Viper's Daughter Page 5
His world tilted. Then he noticed that this wolf’s muzzle was white, its teeth worn to stumps. He turned on Orvo. ‘Why would you do this? What harm did this old wolf do you?’
Orvo bristled. ‘Demons hide in wolves. Everyone knows that!’
‘Nonsense, wolves fight demons!’
‘What do you know about wolves, or demons? Get inside!’
The horror of the slaughtered wolf stayed with Torak as he crawled after Orvo into the shelter. In the Forest it’s forbidden to kill a hunter – but not in the Far North. It had never occurred to Torak that this meant they might kill wolves.
He found himself in a chilly outer chamber: Orvo said it was where the half-men slept. Torak bumped against a stack of barbed bone harpoons. ‘Don’t touch,’ warned Orvo. ‘They’re poisoned.’
They pushed past a heavy walrus-hide hanging, into the men’s chamber. It was bigger and warmer, musk-ox pelts strewn around a driftwood fire. From the smoke-hole dangled a carved narwal of polished bone about a hand long. It swam amid waves of blue smoke. Orvo knelt before it and touched his forehead to the ground.
Through the fug Torak saw six bare-chested, blubber-smeared men sitting cross-legged in the gloom. Their faces were purpled by wind and cold and their clan-tattoos gave them permanent scowls. All were beardless, with one or more red dots tattooed on their chins; a pock-marked man in the middle had seven. Orvo said each dot meant that the man had killed a whale, and the pock-marked man was his uncle, the Boat Leader. The boy was whispering: he’d left his swagger outside.
The Boat Leader barked at him in their stony speech and Orvo turned to Torak. ‘He says we eat first, then talk.’
Two girls crawled in dragging a bulging sealskin, then shuffled out. The Boat Leader slit the skin with his knife, and he and the others pulled out fistfuls of dark-red slime. ‘Eat,’ Orvo urged Torak with his mouth full.
‘What is it?’ said Torak.
‘Kivyak. We pack a sealskin with guillemots and seal flippers and leave it to rot for the summer. Eat!’
They were watching him: he could see the challenge in their eyes. He scooped a gooey handful of rancid fat and clotted blood. The smell made his eyes water. He crammed it in his mouth. Forced it down. Burst out coughing.
The Narwals roared with laughter and scooped more kivyak, sucking and munching with exaggerated relish: See how tough we are!
Already Torak was feeling dizzy. In the Forest the clans brewed drinks that had the same effect as this rotten meat. He always avoided them, he didn’t want his souls to wander. It seemed that for the Narwals, getting drunk was the point.
‘My uncle says you’re not eating enough.’ Orvo’s speech was slurred. ‘He says you’re weak, like all Softbellies.’
Torak told him to ask if he could trade earthblood for a skinboat.
‘He asks why you want to go north.’
‘I’m looking for my mate.’
‘Who took her?’
‘No one took her, she left.’
This provoked cries of outrage. ‘If one of our half-men left, we’d kill her!’
‘That’s not our way,’ said Torak.
‘You’re even weaker than we thought! Go back south! Get a new mate!’
Torak struggled to keep his temper. ‘Have you seen her? She has red hair and she’s seeking the Edge of the World.’
This enraged the Boat Leader. He thrust his face at Torak, spattering him with kivyak. ‘No Softbelly may seek the Edge of the World!’
‘Why not?’
‘This would anger the spirits of mammut!’
‘Mammut,’ cried the Narwals, touching filthy fingers to the walls.
For the first time Torak saw that they were covered in paintings of strange lumpy creatures. Their legs were as thick as tree-trunks, their massive tusks curved out and then in again, and their long thin noses snaked all the way to their stumpy feet. They belong to the Deep Past, Fin-Kedinn had said. But the ancestors killed too many and they died out. Occasionally a Narwal hunter finds a carcass frozen in the earth. These ancient creatures are sacred: Narwals call them mammut.
The Boat Leader was ranting, dangerously drunk. Orvo was struggling to keep up. ‘Far over the Sea from Waigo lies the Island no Narwal has ever seen! They say that fiery cracks gape on the Otherworld, and only the spirits of long-dead mammut keep the demons inside! You will sleep now, Softbelly, then you will slink back to your Forest – and you will go on foot!’
Arguing was pointless. Torak watched the men gobble the last of the kivyak, then pass out one by one. He curled up on the other side of the fire and slid into evil dreams.
He dreamt that Wolf hung skewered on a stake, accusing him with dead white eyes: You should have warned me, pack-brother.
‘It’s only a dream,’ Renn whispered in his ear. She lay in front of him with her back against his chest. ‘I missed you,’ he murmured, breathing her wonderful sharp junipery scent. He bent to kiss her spine, but instead of the little smooth bumps that he loved, his lips touched slimy rotten flesh…
He woke with a shudder.
The wind had risen, the walls of the shelter were slapping noisily. The Narwal men lay on their backs, snoring. The roof could have fallen in and they wouldn’t have woken.
No point stealing weapons and a skinboat, they’d only catch him. And he couldn’t ignore that dream. Wolf’s head on the stake: Should have warned me, pack-brother. He had to find Wolf and tell him to stay away or the Narwals would kill him.
As Torak crawled into the icy outer chamber, he had to pick his way around sleeping women. Only the girl with the withered arm was awake, furtively plucking maggots from a chunk of putrid meat and cramming them in her mouth. When she saw Torak she froze.
Signing her to silence, he slipped out to warn Wolf.
The Thunderer was growling in the Up and the Great Wet was clawing the shore. Lemmings and rock-squirrels scurried for their burrows. Wolf had to find shelter too – but he was hungry. And there were lots of fish near the great dens of the taillesses. Wolf had known since he was a cub that taillesses are very like wolves. They live in packs and hunt to feed their families, they’re clever, they love talking and playing, and sometimes their young do foolish things and get killed. But unlike wolves, taillesses sleep for ages – which makes it easy to steal their fish.
Wolf was seeking a way past the dogs when he saw Tall Tailless running towards him. No time for greetings, Tall Tailless told Wolf to get away now, or the taillesses would kill him.
Wolf was astonished. Taillesses don’t hunt wolves. But his pack-brother meant it, so he went.
By now the Thunderer was roaring in the Up, the Great Wet attacking the shore with huge white paws. Wolf had to find shelter fast.
He hadn’t gone far when he spotted a hollow in the bank above the Fast Wet. As he scrambled in he smelt prey. Yes, prey buried in his hollow, and deliciously rotten.
Wolf began to dig, thrusting aside the frozen earth with powerful forepaws. He forgot the howling wind and the Thunderer’s fury. He smelt that this prey was bigger than the biggest bison – and very, very old.
Lightning flared and thunder cracked. The World Spirit slashed the sky and rain pelted down, soaking Torak.
The wind was savaging shelters and ripping boats from their moorings. People were hurrying to rescue their belongings, but at the Narwal camp nobody stirred.
One of their skinboats had been torn from its arch, it was rolling along the shore like a birch-bark toy. Frightened women huddled outside the shelter, but there was no sign of their men, who were still sleeping off the kivyak.
Torak crawled inside and grabbed Orvo’s shoulder. ‘Wake up! You’re losing your boats!’ The boy curled into a ball and scowled in his sleep. Torak crawled out again, shouted at the women to help. They didn’t understand, or maybe they feared to obey a Softbelly.
Floundering through mounds of slippery kelp, Torak went after the boat. Someone ran up behind him. The girl with the withered arm was strong for
her size, and determined. Together they overturned the boat and flung in rocks to weigh it down, then struggled back to the other boats. The girl fetched rope. As she and Torak fought to secure the first craft, Orvo emerged blinking from the shelter.
‘Get more rope!’ yelled Torak.
Orvo dived back inside and returned moments later with the men.
By the time the storm had blown over, all the boats had been saved, although the one on the shore had a rent that would take days to repair. Women brought dry clothes for the men, but when the girl with the withered arm offered Torak a dry parka, the Boat Leader sent her running with a glare. He hated being beholden to a Softbelly. Torak would get no thanks for saving the boats.
He was trudging towards the shelter when a woman jabbered in alarm and pointed inland. The men ran for their weapons. Torak’s belly turned over.
Wolf hadn’t fled for the fells, he was halfway up the riverbank, well within arrowshot as he tore at a half-buried carcass.
‘Don’t shoot!’ yelled Torak, flinging himself in front of the men.
‘Out of our way!’ shouted Orvo. ‘We have to kill the demon!’
Torak put his hands to his mouth and howled. Danger! Run!
Wolf was gone in a flash, flying like a grey ghost over the fells. The Narwals’ arrows thudded harmlessly into the bank.
All eyes turned on Torak. Within moments he was surrounded by a thicket of spears.
‘You talked to the demon,’ said Orvo.
‘He’s not a demon, he’s my pack-brother!’ But he could see they didn’t believe him.
Over his shoulder he saw the carcass which had nearly killed Wolf. A leg like a tree-trunk ended in a huge round foot. A gash in thick earth-coloured hide revealed flesh as dark as horse meat. But this was no horse.
Torak thought fast. ‘Orvo, tell them this proves Wolf is no demon! No demon would go near mammut, let alone eat it!’
But the Narwals had seen for themselves. ‘Mammut,’ they muttered, touching their foreheads as they hurried past Torak to dig out the sacred remains.
They were still at work when he saw a man on the shore walking towards him. As fat as a well-nourished seal, the man had a black stripe tattooed across his nose, which marked him as a member of the White Fox Clan.
Torak ran to meet him. ‘Inuktiluk!’ he cried.
The older man grinned. ‘I just heard you were here!’ Turning to the Boat Leader, he had a brief exchange in Narwal. Then to Torak: ‘They might seem ungrateful but you’ve won their respect. He says you can have a skinboat and a safe-passage stick for you and Wolf as far as Waigo. You’re lucky, they rarely give those to anyone.’ His grin widened. ‘And before you ask, yes, Renn passed this way. And she sends you a message.’
‘What did she say?’ cried Torak. ‘Is she all right?’
‘Patience!’ chuckled Inuktiluk. ‘She was here not two days ago—’
‘Only two days?’
‘She’d lost her way among the islands, it slowed her down.’
‘What did she say?’
‘I don’t know, I was out fishing. Tanugeak saw her.’
‘Where’s Tanugeak?’
‘Picking mushrooms on the fells, she’ll be back soon.’
Torak let out a roar. To the White Foxes ‘soon’ could mean anything from a day to half a moon.
Inuktiluk clapped him on the back. ‘You’re too thin, Torak. You need to be fat to survive up here, I’ve told you before. Come and eat while we wait for Tanugeak.’
The White Foxes were camped at the other end of the clan meet. Children chased each other round the shelter of brown-and-white seal hide, and sled-dogs, recognizing Torak’s scent, sprang up with yowly greetings. Inside, Torak found himself in the cheerful din of a White Fox daymeal. Tanugeak wasn’t back.
It was a relief to be with people who enjoyed eating and laughing. White Fox boys weren’t forced to drag walrus skulls, and when they got into scrapes their elders simply ignored them till they came to their senses. White Fox hunters happily jumbled up prey from land and Sea, and men and women got along as equals. Inuktiluk smiled at the Narwals’ belief that they were better than everyone else. ‘The sun doesn’t give them any more light than the rest of us!’
Torak realized he was hungry. He wolfed a bowlful of reindeer fat whipped with crowberries and herring livers, and a crunchy pale-green mess pickled in seawater that Inuktiluk called roseroot.
Soon the others returned to the clan meet, leaving the two of them alone. While Inuktiluk ladled willowherb tea into kelp beakers, Torak put on the warm clothes they’d given him, his eelskin ones having been taken and fed to the dogs.
He was chewing a slab of oily black whale meat when a short, plump woman crawled into the shelter. She wore a cape of blue teal feathers and her belt jingled with tiny bone carvings from all the people she’d helped. Her brown face was creased with laughter lines and she had the bright, slanted eyes of her clan-creature. She gave Torak a friendly, penetrating glance.
He stopped eating. ‘Tell me everything,’ he said to Tanugeak the White Fox Mage.
‘She doesn’t want you to find her,’ Tanugeak said calmly.
Torak blinked. ‘That’s all she said?’
‘There’s a reason she cut off her hair and dyed it black. There’s a reason she goes by the name of Rheu of the Sea-eagles. Don’t be angry with her.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Anger is a form of madness. It won’t help either of you.’
‘But she must have told you something!’
Tanugeak glanced at Inuktiluk. ‘She asked me to read the signs, to find out where she should go.’
‘And?’
‘I had a message from the people beyond the clouds. From the dead,’ she explained. ‘I told Renn, so I’ll tell you. To find what you seek, you must put the island of wings to flight and cross the forest in the treeless land. You must save the past by burning the present.’
Torak groaned. ‘I hate riddles!’
Tanugeak smiled. ‘That’s what Renn said.’
Torak could hear exactly how she’d said it. He missed her so much it hurt. ‘Why did you let her leave?’ he burst out.
‘“Let”? You sound like a Narwal! Renn chose to leave. Why are you scratching that scar on your arm?’
‘Because it’s itchy.’
‘How did you get it?’
‘A bear. Which has nothing to do with—’
‘Show me.’ After taking his forearm in her plump hands, she drew a chip of yellow stone from her medicine pouch and crumbled it to dust in her fingers. It smelt sharply of rotten eggs as she rubbed it on his scar. ‘We call this bloodstone because when it burns it leaves a scarlet stain. I’ll give you some. It helps against demons and fleas.’
‘You don’t think I should go after her,’ Torak said accusingly.
‘What good would it do?’ put in Inuktiluk, who until now had listened in silence.
‘Look at me, Torak,’ said Tanugeak.
Reluctantly he met her bright, steady gaze.
‘How long since you spirit walked?’
‘Not for two summers. But—’
‘In your eyes I see traces of souls not your own.’
‘That’s what happens when you spirit walk,’ he said impatiently. ‘But that’s in the past. You have to help me find Renn!’
‘It’s not easy to put the past behind you. I told Renn the same thing. She didn’t listen either.’
‘I can’t go back to the Forest without her.’
‘But it’s more dangerous for you.’ She touched her collar of white feathers. ‘My spirit guide is the snow owl: the guardian of the Far North. It doesn’t want you here. I don’t know why. Do you?’
Torak thought of the snow owl he’d killed. He shook his head.
Tanugeak sighed. ‘If you survive, it’ll be by doing what you do best: by thinking like other creatures.’
‘More riddles,’ he growled.
‘No, just common sense.’
Torak looked at him. ‘Who’s Naiginn?’
The White Foxes exchanged startled glances. ‘You didn’t know?’ said Tanugeak.
‘Know what? Who’s Naiginn?’
‘A young hunter of the Narwal Clan,’ said Inuktiluk. ‘He and Renn arrived together. They left together too. But surely the Narwals told you that?’
‘You’ve no reason to be jealous,’ said Tanugeak. ‘We know Naiginn. Renn’s safe with him.’
‘Oh, I’m sure,’ snarled Torak. ‘I’ve seen how Narwals treat women!’
‘Naiginn’s different,’ she insisted. ‘He doesn’t even look like them, his mother wasn’t from the Far North. When he was a boy his father sent him to us to learn our ways.’
‘I fostered him myself,’ said Inuktiluk. ‘He’s brave, clever and the best hunter in his clan.’
Somehow that didn’t make Torak feel any better.
‘Naiginn knows the Far North,’ said Inuktiluk.
‘Meaning I don’t.’
‘You were here in winter for less than a moon, in summer it’s a different world! How would you help Renn if you got trampled by a musk-ox or eaten by an ice bear?’
Torak glowered at the fire. What was Renn doing with a stranger, even if he was the best hunter in his clan?
The tent flap was flung back and Orvo put in his head. ‘I’ve brought your skinboat.’
Torak shot him a look. ‘This Naiginn: why didn’t you tell me he’d been here with my mate?’
‘That was for the Boat Leader to say, not me.’
Torak blew out a long breath. ‘Inuktiluk, Tanugeak: thank you for your help but I can’t go back to the Forest. I’m going north.’
The skinboat was a one-man craft of split walrus hides sewn with sinew and stretched over a light whalebone frame. It reminded Torak of Seal Clan boats, except that it wasn’t covered at bow and stern. Orvo solemnly showed him the baler, rope and fishing gear stowed under the cross-struts. He explained that the hides were those of female walruses, as females didn’t fight, so their hides weren’t weakened by scars. ‘Now and then you must rub it with snow, or it’ll crack when you hit ice – and you will hit ice. Here, these are for you.’