ he said, caressing the sweat-soaked flank. ‘I promise.’

  In the matted fur his hand touched something hard.

  He parted the hairs – and gasped. It was a dart of some kind, buried deep in the boar’s ribs.

  With his knife he dug it out, and washed it in the stream. He’d never seen anything like it. It was shaped like a leaf, but viciously barbed, and made of fire-hardened wood.

  Behind him among the trees, he heard laughter. He spun round. The laughter faded into the Forest.

  The meaning of what he’d found sank in. This was why the boar had attacked. It had not been sick. It had been wounded. Terribly wounded by someone so cruel, so evil, that they had not gone after it and finished it off, as they were bound to do by all the sacred laws of the hunt, but had left it mad with pain, to savage anyone it found.

  And since Torak seemed to be the only one in this part of the Forest, whoever had shot the boar must have intended its first victim to be him.

  TEN

  Torak wrapped the slab of boar’s liver in burdock leaves and tucked it into the fork of an oak tree.

  ‘My thanks to the clan guardian for this meat,’ he muttered as he’d done countless times before. For the first time in his life, he didn’t feel thankful. All he could think about was the wise old boar snuffling in the leafmould, and keeping him company for the night. The fat, fluffy piglets who had lost a father.

  He limped back to the carcass. It was enormous. After a struggle, he’d managed to roll it over and slit the belly to get at the innards, but that was as far as he’d got.

  Until now, the biggest prey he’d ever killed had been a roe buck, and that had taken two exhausting days to deal with. The boar was many times bigger. It would take him a whole half-moon.

  He didn’t have a whole half-moon. He had to reach the Deep Forest and find the cure.

  But he had no choice. It was the oldest law of all that when you made a kill, you had to treat the prey with respect, and use every part of it. That was the Pact which had been made long ago between the clans and the World Spirit. Torak had to honour it or risk untold bad luck.

  He also had to tend to the wound in his calf. It was burning. Not even the rain cooled it down.

  By the stream he found a clump of soapwort. Mashing some of the wet leaves to make a slippery froth, he washed his leg. The pain was so bad that it made his eyes water.

  Now to sew up the wound. He found some bone needles in his pack – which hung unharmed on the holly tree – and chose the thinnest, and a length of deer-sinew thread. The thread he’d made from the roe buck had been lumpy and thick, and when Vedna had seen it she’d pursed her lips and given him some of hers. It was as fine as spider’s gossamer, and he thanked her under his breath.

  The first stab of the needle was agonising. Drawing the thread through his skin made him moan, and he had to hop in circles with the needle sticking out of his calf before he could work up the courage to make another stitch. When he’d finished, tears were streaming down his face.

  Next, the dressing. He used some chewed green willow bark – at least there was plenty of that – although dabbing it on stung like fury. Then a soft pad peeled from the inside of a horsehoof mushroom, with a birch-bast binding to keep everything in place.

  When it was over, he was trembling. The wound was still throbbing, but the pain had lessened a little.

  He found his boots – muddy but undamaged – and pulled them on. He was glad they were summer ones, with a rawhide sole and soft buckskin sides which wouldn’t chafe his calf. Lastly, he stowed the rest of the horsehoof mushroom in his pack, for changing the dressing in a few days.

  A few days . . .

  He would still be here, working on the carcass. If the Follower didn’t get him first.

  The rain had stopped. Water dripped off the ruined willow, and glistened on the carcass of the boar. A pair of ravens flew down, eyeing it hopefully. Torak shooed them away.

  Black spots darted before his eyes, and he realised he was faint with hunger. Butchering the carcass would have to wait. He had to eat.

  He’d finished the supplies he’d taken from the Ravens, but with the carcass, he had no shortage of meat. He’d never felt less like eating.

  Watched by the ravens, he forced down the rest of the liver. Drinking the blood was harder. Most of it had drained into the mud – a mistake he couldn’t now repair, and which, being against the Pact, would bring him bad luck. To make amends he took his birchwood cup from his pack and scooped up what remained in the body cavity. He tried not to think about Oslak whittling the cup for him one long winter’s night; or that he was drinking the blood of a friend.

  To take away the taste, he crunched up some young burdock stems. Then – at last – he made a start on the carcass.

  Skinning it was back-straining, arm-wrenching work, and it was nearly dusk by the time he’d finished. He was covered in blood and shaking with tiredness, and the hide was a muddy, stinking mess. He still hadn’t washed it or started scraping off the flesh and fat. After that there would be days spent curing it with wood-ash and mashed brains, and drying the meat, and splitting the bones for fish-hooks and arrowheads.

  Not forgetting, of course, that he still had to build a shelter and a fire before it got dark . . .

  ‘Wishing won’t get it done,’ said a voice behind him.

  Torak gave a start.

  He couldn’t see anyone. The bracken was man-high, filled with shadow.

  ‘Who are you?’ he said. He took a step forward – then realised he’d left his weapons by the carcass.

  That was when he saw it. A face in the bracken, staring at him.

  A face of leaves.

  ELEVEN

  The creature with the face of leaves was not alone. Another appeared close by. Then another and another. Torak was surrounded.

  As more emerged from the trees, he saw that although their faces resembled that of the Follower, they were full-grown men and women – and they didn’t have claws.

  They wore their brown hair long, and braided with the tail-hairs of forest horses. The men’s beards were dyed green, like the moss which hangs from spruce trees. The lips of both men and women were stained a darker green; but most startling of all were the leaves on their faces. Torak saw that these were dense greenish-brown tattoos: oak le
aves for the women, holly for the men. The tattoos gave the disquieting impression that they were peering from the trees – even when, as now, they stood in the open.

  They went barefoot, with knee-length leggings and sleeveless jerkins of wovenbark, although of a finer, suppler weave than Torak had ever seen. Each carried a magnificent, well-oiled bow; and each bow was nocked with a green slate arrow fletched with woodpecker feathers. All arrows were trained on him.

  Swiftly he put his fists over his heart in token of friendship.

  The arrows didn’t move.

  ‘You are – of the Deep Forest?’ he said hoarsely. It was a guess. Something about them felt different from the Follower. He sensed wildness and danger – but not evil.

  ‘And you,’ said the woman who had first addressed him, ‘you have reached its borders and must turn back.’

  ‘I thought the Deep Forest was further east -’

  ‘You were wrong,’ said the woman in a voice as chill as a deep Forest pool. She had a narrow, distrustful face with hazel eyes set too close together, and she looked older than the others. Torak wondered if she was the leader.

  ‘You have reached the True Forest,’ she said. ‘You may not pass.’

  The ‘True Forest’? In spite of himself, Torak was annoyed. What was wrong with the Forest where he’d grown up?

  ‘I come as a friend,’ he said, trying to sound friendly but not quite succeeding. ‘My name is Torak. I have bone kin in the Deep Forest. Oak Clan and Red Deer by my mother. What clan are you?’

  The woman drew herself up. ‘Forest Horse,’ she said haughtily. ‘As you would know if you were telling the truth.’

  ‘I am telling the truth,’ said Torak.

  ‘Prove it.’

  Face flaming, Torak went to his pack and brought out his mother’s medicine horn. It was made from the hollowed-out tip of a red deer antler, fitted with a black oak base and stopper. Fin-Kedinn had told him to keep it hidden; but he couldn’t think of any other proof.