Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Read online

She froze.

  The darkness exploded.

  With a cry she jumped back.

  The creature sprang at her – then jerked to a halt. In a daze she saw that it was tethered at the wrists by sturdy bindings of braided rawhide.

  ‘What are you doing?’ shouted a voice behind her, and strong hands dragged her away. ‘Are you sick too?’ cried her captor, spinning her round. ‘Answer! Are you sick? What’s this on your hand?’

  ‘A b-bite,’ she stammered. ‘It’s a bite, I’m not sick . . .’

  Ignoring her, he turned her head roughly to examine her face and scalp. Only when he found no sores did he release her.

  ‘I’m not sick!’ she repeated. ‘What’s happened here?’

  ‘Same as everywhere,’ he muttered.

  ‘The sickness,’ said Renn.

  At the mouth of the shelter, the creature who had once been a man rocked back and forth, snarling and slobbering. Patches of his scalp glistened where he’d yanked out handfuls of hair. His eyes were gluey with pus.

  The other man glanced at him, and pain tightened his face. ‘He was my friend,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t bring myself to kill him. It would’ve been better if I had.’ He turned to Renn. ‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m Renn,’ she said. ‘Raven Clan. Who are you?’

  ‘Tiu.’ He held up his left hand, and on the back she saw his clan-tattoo: the four-clawed mark of the Sea-eagle.

  ‘What will happen to your friend?’ asked Renn.

  Tiu went to retrieve a fishing spear propped against a tree. ‘In a couple of days he’ll chew through the ropes. He’ll have as much chance as any of us.’

  ‘But – he’ll hurt someone.’

  Tiu shook his head. ‘We’ll be long gone.’

  ‘You’re leaving the Forest?’ said Renn.

  With a last look at his friend, Tiu left the clearing, heading west.

  Renn followed at a run.

  ‘The island of the Cormorants,’ he told her. ‘It’s their turn for the Midsummer rites; and unlike some, they’re not afraid to let us come.’

  ‘What about the other clans?’ said Renn as they reached a sheltered bay where people hurried to load sturdy hide canoes.

  ‘The Whales and the Salmons headed for the Cormorants’ island a few days ago. The Willows went south.’ Tiu threw her a sharp glance. ‘And you? Why aren’t you with your clan?’

  ‘I’m looking for my friend. Have you seen him? His name’s Torak. Thin, a little taller than me, with black hair and . . . ‘

  ‘No,’ said Tiu, turning away to help a woman with a bundle.

  ‘I saw him,’ called a young man loading rope into a canoe.

  ‘When?’ cried Renn. ‘Where? Is he all right?’

  ‘The Seals took him,’ came the reply. ‘You won’t be seeing him again.’

  ‘Three Seal boys came a few days ago,’ said the young man, whose name was Kyo. ‘They had flint and seal-hide clothes, but I was in no mood to trade, so I didn’t show myself.’ He frowned. ‘The Whales made the trade. They were so desperate for Sea eggs they didn’t tell the Seals about the sickness, in case it scared them off -’

  ‘What about Torak?’ broke in Renn. ‘You said you saw them take him.’

  ‘All I saw was a boy in a skinboat,’ said Kyo. ‘Dark, like you said. Thin, angry face. Lots of bruises. He didn’t go without a fight.’

  Renn’s fists clenched. ‘Why did they take him?’

  Kyo shrugged. ‘With the Seals, who knows? They’re not like us, they’ve never learnt to live in peace with the Forest.’

  ‘I’ve got to get to their island,’ said Renn.

  Tiu snorted. ‘Not possible.’

  ‘But you’re going to the Cormorants,’ she said, ‘and their island isn’t far from the Seals, is it?’

  ‘You don’t understand,’ Tiu said angrily. ‘We have no quarrel with the Seals, and we want to keep it that way!’

  ‘But my friend is in danger!’

  ‘We’re all in danger!’ snapped Tiu.

  Renn looked at the worried faces around her, and wondered how to persuade them. ‘There’s something you need to know,’ she said. ‘My friend – Torak. He can do things that others can’t. He might be able to find a cure.’

  Tiu crossed his arms across his chest. ‘You’re making that up.’

  ‘No. Listen to me. I need to tell you who he is.’ By doing that, she would be going against Fin-Kedinn’s orders; but Fin-Kedinn wasn’t here. ‘You all know what happened last winter,’ she said. ‘You know about the bear.’

  People stopped what they were doing and drew nearer to listen.

  ‘It killed some of our people,’ Renn went on. ‘It killed people here too, didn’t it? Two from the Willow Clan. And we heard that among your clan it took a child.’

  Tiu flinched. ‘Why talk of this? What good does it do?’

  ‘Because,’ said Renn, ‘my friend is the one who rid the Forest of the bear.’

  Tiu stared at her. ‘You said he’s just a boy -’

  ‘I said he’s more than that. Fin-Kedinn would tell you if he was here. You know Fin-Kedinn?’

  Tiu nodded. ‘He has the respect of many clans.’

  ‘He’s my uncle. He’d tell you that what I’m saying is true.’

  Anxiously Renn watched Tiu draw the others aside to talk. Moments later he returned. ‘I’m sorry. We don’t want to quarrel with the Seals.’

  ‘Then don’t take me to their camp,’ she said. ‘Leave me somewhere on their island, I’ll find my own way.’

  Kyo spoke to Tiu. ‘There’s that little bay to the south-west of their camp. We could put in there, and they’d never know.’

  ‘And I could give her seaworthy clothes,’ said a woman, ‘and purify her for the journey. Tiu, she’s just a girl, we can’t leave her here on her own.’

  Tiu sighed. ‘You’re asking a lot,’ he told Renn.

  ‘I know,’ she replied.

  She was about to go on, when – behind a juniper bush – she spotted a gleam of eyes. Amber eyes watching her.

  Her heart leapt.

  Excitedly she turned to Tiu. ‘And I’m about to ask even more.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s someone else who needs to come too.’

  The shore rang with laughter.

  The Sea-eagles might be fleeing their camp, having left behind two dead and one mad with sickness, but the sight of a young wolf covered in fulmar spit made everyone smile.

  ‘You won’t need to purify him,’ someone remarked. ‘It looks as if he’s done that by himself!’

  Fulmar spit or no, Renn wanted to fling her arms around Wolf – but she contented herself with greeting him quietly, and scratching his flank.

  Feebly, Wolf wagged his tail. He looked miserable. He’d taken a faceful of foul-smelling oil, then made it worse by trying to rub it off in the sand. He’d learned the hard way about not bothering fulmar chicks.

  ‘I thought you liked strong smells,’ Renn told him.

  Wolf rubbed his face against her jerkin in a vain attempt to rid himself of the troublesome oil.

  Tiu hurried past them with a bundle in his arms. ‘If you can get him in my canoe,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘you can bring him. If not, you’ll have to leave him behind.’

  ‘I’m not leaving him,’ said Renn.

  ‘Then be quick! We’re leaving!’

  ‘Come on, Wolf,’ said Renn, running down to the canoe.

  Wolf didn’t move. He stood with his big paws splayed and his hackles up, eyeing the canoe rocking in the shallows.

  Renn’s heart sank.

  You didn’t need to speak wolf talk to know what he was saying.

  I am not going in that. Not ever, ever, ever.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Torak dreamed of Wolf again, but this time Wolf was warning him. Uff! Uff! Danger! Shadow! Hunted!

  What shadow? asked Torak. Where?

  But Wolf was getting further and further a
way – and Torak couldn’t run after him, because someone was holding him back.

  ‘Let me go!’ he shouted, lashing out with his fists.

  ‘Wake up!’ said Bale.

  ‘What?’ Torak opened his eyes. He was in the Seal shelter, and daylight was streaming in through the door-flaps.

  A day had passed since he’d spoken to Tenris on the Crag. A whole day of waiting, while the Seal Mage persuaded Islinn not to send him to the Rock, and Midsummer drew nearer, and in the Forest the sickness . . .

  ‘Who’s Wolf?’ Bale said abruptly.

  ‘What? No-one. I don’t know what you mean.’

  Bale wasn’t fooled. ‘You’re not even awake and you’re telling lies,’ he said in disgust.

  Torak did not reply. The dream lay heavy on him. Shadow. Hunted. What did that mean? Was it a warning against the Follower, or something else?

  ‘Get up,’ said Bale, kicking him in the thigh.

  ‘Why? Are we setting off for the Heights?’

  ‘That’s tomorrow. Today I’ve got to teach you skinboating.’

  ‘You? Why you?’

  ‘Ask Tenris, it’s his idea.’ From his tone he didn’t like it any more than Torak. ‘Get some daymeal and meet me on the shore. I’ll fetch the boats.’

  ‘But why Bale?’ Torak asked the Seal Mage when he found him on the rocks, gathering seaweed. ‘Why can’t it be someone else?’ Anyone else, he thought.

  The Seal Mage gave him a lopsided smile. ‘And this is the thanks I get for keeping you off the Rock.’

  ‘But Bale of all people, he -’

  ‘- happens to be the best at skinboating,’ said Tenris. ‘Here, hold the basket and watch, you might learn something.’

  ‘But -’

  ‘This is kelp,’ said Tenris, grasping a long stem of leathery brown weed. ‘If you dry it, it goes hard, like this,’ he tapped the hilt of his knife. ‘If you wash it in sweet water, then soak it in seal oil, you can make rope. Did you see how I cut it? Always leave the holdfast on the rock so that it can grow back. That’s important.’

  When Torak stayed stubbornly silent, the Seal Mage paused. ‘You’re going to need Bale,’ he said. ‘And you’ll need Asrif, too, he’s the best at rock-climbing. Detlan will go along to lend some muscle.’

  ‘All three of them?’

  ‘Torak, you can’t do this on your own.’

  ‘I know. But I thought you’d be coming. You were the one who found the root before. Why not now?’ He liked the Seal Mage. Tenris reminded him of Fin-Kedinn, only kinder and less remote.

  With a sigh the Seal Mage touched the scarred side of his face. ‘The fire that did this didn’t only burn me on the outside. It scorched my lungs.’ He tossed the kelp in the basket. ‘I’d be no use to you on the Heights.’

  Torak was abashed. ‘I didn’t know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘So am I,’ Tenris said mildly. ‘But there’s another reason I’m sending them. They’re your kin, Torak. Whether you like it or not, you need to win their trust.’

  ‘I don’t care about that,’ said Torak.

  ‘Well you should.’ The Mage’s voice was gentle, but the undertow of strength was unmistakeable. ‘Concentrate on Bale. If you win him over, the others will follow. And Torak.’ His mouth twitched. ‘It’ll help if you’re a quick learner.’

  ‘No, no, no!’ cried Bale, paddling closer to Torak’s skinboat with infuriating ease. ‘Brace your legs against the sides – you’re tilting, shift your weight – no, not that much, you’ll capsize!’

  Reaching over, he yanked the skinboat upright. ‘I told you! Don’t use the paddle to steady yourself, that’s not what it’s for! You balance with your hips and your thighs, not your hands. If you’re out hunting, you might need to drag a seal aboard, and then you’d need both hands free.’

  ‘It’d help if it didn’t wobble so much,’ muttered Torak.

  With its shallow draught and knife-edged hull, his skinboat was in constant danger of capsizing. He felt like a beetle struggling to stay afloat on a twig.

  ‘That’s not the boat’s fault,’ said Bale, ‘it’s yours.’

  ‘Why does it have to be so shallow?’

  ‘If the sides were any higher, you’d waste your strength fighting the wind. Try again. No! I told you! Don’t slap the water, slice it! You need to be silent, completely silent!’

  ‘I’m trying,’ said Torak between clenched teeth.

  ‘Try harder,’ snapped Bale. ‘Don’t you have canoes in the Forest?’

  ‘Of course we do!’ Torak thought with longing of the dugouts of the Boars, and the Ravens’ dependable deer-hide crafts. ‘But they’re good and solid, and we never -’

  ‘Good and solid won’t get you far on the Sea,’ said Bale derisively. ‘A round-bottomed boat would make bubbles that’d warn the seals you were coming from fifty harpoon throws away; and a hull that couldn’t twist would break up in the first heavy swell. No, no, over the waves, not through them! You’ve got to skim the surface like a cormorant . . .’

  A big wave buffeted Torak’s prow, drenching him.

  On the shore, children laughed. The smallest were playing at skinboats in holes in the sand lined with scraps of seal hide. The bigger ones were splashing about in beginners’ crafts. Unlike Torak, they didn’t have to worry about rolling over, as their boats were fitted with cross-bars that were steadied at either end by gutskin sacks filled with air.

  When Bale had threatened Torak with a beginner’s boat, he’d been outraged; but now after an exhausting day, he was tempted. Bale was an unforgiving teacher, driving him relentlessly. Clearly he was hoping to be able to tell Tenris that Torak was a failure.

  It was beginning to look as if he’d get his wish. Torak was soaking wet, and his head was throbbing with sun-dazzle. His thighs and shoulders were screaming for rest, his arms shaking with fatigue. He could hardly hold his paddle, let alone keep his balance.

  It didn’t help that Bale handled his own skinboat superbly. He could bring it about with a flick of his wrist, and stand up in it as easily as if he were on dry land. He wasn’t even showing off. He was simply so at home on the water that he didn’t need to think about it.

  Now, as the wind got up and Torak floundered to stay afloat, the older boy came alongside him, deftly steadying his own craft by sticking one end of his paddle in a cross-strap, which left the other blade in the Sea, and both hands free. ‘You’ll have to do better than this,’ he said as he leaned over and started scooping out the water in Torak’s boat with a baler.

  ‘Or what?’ said Torak. ‘You’ll leave me behind?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what I’m hoping.’

  ‘Give me a chance. I’ve only had a day. You’ve been doing this since you were what, about six?’

  ‘Five.’ He glanced at the beginners in the shallows, and a shadow of sadness crossed his face. ‘My brother started even younger.’

  ‘Just give me a chance,’ said Torak.

  Bale thought for a moment. ‘Head off over there,’ he said, ‘I’ll follow. This time, don’t think about each stroke. Just keep your eyes on the Sea, and go as fast as you can.’

  Torak brought his boat about, and started to paddle.

  For a while all he managed was his usual floundering, with the skinboat bucking like a hare in spring-time, and the waves slapping him stingingly in the face.

  Then something happened. Almost without noticing, he seemed to find a rhythm with the paddle. The blades cut the water without splashing, and with each stroke he felt the power of the Sea beneath him – beneath him, not against him. Faster and faster he went – and suddenly the skinboat gave a surge, and he was skimming over the waves, as fast and free as a seabird.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ he cried.

  Bale came up beside him, watching with unsmiling concentration.

  ‘Beautiful!’ shouted Torak. ‘It’s beautiful!’

  Bale nodded slowly. Now he was biting back a grin.

  A gust of wind caught Torak’s skin
boat and spun him round, sending him straight towards the older boy.

  ‘Turn away!’ yelled Bale. ‘Hard! Hard! You’re going to ram me!’

  Fighting the wind, Torak dug in his paddle – but it gave a jerk that nearly pitched him overboard – and when he brought it out of the water, he saw that the blade had snapped clean off.

  ‘Watch out!’ shouted Bale as Torak careened towards him.

  ‘I can’t turn it!’

  Bale dug in his paddle and shot ahead – just in time to avoid a collision – while Torak’s boat slewed round and capsized.

  His clothes dragged him down, and it was a relief when Bale came about and caught him by the neck of his jerkin.

  ‘What were you doing?’ he yelled. ‘You could have sunk us both!’

  ‘It was an accident!’ spluttered Torak.

  ‘An accident? You tried to ram me!’ Furious, he wrenched Torak’s boat upright, then held its prow while Torak scrambled aboard.

  ‘I said it was an accident!’ panted Torak. ‘My paddle broke!’

  ‘That’s impossible! They’re made of the strongest driftwood -’

  ‘Then what’s this?’ Torak brandished what remained of his paddle. ‘If they’re so strong, why did mine snap like a piece of kindling?’ He fell silent, peering at the broken stem of the paddle. Someone had cut it. They’d only cut halfway through, leaving just enough to make it workable, but liable to snap at any time.

  ‘What is it?’ said Bale.

  Torak’s thoughts flew to the Follower. But it could have been anyone: Bale or Asrif or Detlan – or anyone else among the Seals.

  Without a word he held out the broken paddle, and Bale took it. He was observant. Swiftly he spotted the cut edge of the stem. ‘You think I did this,’ he said.

  ‘Well did you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘But you want me to fail. You said so.’

  ‘Because you’ll slow us down, or get into trouble, and need rescuing.’

  ‘No I won’t,’ said Torak with more conviction than he felt. ‘Bale, we want the same thing. We want the cure.’

  ‘And I’m supposed to believe that my clan is threatened,’ Bale said sarcastically, ‘just because you managed to talk your way off the Rock?’