Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Read online

  At the last moment the Hunter swerved, showering him with spray as it made for Tenris.

  A sudden stillness came over the Soul-Eater’s ruined features as he watched his doom slicing towards him.

  In the final heartbeat he turned his head and met Torak’s eyes. ‘Ask Fin-Kedinn about your father!’ he shouted. ‘Make him tell you the truth -’

  Then he was lost in a flurry of silver water.

  Torak heard one terrible scream, abruptly cut off – as the great jaws dragged the Soul-Eater down into the deep.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  The fire on the Crag was burning low, and grey smoke was rising into the sky as the skinboat reached the shore.

  Bale hoisted his craft on his head and went to put it on the rack, leaving Renn and Torak in the shallows. Neither spoke as they trudged up the beach to the nearest shelter.

  Renn wiped the spray off her bow and hung it from a rafter, then went inside to rummage for food.

  Torak took driftwood from a pile and started waking up a fire. He felt shaky and cold, but at least the Sea had washed the markings from his chest. Inside his head, however, the marks would not so easily be washed away.

  He wanted to tell Renn everything: about what had happened on the Crag; about being a spirit walker. But it was still too raw. Instead he said, ‘I’m sorry. I really thought you were sick. You looked sick.’

  Renn set a bowl on the ground, and sat down. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I thought you were dead. Seems we were both wrong.’ She pushed the bowl towards him. ‘I found some whale meat. No juniper berries I’m afraid, but it tastes all right without.’

  Both of them looked at the bowl, but neither made a move to eat.

  Then Torak said, ‘Renn. There is no cure. What he said about the selik root. He made it up.’

  Renn clasped her arms about her knees and frowned.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ said Torak. ‘There is no cure.’ Suddenly Renn stopped frowning and straightened up. She stared at Torak, then at the meat. ‘The juniper berries,’ she said.

  ‘What?’ said Torak.

  ‘When I was in the cave. Bale gave me some food, and Wolf leapt at me, and knocked it over. I thought he’d gone mad. But he was – Torak, he was saving me! Warning me off the juniper berries!’

  She sprang to her feet and started to pace. ‘That’s how the Seal Mage caused the sickness! He sent the tokoroth to poison the juniper berries! And then the juniper berries went into the salmon cakes, and people got sick.’ She stopped. ‘That’s why Wolf stopped me eating the food, because it was poisoned. And – that’s why I didn’t get sick before, even though I was eating salmon cakes, because I’d stolen Saeunn’s, which were left over from last summer -’

  ‘- and that’s why I didn’t get sick either,’ put in Torak, ‘because I didn’t take any with me.’

  They stared at one another.

  ‘So if everyone gets rid of their juniper berries,’ said Renn, ‘and their salmon cakes -’

  ‘- maybe they’ll get better -’

  ‘-maybe we won’t need a cure.’

  This was the answer. Torak could feel it. It had the kind of elegance which would have appealed to Tenris. How he must have laughed as he watched them striving to find a cure which didn’t exist! How clever he must have felt! How powerful.

  And yet even now, Torak couldn’t hate him. Tenris had been his bone kin. Torak had liked him. He’d wanted Tenris to like him back.

  Bowing his head to his knees, he tried to shut out the pain. But that handsome, ruined face was still before him; that voice still rang in his ears. Ask Fin-Kedinn about your father! Make him tell you the truth!

  What truth? What had he meant?

  At that moment, Bale ran up. ‘Come quickly!’ he panted.

  He led them to the south end of the bay and across the stream to the foot of the waterfall.

  The tokoroth lay on the rocks where they had fallen. Spray misted their grimy faces and their broken stick-limbs.

  Craning his neck, Torak gazed at the mountainside, and wondered what had made them scramble up there. Then he remembered Wolf’s howls. The demons are gone!

  ‘What are they?’ whispered Bale.

  ‘Tokoroth,’ said Renn in a low voice.

  Bale gasped. ‘I thought those were only in stories. I thought -’

  The girl tokoroth moaned, and a spasm convulsed her scrawny frame.

  ‘She’s still alive,’ said Torak. He felt a twinge of pity.

  They looked so young. No more than eight or nine summers.

  ‘They’re killers,’ Bale said grimly. Drawing his knife, he moved forwards.

  Wolf appeared from behind a boulder, warning him back with a growl.

  Bale froze. ‘What . . .’

  Torak went down on one knee, and Wolf trotted over to him, snuffle-grunting and nuzzling his cheek. Torak glanced at Renn. ‘He says he chased the demons away.’

  ‘Where?’ said Renn. ‘Where did they go?’

  Torak met Wolf’s eyes for a moment, then shook his head. ‘I’m not going to ask. They’re gone. Let that be enough.’

  Bale was staring at him in amazement. ‘You can talk to it?’

  ‘Him,’ said Torak. ‘Wolf is a him.’

  ‘So that’s a wolf,’ said Bale. Placing one hand on his heart, he bowed. ‘Beautiful.’

  Again the tokoroth stirred.

  Renn ran to kneel beside them. Her face became grave. ‘Not long now,’ she said. Then to Torak, ‘Your medicine horn. Do you have any earthblood?’

  Torak handed it to her; but Bale looked troubled. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Death Marks,’ said Renn.

  ‘They don’t deserve them!’ cried Bale.

  Renn turned on him. ‘They were children once! Their souls are still in there, deep inside! They’ll need help to get free -’

  ‘They’re killers,’ said Bale, unmoved.

  ‘Let her do it,’ said Torak. ‘She knows about things like this.’

  As they watched, Renn made the red ochre into a paste with water, then daubed the Death Marks on both tokoroth: forehead, heart, heels.

  Wolf came to sit beside her, whining softly and sweeping the grass with his tail. There was a light in his golden eyes. Torak wondered what he could see.

  Renn’s face became distant, and she began to murmur under her breath. Torak felt a flicker of unease. He guessed she was summoning the child souls from deep within; calling them out from their hiding-place.

  Suddenly the boy tokoroth clenched his fists. The girl tokoroth twitched, then opened her eyes.

  A tear rolled down Renn’s cheek. ‘Go in peace,’ she whispered. ‘You’re free now. Free . . .’

  The boy tokoroth shuddered, then lay still. The girl gave a long, rattling sigh that ended in – silence.

  A breeze stirred the suncups. Wolf turned his head, as if to follow the passing of something swift.

  ‘They’re gone,’ said Renn.

  Next day the Seals returned from the Cormorants’ island, and Torak, Renn and Bale spent a long time talking with the Clan Leader.

  Surprisingly, Islinn was not as crushed by the news of his Mage’s death as they had expected. In fact, the knowledge that he must now take charge seemed to imbue him with fresh vigour. He looked visibly younger as he dispatched his fleetest messengers to the Forest to warn the clans against the poison, and others to fetch Asrif and Detlan home. The bodies of the tokoroth were placed in a skinboat, taken out of sight of land, and given to the Sea Mother.

  When all was done, Islinn ordered everyone out of his shelter, except for Torak. ‘I’m sending Bale with you tomorrow,’ he said. ‘He will make sure that you get back safely.’

  ‘Thank you, Leader,’ Torak said tonelessly.

  The Leader studied him. ‘You are wrong to blame yourself. He tricked me too. And I have lived a good many more summers than you.’

  Torak did not reply.

  ‘You grieve for him,’ stated the old man.

>   Torak was surprised that he should have perceived that. ‘He was kind to me,’ he said. ‘I mean – before the end. Was it all a lie?’

  The Seal Clan Leader regarded him with eyes that had witnessed every kind of wickedness and folly. ‘I doubt if even he knew the answer to that.’ He paused. ‘Go back to the Forest, Torak. It’s where you belong. But if you ever need a home, you have one here.’

  Torak put his fists over his heart to show his thanks, but he didn’t think he would ever take up Islinn’s offer. For him this island was too full of ghosts.

  They left the following morning. Wolf went in Torak’s skinboat, and Renn in Bale’s. It was a brilliantly sunny day, with a brisk west wind to speed them on their way. As they left the Bay of Seals, Torak looked back one last time. Smoke rose above the humped shelters, and children splashed in the shallows. Rowan trees and birches lapped the feet of the mountains, where white seabirds wheeled.

  He knew that he didn’t belong in this precarious, rocky world that was for ever at the mercy of the Sea. But in its way it was rich and beautiful, and at last he understood why Bale loved it so much.

  Then his gaze travelled higher, and he saw the Crag, and his spirits plunged. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to return. Bale had gone up alone, and found Fa’s knife, and brought it to him without a word.

  They made good speed, with nothing but puffins and sea-eagles for company. Once in the distance, Torak thought he saw a tall, notched fin that followed them for a while. When he blinked, it was gone.

  It was late in the day when Wolf gave a low bark, then stood up in the prow with his ears forwards, wagging his tail. Soon afterwards, Bale shouted something that Torak didn’t catch, and Renn grinned and raised high her bow.

  Then Torak turned and saw the Forest rising above the waves.

  It was night by the time they reached the shore, although the huge amber sun still hung low over the Sea.

  Swiftly, Torak changed into his old buckskin jerkin and leggings, and bundled up his seal-hide clothes. It felt good to have his clan-creature skin back, as well as his pack and bow and sleeping-sack. But as he helped Bale stow the borrowed clothes in his skinboat, he wondered when – or if – he would see the Seal boy again.

  Bale had decided to head off at once. He was silent as they went down to the shallows, and Torak could see that he was thinking about the last time he and his friends had been on this beach, and the rough handling they’d meted out to the stranger from the Forest.

  Torak said, ‘I’ll see you again, Bale. Some day I’ll show you the Forest.’

  Bale glanced at the tall pines fringing the beach. ‘A few days ago, I wouldn’t have thought that possible. But I suppose -I never thought I’d see a wolf in a skinboat. So -’

  ‘- so why not a Seal in a forest?’ said Torak with a smile.

  Bale grinned. ‘Why not indeed, kinsman?’ Then with a nod to Renn and Wolf, he was back in his skinboat and heading off into the west, his fair hair flying behind him, and the Sea around him turning to gold in the sun.

  That night, Torak and Renn built a real Forest shelter of living birch saplings in a glade filled with green ferns and the deep pink flowers of willowherb. They had a real Forest meal of stewed goosefoot leaves and baked hawkbit roots, with some early raspberries which Torak found by the bog where he’d decoyed Detlan and Asrif. ‘And not a juniper berry in sight,’ said Renn with a sigh of satisfaction.

  Afterwards they sat by the fire, smelling the tang of pine-smoke and listening to the full-throated warbling of the Forest birds. For the first time in days, they were in half-darkness beneath whispering trees. They could even see a few pale stars between the branches.

  Wolf trotted off on one of his nightly hunts, and Renn gave a huge yawn. ‘Do you realise,’ she said, ‘it’ll soon be the Cloudberry Moon? I like cloudberries.’

  Torak did not reply. He couldn’t put it off any longer. Ever since Bale had left, he’d been working up the courage to tell Renn about who – what – he was.

  ‘Renn,’ he said, frowning at the fire. ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

  ‘What,’ said Renn, rolling out her sleeping-sack.

  He took a breath. ‘When we were at the Eagle Heights, the Seal Mage told me something. Something about – me.’

  Renn stopped what she was doing. ‘You’re a spirit walker,’ she said quietly.

  He stared at her. ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘Since he told you.’ She picked at a loose stitch on her leggings. ‘That night after we had the fight, I was worried, so I followed you. I heard everything.’

  He thought about that. Then he said, ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘About – what I am.’

  To his surprise, she grinned. ‘Torak, you’re a who, not a what! You’re still a person.’

  There was silence for a while. Then Renn said, ‘When I found out, I wasn’t really that surprised. I’ve always known you were different.’

  Torak tried to smile, but couldn’t manage it.

  ‘Don’t be sad,’ she said. ‘After all, maybe it’s why you can talk to Wolf.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well it’s always bothered me,’ she said, renewing her attack on the stitching. ‘You were just a baby when your father put you in the wolf den; much too small to learn person talk, let alone wolf talk. So how come you did?’ She put her head on one side. ‘Maybe your souls slipped into one of the wolves, or something. Don’t you think?’

  Torak chewed his lower lip. ‘I never thought of that.’

  Wolf came back from his hunt, his muzzle tinged with red. He wiped it off on the ferns, and sniffed the fire, then padded over to Torak and nosed his chin.

  ‘Do you think he knows?’ said Renn.

  ‘About me?’ said Torak, scratching behind Wolf’s ears. ‘How could he? And I couldn’t begin to say it in wolf talk.’

  Renn wriggled into her sleeping-sack and curled up. ‘But he’s still your friend,’ she said.

  Torak nodded. Somehow that didn’t make him feel any less cut off.

  Again Renn yawned. ‘Get some sleep, Torak.’

  Torak got into his sleeping-sack, and lay on his back. He was tired, but he didn’t think he would sleep.

  Wolf slumped against him with a ‘humph’, and was soon twitching in his dreams.

  Torak lay wide-eyed, staring at the fire.

  Much later, Renn said, ‘Torak? Are you awake?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘At the end, when you were both in the water, the Seal Mage shouted something. What was it?’

  Torak had been hoping she wouldn’t ask. ‘I can’t tell you,’ he said. ‘At least, not yet. First I’ve got to talk to Fin-Kedinn.’

  THIRTY-FIVE

  ‘Tell me the truth,’ Torak said to Fin-Kedinn seven days later.

  It had taken him and Renn four days to reach the Raven camp, making their way through a Forest where the sickness was slowly ebbing, and the smell of burning juniper berries hung heavy in the air. Islinn’s messengers had done their work swiftly. It was made easier by the fact that Fin-Kedinn had persuaded the Open Forest Clans to stay together, and help one another through the sickness. Many of the afflicted were now recovering. But the Ravens had lost five of their people.

  For two days after they rejoined the clan, Torak couldn’t get Fin-Kedinn alone. The Raven Leader was busy tending his clan, and making sure that every last hunting party in the Forest had been warned about the juniper berries.

  But on the seventh day, things began to return to normal. Some of the Ravens went hunting, while others stayed by the river to spear trout. Renn sat with Saeunn, explaining how she’d freed the hidden souls of the tokoroth. Wolf, who had no liking for dogs, disappeared into the Forest.

  Torak found the Raven Leader preparing lime bark on the banks of a stream which fed into the Widewater. It was a hot day, but the trees cast a cool green shade. The sweetness of late sum
mer blossom filled the air, and the branches hummed with bees.

  ‘So you want the truth,’ said Fin-Kedinn, testing the edge of his axe with his thumb. ‘About what?’

  ‘Everything,’ said Torak, seething with a frustration that had been building for days. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  With one stroke Fin-Kedinn cut a sucker from the base of a lime tree, and started peeling off the bark. ‘What should I have told you?’ he said.

  ‘That I’m a spirit walker! That the Seal Mage was my father’s brother! That the sickness was my fault!’

  Fin-Kedinn stiffened. ‘Don’t ever say that.’

  ‘He sent the sickness because of me,’ said Torak. ‘Because of me he killed Oslak and the others. It’s my fault!’

  ‘No!’ The blue eyes blazed. ‘You did nothing wrong! You cannot be blamed for the evil that man did. He was the one, Torak. Remember that.’

  For a moment they faced each other, and the air crackled between them. Then the Raven Leader tossed the bark on a pile at his feet. ‘And you’re wrong. I did not know that you’re a spirit walker, not till Renn told me last night. None of us knew.’

  Torak frowned. ‘But – I thought Fa must have told Saeunn. When I was little, at the clan meet by the Sea.’

  Fin-Kedinn shook his head. ‘He told her he’d put you in a wolf den when you were a baby; and that you might some day be the one to vanquish the Soul-Eaters. He didn’t say why.’

  ‘Why would he keep that from her?’

  ‘Who knows? He’d been a hunted man for a long time. He’d grown wary.’

  Wary towards his own son, too, thought Torak. That was the worst of it: that sometimes he was angry with Fa. For not telling him . . .

  ‘He did what he thought was best,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘He didn’t want your boyhood darkened by destiny.’

  Torak threw himself down on the bank and began pulling up grass. ‘You knew them both, didn’t you? My father and his brother.’

  Fin-Kedinn did not reply.

  ‘Tell me about them. Please.’