Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Read online

Renn had first glimpsed the peak at midday. Now, as she left the lake behind her, she stood directly beneath it.

  From this side it was unscaleable: a treacherous scree slope on which not even crowberry could gain a hold. To her left, though, among some straggly rowan trees, there might be a way around its southern foot, and down to the Sea. She would need that if she was to find Torak.

  But to her surprise, Wolf wasn’t interested in that way. Instead he went north, disappearing into a birch thicket, then bursting out again, keen for her to follow. He didn’t seem worried; simply excited. She decided to go after him.

  Pushing through the thicket, she found herself climbing a rocky slope that soon had her breathless and scratched. It was a relief to come out on a windy ridge high above a beach of glittering black sand. To the north the beach came to an abrupt end where a cliff had fallen into the Sea, leaving a tumbled mass of boulders. In the midst of these, screaming flocks of birds squabbled over something large and dead.

  Carrion, thought Renn, watching Wolf race down the slope to the beach. No wonder he’s excited. Now he’ll have enough to eat.

  She’d come this far, so she decided to see what it was.

  The wind changed, and she caught the stench of rottenness. As she reached the bottom and crunched through the charcoal-coloured sand, she saw Wolf at the other end of the beach, scattering the birds. Crows and gulls dived at him, but he fended them off with a few good snaps. The wiser ravens settled on the rocks to wait their turn.

  Then she saw that someone else had been here before her. Beside Wolf’s tracks were a man’s. Walking, not running. Whatever the skinboater had been doing here, he’d taken his time.

  As she drew nearer, the carrion stink grew so strong that she had to breathe through her mouth. In the glare of the sun she couldn’t see much of whatever had died among the boulders. Just a big, humped shape splashed with bird droppings; and Wolf tearing hungrily at the dark-red flesh.

  At her approach he moved round to the other side, to put more distance between them. That should have told her to give him more eating space, but what she saw made her forget about that. Oh no, she thought. It can’t be.

  Wolf raised his head and growled at her, then gave an uncertain whine and wagged his tail. He was telling her that he liked her, but she was getting too close to his meat.

  She stumbled backwards. She’d seen enough.

  The young Hunter had been trapped in a kelp net, and killed with an axe. Then its carcass had been left for the birds. Only its teeth had been hacked out.

  Feeling sick, Renn sank to her knees in the sand, staring at the small black fin covered in peck-marks. Why would anyone do such a thing?

  Then she remembered the Kelp Clan’s warning about the lone Hunter.

  No wonder it’s angry, she thought.

  TWENTY-SIX

  On the Heights, Asrif was in trouble. He’d reached a ledge just beneath the eyrie, but the back of his harness had caught on a rock, and he couldn’t unsnag it.

  ‘He could cut himself free,’ said Detlan, craning his neck.

  ‘Then what does he do for a harness?’ said Bale.

  Torak said, ‘If he’s really caught, then -’

  ‘- then he can’t get down,’ snapped Bale. ‘Yes, we’ve already thought of that.’

  ‘What I mean,’ said Torak, ‘is I could go up and help him.’

  ‘What?’ said Detlan and Bale together.

  ‘Those other pegs, a bit to the side? If I could reach them -’

  ‘If,’ said Bale.

  Torak looked at him. ‘You’ve got a spare harness and a spare coil of rope; and I’m lighter than Asrif. I saw how he did it.’

  Bale was staring at him as if he’d never seen him before. ‘You would do this?’

  ‘We need that root,’ Torak said simply. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘what else are we going to do?’

  The first ten paces were easy. The harness crossed loosely over Torak’s shoulders and round his waist, with the big wooden hook at the back linking to the hook at the end of the rope. A quick check reassured him that both hooks were well-made, of good hard spruce.

  With Detlan holding Asrif’s rope, Bale held Torak’s while he climbed to the first ledge.

  ‘Don’t look down,’ Bale warned him. ‘And don’t look too far up, either.’

  Torak forgot that almost at once. As he waited to catch the hook after Bale tossed it over the next peg, he caught a glimpse of Asrif, impossibly high above; and above Asrif, a raft of branches jutting from a cleft. The eyrie. But where were the eagles?

  At the second attempt he caught the hook, and after an awkward struggle, managed to link it to the one between his shoulder blades. Then, when he felt the tug on the rope that told him Bale was ready, he began to climb.

  The pegs were sturdy, but too widely spaced for him, and twice he slipped, and the harness snapped taut, checking his fall.

  The heat on the rockface was intense. Before starting, he’d taken off the gutskin parka, but even so, he quickly broke out in a sweat. Every ledge and cranny was smeared with bird-slime. The stink stung his eyes, and soon his hands and feet were grey and slippery.

  Throwing the rope was a lot trickier than it had appeared when Asrif did it, but he managed it after several attempts. It reassured him to feel his father’s knife bumping against his thigh, and the weight of his medicine pouch at his belt, with his mother’s medicine horn inside.

  Here and there he passed incongruous tufts of pink clover shivering in the breeze. A guillemot chick twisted its scrawny neck to watch him. Most birds fled at his coming, but some tried to chase him away. Kittiwakes fluttered screaming about him. As he climbed past a ledge crowded with fulmar chicks, he narrowly avoided a faceful of foul-smelling spit.

  Just when he was beginning to wonder if he would ever get there, he heaved himself onto a ledge that brought him level with Asrif.

  The Seal boy was a little over an arm’s length away, on his hands and knees with his back to Torak, his shoulder strap hopelessly snagged on a jagged tongue of rock. No wonder he hadn’t been able to free himself.

  Asrif glanced awkwardly over his shoulder. ‘Good to see you, Forest boy,’ he said, trying for a grin that didn’t work. His face was red, although whether from exhaustion or humiliation, Torak couldn’t tell.

  ‘I think I can unhook you,’ said Torak. He began edging sideways along a narrow crack that led from his ledge to Asrif’s.

  ‘Watch out for the eagles,’ warned Asrif.

  Torak risked a glance up – and nearly fell off the cliff in shock. Directly above him, the eyrie blotted out the sky. A huge tangle of lichen-crusted branches, it was easily as big as a Raven’s shelter. From deep inside he heard a faint ‘chink chink’ of nestlings. But of their parents he could see no sign.

  ‘Where are they?’ he murmured.

  ‘Circling higher up,’ said Asrif. ‘I think they know I’m stuck. It won’t be the same for you.’

  Torak swallowed, and glanced back to the ledge he’d just left. His rope was securely looped over the final peg, a short way above it. If he missed his footing, that should stop him falling too far. If, of course, the rope didn’t break, or his harness didn’t snap, or the peg didn’t crack . . .

  If, if, if, he told himself impatiently. Get on with it.

  He moved further along the crack. But even straining as far as he could, he couldn’t reach Asrif’s harness.

  He tried to get closer – but his rope held him back. He tugged at it – the signal for Bale to feed him more slack – but nothing happened.

  ‘He can’t give you any more,’ said Asrif. ‘There’s none left.’

  Torak glanced down – a dizzying drop to the upturned faces far below – and saw Bale shaking his head.

  He thought for a moment. Then he wriggled out of his harness, and let it swing free from the final peg. Now there would be nothing to hold him if he fell.

  ‘What are you doing?’ whispered Asrif in horror.

&nb
sp; ‘Try to keep the birds off me,’ said Torak as he edged closer.

  Again he reached out for Asrif’s harness – and this time his fingers brushed it.

  A shadow slid across the rock – and he ducked as a herring gull flew at him with a strident ‘kyow’. Asrif shouted and threw a stone. He missed, and the gull flew away, spattering them both. Foul white slime clogged Torak’s hair and leaked down his face, narrowly missing one eye. He spat out the worst and tried again.

  This time he grabbed Asrif’s shoulder strap. His fingers were slippery with bird-slime, and he couldn’t pull the harness off the snag. ‘Move back a bit,’ he gasped, ‘let it slacken.’

  Asrif shuffled back.

  With a jerk that nearly took him with it, Torak yanked the harness free of the rock.

  Asrif was still on hands and knees, open-mouthed with shock. He turned and met Torak’s eyes. ‘Thanks,’ he muttered.

  Torak gave a curt nod. ‘The root. Did you get the root?’

  Asrif shook his head.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I couldn’t reach.’ His face puckered with shame. ‘I chose the wrong pegs, climbed myself to a dead end. Should’ve taken your route instead.’

  Torak risked another glance up, and saw that a short way to his right, a deep, slanting crack zigzagged up towards the nether part of the eyrie. At its top, in the very shadow of the eyrie, nestled a clump of glossy, dark-purple leaves. Selik root.

  He thought about going back to the ledge he’d just come from, and putting on his harness. But there was no more slack in the rope; it wouldn’t allow him to reach the eyrie. He would have to do without.

  ‘I should be able to make it,’ he said, with more confidence than he felt.

  His arms and legs trembled with strain as he sought handholds and hoisted himself up the crack. He was hot and tired, and the stink of bird-slime was making him sick.

  Beneath his foot, the crack gave. Just in time he climbed further up – and watched part of the rim disintegrate, the fragments rolling and bouncing before shattering on the boulders, dangerously close to Detlan and Bale.

  It occurred to him that he should have shouted a warning, but it was too late now. Besides, shouting would displease the cliff, which seemed to be waxing impatient with these interlopers on its flank.

  He edged further up the crack towards the selik root.

  ‘Look out!’ whispered Asrif below him.

  A menacing ‘klek klek’ echoed off the cliff – then a shadow sped towards him – and he looked round to see an eagle coming straight at him, its vicious talons reaching for his face. He needed both hands to cling on, he couldn’t even shield his head, could only flatten himself against the rock. He caught a fleeting glimpse of fierce golden eyes and a sharp black tongue – heard the hiss of wings wider than a skinboat . . .

  A stone struck the eagle on the breast, and it wheeled away with a screech.

  Torak glanced down at Asrif, who’d found another pebble and was fitting it to his slingshot.

  Torak couldn’t see where the eagle had gone. Maybe it had been frightened off, but he didn’t think so. More likely it was circling for another attack.

  Above him, the cleft widened and became much easier to climb. When he reached the top, he found to his relief that it was deep enough to allow him to go down on his right knee, and by pressing himself against the sun-hot rock, reach down with his left and unsheath his knife.

  The sky darkened. More wingbeats – more hammer-like alarm calls – this time from two eagles: the mated pair fighting to protect their nestlings.

  ‘I’m not after your young!’ cried Torak, forgetting to lower his voice as he brandished his knife.

  Not surprisingly, the eagles didn’t listen. As he reached for a clump of the selik root and dug at it with his knife, he expected at any moment to be wrenched off the cliff.

  Several well-aimed strikes from Asrif warded them back, but the eagles kept coming. The cliffs rang with their calls.

  ‘Hurry up!’ called Asrif.

  Torak thought that too obvious to need a reply.

  The selik root had taken hold in a sunbaked ‘earth’ of rotten wood and eagle pellets, and it didn’t want to let go. Sweat poured down Torak’s sides as he chipped away at the base of the plant with Fa’s blue slate knife. The rim of the cleft on which he knelt was crumbly, and as he worked, more fragments broke off and bounced into nothingness. Desperately he grasped a clump of selik root by the stems, and rocked it loose.

  ‘Hurry!’ cried Asrif. ‘I’m running out of stones!’

  At last the plant came free. The root was small, no bigger than his forefinger: a pale, mottled green. For a moment Torak stared at it, unable to believe that so insignificant a thing could deliver the clans from the sickness.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ he called to Asrif. Tucking the root inside his jerkin and re-sheathing his knife, he started back down the cleft towards the ledge where his harness waited.

  Beneath his foot, the rim cracked – and gave. He flung himself back, clutching at rock. ‘Look out!’ he yelled, as a sheet of rock almost as big as he was broke off and hurtled down the cliff – taking his harness with it.

  Torak clung to the rockface, watching in disbelief as the harness tangled with the rock – narrowly missed Asrif – and floated almost lazily down, striking the boulders with a distant thump a few paces from Detlan and Bale.

  The noise of the seabirds fell away. All Torak could hear was his own breath, and the trickle of pebbles.

  Above him the eagles spiralled higher. They knew that he would trouble their nestlings no more.

  Below him, Asrif raised his head and met his eyes.

  Both knew what this meant, but neither wanted to say it. Torak now had no way off the cliff – except to attempt the long climb down without a harness, which would almost certainly kill him.

  Asrif licked his lips. ‘Climb down to my ledge,’ he said.

  Torak thought about that, and shook his head. ‘No room,’ he said.

  ‘There might be. We could share my harness.’

  ‘It’d never take the two of us. We’d both be killed.’

  Asrif did not reply. He knew Torak was right.

  ‘You take the root,’ Torak said abruptly.

  Asrif opened his mouth to protest, but Torak talked over him. ‘It makes sense, you know it does. You can get down from there. You can take it to Tenris, he can make the cure. For everyone.’

  He sounded very sure, but his heart was fluttering like a fledgling. Part of him could not believe what he was saying.

  Leaning down as far as he could, he lowered his arm, then let fall the root. Asrif caught it and tucked it inside his jerkin. ‘What will you do?’ he said.

  Torak felt surprisingly clear-headed as he thought over his choices. Maybe that was the cliffwort; or maybe he simply hadn’t taken in what was happening.

  The stretch of rocks where Bale and Detlan stood was directly beneath him. It was narrow, and behind it lay the Sea. If he jumped, he might hit that instead.

  ‘You could try climbing down,’ said Asrif, his face young and scared.

  ‘With you below me?’ said Torak. ‘And what about Detlan and Bale? If I fell, I might kill you all.’

  Asrif swallowed. ‘But what else -’

  ‘Watch your head,’ said Torak, and launched himself off the cliff.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Torak was falling through glowing green water – through glowing green light – and he wasn’t scared at all, just hugely relieved that he hadn’t hit the rocks.

  After the heat of the cliffs, the water was so cold it was a kick in the chest, but he hardly felt it, because now he was falling into a Forest.

  Golden, sun-dappled kelp shimmered and swayed to the rhythms of the Sea. Its roots were lost in darkness, and through its undulating fronds the silver capelin sped like swallows.

  And here through the kelp came the guardian, shooting towards him with one thrust of her flippers, then rolling over to
gaze at him upside-down. With her big round eyes and bubble-beaded whiskers, she was so friendly and inquisitive that he wanted to laugh out loud.

  The swell carried him sideways into colder water – and suddenly a sharp pain stabbed his gut. No time to wonder what was happening – no time to be afraid. Besides, the pain was fleeting, it had already gone. And now he wasn’t cold any more, he was wonderfully warm, and weightless, and so at home in this beautiful, soft green world that he didn’t ever want to leave.

  And yet – he had to have air.

  Reluctantly he kicked towards the surface. Up he spiralled, shooting through the water in a stream of silver bubbles. But when he put out his head, the world above the waves was so jagged and hard that he shut his nostrils tight, and flipped over again, back into the beautiful green light. Down he dived, faster than he’d ever thought possible, back into the kelp.

  Something was floating down there in the kelp. Curious, he swam closer to take a look.

  It was a boy: limp, unconscious, the current rolling him to and fro as the kelp entwined him. Torak wondered if Asrif had fallen in, or maybe Detlan or Bale. But the long, waving hair was darker than that of the Seal boys – and as it parted, he glimpsed a thin face with staring grey eyes; and on both cheekbones, the blue-black tattoos of the Wolf Clan.

  With a surge of terror he realised that he was looking at himself.

  His thoughts teemed like frightened fishes. What’s happening? Am I dead? Is that why the guardian has come, to take me on the Death Journey?

  Then he came to his senses. Don’t be stupid, Torak, this guardian’s a seal, and you’re Wolf Clan! Your guardian would be a wolf!

  But if I’m not dead, he thought as he stared in horrified fascination at the floating boy, then what’s happening?

  He dived closer towards himself, then came to a sudden halt by spreading his front flippers to push back the water.

  His flippers?

  And they were his flippers, there was no doubt about it. He could open and close them like hands – and as he did so, he saw their short grey fur waving gently in the water.