Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Page 49
‘Why not? It keeps us out of the wind.’
She applied herself to her paddle. On the pale-green foot of the ice mountain, three seals lay basking. She fixed her eyes on them, and told herself not to worry.
It was no good. She was worried. Torak’s need to find Wolf was all-consuming; she’d begun to wonder where it would lead. And she hadn’t yet told him about the Soul-Eaters.
A smaller ice mountain slid past them on its mysterious journey. She felt its freezing breath, heard the slap and suck of the Sea carving a cavern in its flank. The cavern was a searing blue oval. Like an eye, she thought.
‘The Eye of the Viper,’ she said suddenly.
‘I’ve been thinking about it too,’ said Torak. ‘It can’t be anything to do with a real viper, there aren’t any this far north –’
‘– and Inuktiluk said, “if you venture inside”.’
He turned to her, his owl eyes making him startlingly unfamiliar. ‘I think I can guess what he meant.’
‘Me too,’ said Renn.
He shivered. ‘I hope we’re wrong. I hate caves.’
They paddled on in silence.
To keep up her spirits, Renn rummaged in her pack for food. The White Foxes had provisioned them well. Along with half a skin of blubber, she found frozen seal ribs and blood sausages. She cut two slices, and handed one to Torak. It tasted gritty, and she missed the tang of juniper berries. She missed the White Foxes more. ‘I feel bad about them,’ she said.
‘Why?’ said Torak, with his mouth full.
‘They gave us so much, and we repaid them by running away.’
‘They were going to send us south!’
‘But all this gear. Snow-knives. Lamps. Better waterskins. A new strike-fire for me, and a beautiful case for my bow. There’s even a repair kit for the boat.’ She held up a pouch made from a seal’s flipper.
Torak wasn’t listening. He’d lowered his paddle, and was staring ahead.
‘What is it?’ said Renn.
Ahead of them on the ice mountain, the seals had woken up.
Renn was puzzled. ‘But we’ve got enough food,’ she whispered, ‘we can’t stop to hunt now!’
He ignored her.
Suddenly the seals slithered off the ice and into the water. At the same moment Torak plunged in his paddle and yelled, ‘Turn! Turn!’, swinging the skinboat hard to the left. A bewildered Renn did the same, and they shot sideways – out from the wake of the ice mountain – as a rending roar split the sky, and the mountain tilted and crashed into the Sea, sending a wall of water thundering over where they’d been a heartbeat before.
Panting, they bobbed up and down. In place of the ice mountain there was now a heaving white slush.
‘How did you know that would happen?’ said Renn.
‘I didn’t,’ said Torak. ‘The seals did.’
‘How did you know they knew?’
He hesitated. ‘They feel it in their whiskers. Last summer I spirit walked in a seal. Remember?’
Uneasily, Renn licked the salt from her lips. She’d forgotten; or she hadn’t wanted to remember. She hated being reminded of how different he was.
He saw it in her face. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Long way to go.’
They moved off, steering clear of ice mountains. Renn felt the distance between them of things unsaid. She’d have to tell him soon.
The wind picked up, blowing cold in their faces. But in her White Fox clothes, she hardly felt it. The seal hide cut out the wind, but was lighter than reindeer hide, while the eider-feather underclothes kept her snug, but let out the sweat, so that she didn’t get chilled. The dog-fur ruff around the hood kept her face warm, but never became clogged with frozen breath; and her inner mittens had slits in the palms, so she could slide her fingers out for fiddly work like opening pouches. The clothes were beautiful, too, the silver fur shimmering in the sun. But they made her feel like someone else.
The zigzag tattoos on her wrists also made her feel different, and she wondered just why Tanugeak had given them to her. The White Fox Mage had seemed to know things about her that she thought only Saeunn and Fin-Kedinn knew; things that Renn kept hidden in a deep corner of her mind.
But it was Tanugeak’s final gift which puzzled her most. The swansfoot pouch contained a dark powder that smelt of soot and seaweed. What was she supposed to do with that?
‘Look,’ said Torak, cutting across her thoughts.
He’d been steering them further out to Sea, and now she saw why.
To the east lay the glaring white of the ice river. Jagged peaks towered over dizzying cliffs riven with deep blue cracks. Renn heard a distant booming – and saw a great spur break away and crash into the Sea. Clouds of powdered ice shot into the sky. A green wave rolled towards them, rocking the skinboat.
If we’d been closer, she thought, we’d have been crushed. Like my father.
‘Try not to think about it,’ Torak said quietly.
She picked up her paddle and stabbed at the water.
The sun was low and the ice river far behind them when they finally glimpsed the mountain. From the dead white land it rose: three stark peaks piercing the sky, like ravens perching on ice.
Renn had never seen anything so lonely. Two winters ago, her clan had journeyed to the northern-most end of the High Mountains, and she’d felt as if she’d reached the edge of the world. Now she felt as if she’d fallen over it.
Torak sensed it too, and slipped one hand out of his mitten to touch his clan-creature skin.
South of the mountain’s western flank, they found the iced-in bay which Akoomik had drawn in the snow. It was a relief to get out of the skinboat, although their legs were stiff. Once again, they were grateful to the White Foxes. The boat was easy to carry, and their boots’ rough soles stopped them slipping on the ice.
Hiding the boat in the lee of a snow hill, they overturned it and propped it up on four forked driftwood sticks. ‘Inuktiluk called them shoresticks,’ Torak told Renn. ‘We can use them to make the boat into a shelter, too.’
Renn knew better than to suggest that they should do exactly that, right now, since it was mid-afternoon, and the shadows were turning purple. Already, Torak was scanning for tracks.
He soon found them: a broad swathe of churned-up snow. ‘Two sleds,’ he said with a frown. ‘Heavily laden, and heading for the mountain. Quite fresh.’ He straightened up. ‘Let’s go.’
Renn shivered. All at once, the Soul-Eaters felt very close. ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘We need to think about this.’
‘Why?’ he said impatiently.
She hesitated. ‘One of the White Fox women told me something. I’ve been wanting to tell you all day.’
‘Yes?’
She lowered her voice to a whisper. ‘Torak. It’s the Soul-Eaters. They’re the ones who took Wolf.’
‘I – know,’ he said.
‘What?’
He told her what he’d seen when he’d spirit walked in the raven.
‘But – why didn’t you tell me?’ she cried. ‘You’ve known for days!’
He scowled, and hacked at the snow with his heel. ‘I know I should have, but I couldn’t risk it. I thought you might go back to the Forest.’ His scowl deepened. ‘If you’d left . . .’
Suddenly she felt sorry for him. ‘I’ve suspected for days, but I didn’t leave. And I won’t now.’
He met her eyes. ‘So – we go on.’
She swallowed. ‘Yes. We go on.’
They looked at the trail of the Soul-Eaters, winding up the mountain.
Renn said, ‘What if this is some kind of trap?’
‘I don’t care,’ he muttered.
‘What if they’ve heard rumours of the Wolf Clan boy who’s a spirit walker? If they catch you, if they take your power, it could endanger the whole Forest.’
‘I don’t care,’ he repeated. ‘I’ve got to find Wolf!’
She had an idea. ‘What about a disguise?’
‘What?’
Torak took a few paces, then turned back to her. ‘What do we do?’
It didn’t take long to change their appearance. Their clan-tattoos weren’t a problem, as their cheeks were still so blistered from the snowstorm that the fine marks hardly showed. Renn made a black stain by mixing Tanugeak’s powder with water, then finger-painted a White Fox band across Torak’s nose. She also cut his hair to shoulder length, with a fringe across the brow. He was too thin to make a truly convincing White Fox, but with luck, his clothes would conceal that.
She dyed her own hair black by combing in more of the stain, which she also used to darken her face. Then she got Torak to turn her into a Mountain Hare by painting her forehead with a zigzag band tinged with earthblood from his medicine horn.
He seemed disconcerted. ‘You don’t look like Renn any more.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘And you don’t look like Torak.’ They stared at one another, both more unsettled than they cared to admit. Then they set off on the trail of the Soul-Eaters.
The sleds had been dragged up a ridge that snaked round the western flank of the mountain, just as Akoomik had said. As they climbed higher, the shadows deepened from purple to charcoal. Often they paused to listen, but no living thing stirred. No eagles wheeled, no ravens cawed.
The air grew colder. The wind dropped. Their boots creaked in the stillness.
Then – with appalling suddenness – they came upon the sleds, casually piled at the side of the trail.
After so many days of following the faintest of clues, it was a shock to find solid structures of wood and hide. It made the Soul-Eaters solid, too.
Sensing they were nearing the end, they hid their packs and sleeping-sacks in the snow a few paces from the sleds. Renn saw what a wrench it was for Torak to leave behind his father’s blue slate knife. ‘But it’s too dangerous,’ she told him. ‘They knew him, they might recognize it.’
They decided to take the waterskins the White Foxes had packed for them, a little food, and knives. Renn would also take her bow, and she wanted to take the axes as well, but Torak feared the White Fox vision too much to risk it.
Twenty paces beyond the sleds, the trail rounded a spur – and they halted.
Above them reared the gaunt mountain, lit crimson by the last rays of the sun. In its flank, a black hole gaped. Before it, like a warning, stood a tall grey pillar of stone.
White mist seeped from the darkness of the cave. Clammy tendrils reached for them, stinking of dread and demons. Hope fled. If the Soul-Eaters had taken Wolf in there . . .
Glancing over her shoulder, Renn saw the shape of the whole mountain for the first time. She saw how it rose out of the snow like the head of some giant creature. She saw how the ice river uncoiled its sinuous bulk east, before twisting round to lose itself in the Sea.
Torak had seen it too. ‘We’ve found the Viper,’ he whispered.
‘We’re standing on it,’ breathed Renn.
They turned back to the mountain: to the glaring black hole split by the standing stone.
‘And there’s the Eye,’ she said.
Torak took off his owl visor and stowed it in his medicine pouch. ‘They’re in there,’ he said, ‘I can feel it. So is Wolf.’
Renn chewed her lower lip. ‘We need to think about this.’
‘I’ve done enough thinking,’ he snapped.
Taking his arm, she drew him behind a rock, out of sight of the Eye. ‘There’s no sense going in,’ she said, ‘unless we know for sure that – that Wolf is still alive.’
He didn’t reply. Then – to her horror – he put his hands to his mouth to howl.
She grabbed his wrist. ‘Are you mad? They’ll hear you!’ ‘What if they do? They’ll think I’m a wolf!’
‘You don’t know that! Torak, these are Soul-Eaters!’
‘Then what?’
‘There is another way.’ Slipping her hand out of her mitten, she fumbled at the neck of her parka, and brought out the little grouse-bone whistle he’d given her once. She blew on it – and no sound came, as they had known it wouldn’t; but if Wolf was alive, he would hear it.
Nothing. Not a breath of wind stirred the dead air.
‘Try again,’ said Torak.
She tried. And again. And again.
Still nothing. She couldn’t meet his eyes.
Then – from deep inside the mountain – the faintest of howls.
Torak’s face lit up. ‘I told you! I told you!’
The howl was long and wavering, and even Renn could hear its misery and pain. It rose to a peak . . .
And cut off.
SIXTEEN
‘Wolf!’ cried Torak, throwing himself forwards.
Renn yanked him back. ‘Torak, no! They’ll hear you!’
‘I don’t care, let me go!’ He pushed her away with such force that she went flying.
She landed on her back, and they stared at one another, both shocked by his violence.
He offered her his hand, but she got to her feet unaided. ‘Don’t you understand,’ she hissed in a furious whisper, ‘if you go into that cave, you might be walking right into their hands!’
‘But he needs me!’
‘And how does it help if you get yourself killed?’ She dragged him down the trail, out of sight of the Eye. ‘We have to think! He’s down there. We know that. But if we blunder in, who knows what might happen?’
‘You heard that howl,’ he said through his teeth. ‘If we don’t go in now, he may die!’
Renn opened her mouth to protest – then froze.
Torak had heard it too. The crunch of footsteps coming up the slope.
Of one accord, they ducked behind the sleds.
Crunch, crunch, crunch. Unhurried. Coming closer.
Quietly, Torak drew his knife. Beside him, Renn slipped her hands out of her mittens and nocked an arrow to her bow.
A thickset man came into view. He was clad in mottled sealskin, and carried a grey hide pouch over one shoulder. His head was bowed. His hood concealed his face. He bore no weapons that they could see.
As Torak watched, rage choked him. His eyes misted red. This was one of them. This man had taken Wolf.
In his mind he saw Wolf standing proudly on the ridge above the Forest, his fur limned golden by the sun. He heard again that agonized howl. Pack-brother! Help me!
Crunch, crunch, crunch. The man was almost level with them. He stopped. Looked over his shoulder, as if reluctant to go on.
It was too much for Torak. Scarcely knowing what he did, he leapt forwards, head-butting the man in the belly, sending him crashing into the snow.
He lay winded, but then – with astonishing speed – rolled sideways, kicked Torak’s knife from his hand, and grabbed his hood, twisting it backwards in a vicious choke-hold. Torak felt strong legs pinioning his arms, squeezing the breath from his chest; flint digging painfully into his throat.
‘I wouldn’t,’ Renn said coldly. She took a step closer, her arrow aimed at the attacker’s heart.
Torak felt the grip on his ribs loosen. His hood was released, the knife withdrawn.
‘Please,’ whined his attacker, ‘don’t hurt me!’
With her arrow still poised to shoot, Renn nudged Torak’s knife towards him with her boot, then told her captive to get up.
‘No, no!’ whined the captive, cowering at her feet, ‘I may not look upon the face of power!’
Torak and Renn exchanged startled glances.
The captive grovelled, scrabbling for the pouch he’d dropped in the attack. Torak was surprised to see that he wasn’t a man, but a boy about his own age, although twice as heavy. He bore the black nose tattoo of the White Foxes, and his round face glistened with blubber and terror sweat.
‘Where is he?’ said Torak. ‘What have you done with him?’
‘Who?’ bleated the boy. He saw Torak’s tattoo, a
nd his mouth fell open. ‘You’re not one of us. Who are you?’
‘What are you doing here?’ snapped Renn. ‘You’re no Soul-Eater!’
‘But I will be!’ retorted the boy with unexpected ferocity. ‘They promised!’
‘For the last time,’ said Torak, advancing with his knife, ‘what have you done with Wolf?’
‘Get away from me!’ squealed the boy, scrambling backwards like a crab. ‘If – if I scream, they’ll hear. They’ll come to my rescue, all four of them! Is that what you want?’
Torak stared at Renn. Four?
‘Get away from me!’ The boy edged up the slope. ‘I chose to do this! No-one can stop me!’
He sounded as if he were trying to convince himself. It gave Torak an idea. ‘What have you got in that pouch?’ he said, to keep the boy talking.
‘A – an owl,’ stammered the boy. ‘They want it for sacrifice.’
‘But an owl is a hunter,’ said Renn accusingly.
‘So is a wolf,’ said Torak. ‘And an otter. What are your masters doing in there? Tell us or we’ll –’
‘I don’t know!’ cried the boy, moving further up the slope.
As they followed him, the Eye came into view.
‘Your masters,’ Renn said quietly, ‘do they talk of the one who is a spirit walker? Tell the truth! I’ll know if you lie!’
‘A spirit walker?’ The boy’s eyes widened. ‘Where?’
‘Do they ever speak of this?’ demanded Torak.
‘No, no, I swear it!’ He was sweating freely now, stinking of blubber. ‘They came to make a sacrifice! That’s all I know, I swear on my three souls!’
‘And for this you’d break clan law by catching hunters for sacrifice?’ said Renn. ‘For an empty promise of a power that will never be yours?’
Sheathing his knife, Torak took a step towards the boy. ‘Your mother wants you back,’ he said.
He’d guessed right. The boy’s body sagged.
Renn was puzzled, but Torak ignored her. If she got an inkling of what he meant to do, she’d try to stop him. ‘Get out of here,’ he told the boy. ‘Go back to Akoomik while you still can.’
Terror and ambition fought in the blubbery face. ‘I can’t,’ he whispered.