Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Page 33

  ‘Birds’ eggs, mostly,’ said Renn. ‘A bit of hunting, but only small prey. There don’t seem to be any elk or deer. There must be fish in the lake, but it’s too exposed. That’s why I went to the beach.’ She paused. ‘I’m all right, but I’m worried about Wolf. Those ravens led him to carrion, but it wasn’t enough. And he won’t go near seabirds, because he got spat at by a fulmar.’ She gave a slight smile. ‘He was so miserable. I had to find some soapwort and give him a wash. He hated that too.’ She stopped, aware that she was talking too much.

  Torak was frowning at the fire. ‘Renn. I’m really glad you’re here.’

  Renn looked at him. ‘Oh. Well, good.’

  The limpets were cooked. With her knife she knocked them off the slate and onto a large goosefoot leaf. After tucking a limpet in a fork of the rowan tree for the clan guardian, she divided the rest into three. She put a third in the grass a short distance away for Wolf, then showed Torak how to cut away the black, blistered guts to get at the chewy orange meat. He eyed the limpets thoughtfully, then started to eat.

  He’d pulled off his jerkin and hung it to dry on the rowan, and she saw that he was thinner, and that there was a wound on his calf which had been quite badly sewn up, and needed the stitches taken out. She said so, and he told her he’d do it later; then he asked about the scab on her hand.

  ‘It’s a bite,’ she said, rubbing it against her thigh. She didn’t want to mention the tokoroth just yet.

  Wolf had already finished his limpets, and was eyeing Torak’s. Torak let him have them. Then he rested his chin on his knees. ‘What’s it like in the Forest?’ he said. ‘How bad has it got?’

  ‘Bad,’ said Renn. She told him about the clans leaving, and the man in the Sea-eagles’ camp.

  Torak’s frown deepened. ‘I dreamed about Wolf, you know. He was warning me. “Shadow. Hunted.” I think that’s what he was saying.’

  ‘Did he mean the sickness?’ said Renn.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll ask him.’Torak lowered his head and gave a soft grunt-whine – and instantly Wolf leapt up, ears pricked. Then his tail rose, and he licked the corner of Torak’s mouth, whining a reply.

  ‘What’s he saying?’ asked Renn uneasily.

  ‘Same as before. “Shadow. Hunted.” I wonder what it means.’

  Renn cleaned her knife in the ashes. ‘Is that why you left? Because he warned you in a dream?’

  ‘What?’ said Torak.

  ‘Is that why you left without telling anyone? Without telling me.’ She couldn’t keep the edge out of her voice.

  ‘I left,’ he said steadily, ‘to find the cure. I didn’t tell you because if you’d come with me you’d have been in danger.’

  Renn stared at him. ‘I was already in danger! We all were. Are! What could be worse than the sickness?’

  He hesitated. ‘The Follower.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s small. Filthy. It’s got claws.’

  ‘The tokoroth,’ Renn said in a low voice.

  He sat up. ‘That’s what the Forest Horses said. Is that what it’s called?’

  She nodded. ‘Saeunn told me after you left. That’s why I came to find you. She says they’re among the most feared creatures in the Forest.’

  ‘They?’ said Torak. ‘You mean there’s more than one?’

  Again she nodded.

  He considered that. ‘It crossed the Sea hidden in Asrif’s skinboat -’

  ‘It’s here?’ cried Renn. ‘Here on the island?’

  ‘Like I said, it hid in Asrif’s boat. And if one could do it -’

  ‘- maybe others could too. They could have hidden in one of the Sea-eagles’ canoes, or with the other clans.’

  They were silent, thinking about that.

  ‘But are you sure it’s here?’ said Renn.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Torak said grimly. ‘I saw it. It set the trap that nearly got me drowned.’ He paused. ‘I was trying to find proof – a track or something – to show the Seals.’

  ‘To show the Seals? Why were you doing that?’

  ‘They’re helping me make the cure.’

  ‘They’re helping you? I don’t understand. They beat you up, they took you prisoner -’

  ‘Then they let me go.’ He told her his story: about being followed through the Forest, and turned away from the Deep Forest; then being captured by the Seals, and talking his way out of punishment. ‘I’m sure the tokoroth is causing the sickness,’ he said, ‘but the odd thing is, it hasn’t given it to me. It’s as if it’s – testing me. I can’t work out why.’

  Renn was still trying to understand. ‘And you say you’re not their prisoner?’

  ‘I told you, the Seals are helping me make the cure. They even taught me skinboating. Well. They tried. We’re leaving for the Eagle Heights tomorrow.’ He glanced east, where the light was growing. ‘I mean, today.’

  Renn reached for a stalk of goosefoot, and chewed. ‘This feels wrong. First they beat you up, and now they’re helping you?’

  ‘They need the cure too.’

  She was unconvinced. ‘This cure. I’ve heard of selik root, but never of its being used in Magecraft.’

  ‘So?’ Torak said sharply. ‘Tenris knows what he’s doing.’

  ‘Who’s Tenris?’

  ‘Their Mage. Renn, they’ve had the sickness before, and he cured them! He can do it again.’

  ‘Even if he can, what’s to stop the Soul-Eaters sending more tokoroth?’

  Torak stared at her. He got up and paced, then returned to the fire. ‘The tokoroth,’ he said. ‘What are they?’

  Renn winced. Then she took a deep breath and told him everything Saeunn had told her.

  As he listened, his face drained of colour.

  ‘Saeunn says they aren’t children any more,’ said Renn. ‘They’re demon. Utterly demon.’

  ‘Like the bear that killed Fa,’ said Torak.

  Wolf got up and went to lean against him; he scratched the furry flank. Then he moved closer to the embers and knelt down. ‘When I was in the net,’ he said, ‘something strange happened.’

  Renn waited, wondering what was coming next.

  ‘I got a sick feeling. Deep inside. I’ve had it before, at the healing rite. It felt – as if I was being pulled loose.’ He swallowed. ‘This time, in the net, I felt as if I was the fish.’

  ‘What?’ said Renn.

  ‘I felt – I felt the shape of things in the water, like a fish would.’ He gazed into the fire. ‘Then something scared them. They felt a Hunter, somewhere in the deep water. And I felt it too, Renn. Just like a fish.’

  Renn was bewildered. ‘What fish? What are you talking about?’

  Suddenly Wolf gave a grunt and trotted to the edge of the firelight, snuffing the air and standing with his tail extended. Even Renn knew that meant a possible threat.

  She jumped up and reached for her bow.

  Torak was already on his feet, pulling on his jerkin.

  In the distance, a boy was calling Torak’s name.

  ‘It’s Bale,’ said Torak. ‘I must go, or he’ll get suspicious.’

  ‘Who’s Bale?’ said Renn.

  ‘He’s – Bale,’ said Torak, unhelpfully. ‘He caught me in the Forest, but he -’

  ‘And you want to go back?’

  ‘Renn, I’ve got to. It’s only three days till Midsummer.’

  ‘But – you don’t have to go by Sea to reach the Heights! We can go overland, I’m sure of it! Tiu’s mother was a Seal, he knows the island; I got him to draw it in the sand. We could set off right now . . .’

  Again that voice, calling for Torak.

  ‘But you don’t even trust them!’ she cried.

  ‘I trust – some of them,’ he said. ‘I think.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘What I do know,’ he said, suddenly fierce, ‘is that my friends get hurt – or killed – when they’re with me. It happened to Oslak, and to the boar. You’re better o
ff staying here with Wolf.’

  ‘Torak, no, I -’

  ‘Keep him with you, and don’t let the Seals see either of you.’

  ‘So you’re determined to go with them to the Heights.’

  ‘Renn, I’ve got to.’

  Her thoughts raced. ‘Then we’ll follow overland. Me and Wolf. You might need help.’

  He met her eyes, saw that he couldn’t dissuade her, and nodded once.

  ‘Torak!’ shouted Bale.

  Swiftly, Torak went down on one knee and put his forehead against Wolf’s, murmuring something Renn didn’t understand. Wolf nosed his chin and whined.

  Then Torak rose and started up the slope, heading back the way they’d come. ‘Stay hidden,’ he told Renn over his shoulder, ‘and watch out for tokoroth.’

  Uneasily, Renn glanced about her. She didn’t want him to leave her here on this lonely hillside.

  But he’d already gone, melting into the trees as silently as a wolf.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ‘Torak!’ shouted Bale. ‘Torak! Where are you?’ Torak raced down the hill towards the little white beach. He couldn’t see Bale, but he could hear him pushing through the birch trees.

  Stumbling from tiredness, Torak crunched onto the sand and leaned against a boulder to catch his breath. He felt bruised and stiff and anxious. It had been wonderful seeing Wolf and Renn – but it was also terrifying. What if something happened to them?

  In the ghostly twilight, the beach glowed faintly. He made out his own erratic tracks where he’d staggered from the birch trees – and then, to his horror, the tracks of Wolf and Renn. If Bale saw them . . .

  Among the birches he caught a glimmer of torchlight. Bale was coming. He’d better move fast.

  He was about to run forwards when two figures stepped from the trees, and Asrif said, ‘I told you he’d run away. He couldn’t face the Heights, so he scuttled off to hide in the woods.’

  Torak drew back behind the boulder to listen.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Bale, ‘or maybe he’s in trouble.’ To Torak’s surprise, he sounded worried. ‘I didn’t see him get ashore.’

  ‘So?’ said Asrif. ‘You don’t have to look after him. I know you think you should because he’s younger, but Bale, he’s not your brother.’

  ‘I know that,’ snapped Bale. ‘I just should’ve made sure he got back. It’s not safe on the water for a beginner, especially not now. If the Cormorants are right -’

  ‘Let’s hope they’re not,’ said Asrif.

  Torak stepped out from behind the boulder. ‘Right about what?’ he called, walking towards them and scuffing the tracks as he went.

  ‘What happened to you?’ cried Bale. Like Asrif, he was holding a torch of twisted kelp dipped in seal oil. In the flickering light his face was drawn. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Finding proof,’ said Torak. ‘Proof that I’m not a liar.’

  Bale’s face closed. ‘Think of a better story. You’ve been gone most of the night.’

  ‘I got caught in a seal net.’

  ‘A seal net?’ Asrif snorted. ‘Now we know you’re lying. We never lay them this close to camp, there aren’t any seals!’

  ‘Maybe not,’ said Torak, ‘but that’s what happened. I’ll show you.’

  Praying that the tide hadn’t carried it away, he led them through the birches and onto the main beach. Then he had an idea, and led them further up the sand.

  ‘I thought you said there was a net,’ said Bale.

  ‘There is, but there’s a track, too. I’ll show you that first.’

  He was in luck. The tide hadn’t reached as far as the tokoroth footprint, which was clearly visible in the torchlight.

  Bale knelt over it. ‘What made this?’

  Torak hesitated. ‘Something bad.’

  ‘I think I’ve found the net,’ shouted Asrif from the rocks. He hauled it out. ‘But why would anyone put it here?’ he said as they ran down to him. ‘No seals come this close.’

  ‘They weren’t after seals,’ said Torak, ‘they were after me.’

  Again Asrif snorted. ‘You’re making that up!’

  ‘No, I don’t think he is,’ said Bale, kneeling to study the net. With his free hand he turned it over. ‘Whoever did this knew what they were doing.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’ said Torak.

  The older boy raised his head. ‘The way to set a seal net is to fix the upper part to a line that you attach to the rocks, leaving the lower part hanging free in the water. And you’ve got to make sure that only one of the upper corners is firmly tied to the rock, so that when the seal swims in, it pulls the other side free, and the net collapses around it.’

  ‘Well it worked,’ said Torak with feeling. Suddenly he was back in the water, feeling the slippery kelp clinging to his legs . . .

  ‘And look at this,’ said Bale, pointing to two rows of barbed bone hooks that were set like fangs on opposite edges of the net. ‘These make sure that when the net closes around the seal, it can’t open again.’

  Torak nodded. ‘I wondered how I’d got in, but couldn’t get out.’

  Bale stood up. ‘How did you get out?’

  Again Torak hesitated. ‘A limpet shell. I cut myself free with a limpet shell.’

  Bale glanced from Torak to the ripped and tattered net, and raised his eyebrows.

  Torak stared stubbornly back. He didn’t like lying to Bale, but he didn’t trust him enough to tell him the truth. The only way to keep Wolf and Renn safe was to keep them hidden.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how I got out,’ he said. ‘What matters is whether you believe me. There’s something bad on the island, and it’s brought the sickness. We’ve got to get the cure.’

  Bale ran his thumb across his bottom lip. Then he said, ‘All right, I was wrong. I think you are telling the truth. Or part of it. But tell me this. Why did someone want to trap you? Why you? Who are you?’

  Torak dodged the question. ‘I don’t know what it wants any more than you do.’

  ‘Are you sure about that?’ said Bale.

  ‘Quite sure.’ He paused. ‘So what were you and Asrif talking about just now? You said something about the Cormorants.’

  Asrif and Bale exchanged glances.

  Then Bale said, ‘Something happened today in the strait between our island and theirs. A party of Cormorants were fishing. They were attacked.’

  ‘Attacked?’ said Torak.

  ‘By a Hunter,’ said Bale.

  ‘A lone one,’ said Asrif. ‘With a notched fin.’

  Torak thought of the black fins circling beneath a sky filled with seabirds; the towering fin with the notch in the tip. He thought of the terror of the capelin . . .

  ‘Do you know how rare it is,’ said Bale, ‘for a Hunter to leave its pack? Males leave to seek a mate, but that’s only in winter. And from what the Cormorants told us, this one wasn’t seeking a mate.’

  ‘Was anyone killed?’ said Torak.

  Bale shook his head. ‘It smashed three skinboats, then dived. They didn’t see it again. Their Mage thinks it let them live because they weren’t who it was looking for.’

  ‘Maybe it’s after you, Forest boy,’ said Asrif.

  ‘Why?’ said Torak with more defiance than he felt. ‘Because I trailed some fish-hooks in the Sea?’

  ‘Leave him alone, Asrif,’ said Bale. He turned to Torak. ‘Tenris doesn’t think it’s that. He says it must be something worse.’ He peered at Torak. ‘You haven’t done anything else we need to know about, have you?’

  Torak shook his head.

  ‘Or to put it another way,’ said Asrif, ‘are you sure you want to come with us to the Heights?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ said Torak. But as he watched the dark waves sucking at the rocks, he wasn’t sure at all. Maybe he’d done something wrong without even knowing it.

  ‘If we haven’t done anything wrong,’ said Bale, ‘we should be safe. We’ll keep to the leads between the skerries and the coast; and to be certa
in, Tenris is making masking charms for the boats.’ He gestured to the camp. ‘Get something to eat. We’re heading out soon.’

  He and Asrif made for the camp, and Torak followed a few paces behind. Once again he was back in the water, watching the capelin flee. He remembered Wolf’s warning in the dream. Shadow. Hunted.

  Hunted – or Hunter?

  Was that what Wolf had been trying to say?

  Long after Torak had gone, Renn sat by the fire, thinking over everything he’d told her. That dream of his. She wished she’d asked him more.

  Renn knew about dreams, because her own sometimes came true. When she was little, that had frightened her, so to dispel her fear, Fin-Kedinn had asked Saeunn to teach her about them. The Raven Mage had shown her how to find the hidden meaning. ‘Dreams don’t always mean what they seem to,’ she’d said. ‘You need to look at them sideways, as if you were searching for a dew trail.’

  Shadow. Hunted.

  Did that mean the sickness? Or the tokoroth? Or perhaps neither; perhaps it meant the Hunter Torak had mentioned.

  The thought made her shiver. On the journey across the Sea, the Sea-eagles had been wary, having heard from the Kelp Clan that there was a lone Hunter roaming the Sea: an angry one. She should have told Torak, but there’d been so little time . . .

  Wind stirred the rowan branches, and her hand crept to the hilt of her knife. It was a warm, blustery night, and the trees were moaning. Here and there she glimpsed a crouching boulder. Or maybe a tokoroth . . .

  She sprang to her feet. It was no use staying here, scaring herself. It was at least a daywalk to the western tip of the island and the Eagle Heights; she should break camp now, and get a head start on the skinboats.

  Feeling better for making a decision, she stamped out the fire and began gathering her things.

  When she raised her head, she was startled to see that Wolf was already waiting for her on the trail. He had known what she was going to do almost before she’d known it herself.

  This had happened a few times before; it was what Torak called ‘the wolf sense’, and usually Renn found it intriguing. Tonight she found it unnerving. It reminded her that there were some things about Wolf that would always remain hidden. And here, on this windy hillside haunted by tokoroth, that was not a comforting thought.