Viper's Daughter Page 8

  ‘The earth’s hide is thinner here,’ said Naiginn in an undertone. ‘The Otherworld is very close.’

  ‘I can feel it. Demons fighting to get out.’

  He looked surprised. ‘I can’t feel anything. Must be your Mage’s sense.’

  She didn’t reply.

  He said, ‘If you’re worried about Torak catching up, why don’t you do a charm to throw that wolf off the scent?’

  ‘I don’t want to.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Couldn’t you do one instead? Both your parents were Mages, you must be better at it than me.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m merely a hunter, no skill at Magecraft.’ From his voice she could tell that he disliked admitting it.

  On the wind she caught a clamour and a whiff of bird droppings. She followed Naiginn round a spur, into an echoing din.

  Towering cliffs rang with the wails of thousands of seabirds. Raucous clans of guillemots and kittiwakes fought for space as they guarded their chicks from mean-eyed skuas on the lookout for an easy meal. The cliffs were white with droppings, the wind gusting a throat-catching stink.

  A kittiwake smacked into the Sea near Naiginn, emerging with a beakful of wriggling capelin. A skua bullied the smaller bird into sicking up its catch, then swallowed it in mid-air. Naiginn laughed.

  A puffin flew past Renn and crashed into the water in front of her boat. The puffin’s beak was stuffed with fish and it was so laden it couldn’t take off. Desperate to get out of her way, it rowed its stubby wings and paddled its broad orange feet. Renn swerved. At last the bird lumbered into the air and flew back to a puffin-sized cave where its chicks were waiting.

  Rip and Rek were swooping at a row of guillemots huddled on a ledge. The guillemots flung themselves into the air with weird groaning cries and both ravens flew off holding eggs in their beaks. They spattered the Sea with droppings. This gave Renn an idea. ‘I think I know how to put Wolf off the scent!’ she shouted to Naiginn.

  ‘Don’t go too close,’ he shouted back. ‘The cliffs are restless, if you annoy them they’ll fling rocks!’

  She swerved just in time to avoid hitting a submerged rock.

  ‘Turn back, you’re too close!’ yelled Naiginn.

  ‘I need the droppings!’ But she knew this wasn’t only about putting Wolf off the scent, it was about punishing herself for leaving Torak.

  As she paddled into the chill shadow of the cliffs, the clamour of birds became deafening and the stench made her blink. The Sea was a strange vivid turquoise, littered with white feathers. A dead kittiwake rocked on the waves, staring at her with lifeless eyes. Glancing up, she was instantly dizzy. Seabirds speckled the sky like grey snow. Fin-Kedinn had told her once that there were always as many birds under the waves as you could see above – and it was true: beneath the skinboat she glimpsed seabirds flitting through the water like pallid ghosts.

  ‘Renn, turn back! I mean it!’ Naiginn sounded cross.

  The smell was so bad she had to breathe through her mouth. Pebbles were raining down. The cliffs didn’t like her being so close.

  The swell lifted the boat and slapped it against a rock. Yanking off her gauntlet, she scraped her hand across it. It came away sticky and white. Gagging at the stench, she rubbed the slime on her parka. Good. Do it again.

  ‘Come back at once!’ Naiginn was furious.

  The cliffs were hurling bigger stones, one striking her painfully on the shoulder. Grimly she went on plastering her parka with filth. When she was smeared and stinking, she pushed off with her paddle and headed out to Sea.

  ‘What were you doing? You could’ve been killed!’ Naiginn’s handsome face was swollen with rage.

  ‘I had to throw Wolf off the scent.’

  ‘I told you to come back!’

  ‘So what?’

  They glared at each other.

  Naiginn shook himself. ‘You’re mad, you know that? And you stink.’

  She gave him a lopsided grin. ‘That’s the idea.’

  He grunted. ‘Promise that when we pitch camp you’ll stay downwind.’

  ‘Promise.’ She felt a bit better. She’d found a way to throw Wolf off the scent that didn’t involve Magecraft – and it was nothing like what her mother would have done.

  Then it hit her that Torak and Wolf would never find her now, and a void opened up inside and she wanted to howl.

  The ice bear’s tracks shouted at Torak from the shore. Each paw-print was twice the size of his head: very fresh and very deep. The bear that had made these tracks was enormous.

  Slowly Torak rose to his feet. The charcoal sand was littered with silver driftwood and bleached bones. The cliffs at the far end of the bay had collapsed in a jumble of dark-pink granite. At this end he caught the rotten-egg smell of the stream. Like the previous stream it would be hot and taste nasty, but he was too thirsty to care. Or he had been until he’d seen the tracks.

  The ice bear had ambled the length of the shore with her cubs, seeking carcasses to scavenge. Torak couldn’t tell if she’d walked into the Sea, or onto the fells.

  He couldn’t see the fells. Above the beach the Sea had eaten away the black rocks to make a man-high ridge that hid them from view.

  Ice bears are great wanderers. Torak pictured the massive female he’d encountered before the clan meet. She could be hunkered down behind that ridge right now, watching him. He wouldn’t know until it was too late.

  Wolf appeared on the ridge, panting and wagging his tail. Tension poured out of Torak. If an ice bear was near, Wolf would know.

  Having filled his waterskin, he stowed it in the boat and turned his attention to finding something to eat. He’d been in such haste to catch up with Renn that he’d passed the bird cliffs without shooting a single guillemot, and when he’d seen the whales dozing on the surface after their meal he hadn’t stopped to scoop up their leavings. He regretted that now, he hadn’t eaten for nearly two days. Renn’s trick of stealing his provisions was proving ruthlessly effective. And more worryingly, Wolf had lost her scent. Torak suspected she’d done something to mask it.

  Plenty of fish in the shallows, so he baited his hooks with water-snails and cast them off the rocks, then climbed onto the fells to hunt.

  Windswept wastes pocked with shivering lakes and patches of snow. Beyond them, fog-wreathed mountains under a heavy slate sky.

  A hare darted off. Torak’s arrow just missed.

  Wolf was slinking towards a patch of snow on the other side of a lake. Torak dropped to the ground. That wasn’t snow, it was a flock of geese. They were snow geese: white, with scarlet beaks and feet – and after grazing all summer, mouth-wateringly plump.

  Torak belly-crawled closer while they waddled and pecked, squabbling as they kept watch over their fat grey goslings.

  This wasn’t going to be as easy as he’d thought. The ground was littered with feathers and down, but the geese had finished moulting and their goslings were big enough to fly.

  He was taking aim when the flock rose in a honking cloud, black wingtips flashing. He missed. Already they were out of range, a white arrow speeding with high wild cries over the wolf-grey Sea.

  The wind hissed mockingly. A fox in its dark summer pelt trotted by with a gosling in its jaws and cast Torak a scornful glance. Didn’t you get one?

  Torak gathered a few mouse-nibbled mushrooms and frost-blackened crowberries. He found a dead wolverine frozen in mid-snarl. He wasn’t quite hungry enough for that – although not far off.

  A pair of diverbirds had settled on the lake. An easy target, a child of five could hit one.

  Not Torak. The diverbirds flew away with shivering cries.

  Something was wrong. He’d heard of people losing their hunting luck but it had never happened to him. With a sigh he went to check his fishing lines.

  As he followed the creek back to the shore, he came on the remains of a dead ice bear. It was horribly thin. Had it died of starvation? If the best hunter in the Far North couldn�
��t catch enough prey, what hope for him?

  He noticed two odd-looking puncture wounds in the bear’s sunken flank. They were a handspan apart and deep, as if a two-pronged spear had pierced its side. Torak had never heard of any clan hunting ice bears.

  His fishing lines came up empty – and yet he could see fish in the shallows. Maybe there were mussels on the rocks. The icy water numbed his fingers as he pulled up slimy handfuls of seaweed – but no mussels, not even a whelk. And it wasn’t the kind of seaweed he could eat.

  The snow owl perched on the rise, glaring with fierce yellow eyes. At last Torak understood. Tanugeak had told him the guardian of the Far North didn’t want him here and she was right. This owl knew that he’d killed one of its kin. To punish him it had taken his hunting luck.

  ‘It wasn’t my fault!’ he called. ‘They made me do it!’

  As he got to his feet, spots swam before his eyes and he nearly pitched forwards. When he looked again, the owl was gone.

  And now at the far end of the shore the rockfall was coming alive. A mountain of dark-pink blubber was bellowing and lumbering towards him.

  The walruses moved at appalling speed, thrusting at the sand with great yellow tusks, hauling themselves forwards on ungainly flippers. Suddenly Torak knew what had killed that ice bear.

  And they were coming right at him.

  No time to reach the boat, the walruses would cut him off. Torak turned and fled for the ridge.

  The rocks were slippery, he couldn’t find a way up. Over his shoulder he saw a huge bull walrus leave the herd and come after him. Its juddering bulk was covered in warts, its tusks as long as his arm. As he clawed for a handhold he saw lice seething in its creviced flesh, he caught the rank stink of rage. Its hot little eyes grazed his but it wasn’t after him, it was glaring at something above.

  The ice bear leapt over Torak and attacked a smaller walrus. The bull lashed out with its tusks. The bear dodged, the tusks splintering rock near Torak’s head. He was as threatening as a shrimp to the walrus, but if he got in its way it would flatten him and not even notice.

  Now the ice bear was at the rear of the herd, trying to pick off a baby walrus. The bear struck, but the calf’s hide was so thick the great claws didn’t even draw blood. The bull flung round in defence of its young. Torak seized his chance and scrambled up the ridge.

  No sign of Wolf, still far off on the fells. Too breathless to howl, Torak raced along the ridge. The beach was a heaving mass of blubber, but if he could get to the creek before the walruses, he could skirt round and reach the boat.

  Below him the ice bear was snarling and swiping at the bull in clouds of black sand. The bull knew he was winning. Flinging up his head he roared: This beach is mine! Mine! Mine! Again he lunged, again the bear withdrew. She was losing ground fast, backing towards the stream. Torak had to reach it first.

  As he splashed into its unclean heat he slipped. The walrus charged and the bear sprang back, narrowly missing Torak, who skittered past. With startling suddenness the shore had emptied, nothing between him and the boat – but the bay was boiling with walruses diving, rearing, spouting spray. And still no sign of Wolf.

  Torak couldn’t wait any longer. Flinging the boat into the shallows, he dug in his paddle, desperately steering between streaming backs and sputtering heads.

  When he was out in the bay he howled for his pack-brother.

  Where was Wolf?

  Pawing the earth with its hoof, the musk-ox swept its massive head from side to side, trying to hook Wolf on its horns. Each time it charged he backed away, then moved in again, keeping nose to nose with his prey so that it couldn’t gore his flank.

  If his mate had been with him she would have distracted it by biting its rump. To attack alone was too risky. Wolf gave up.

  Spotting a female who was limping, he leapt at her back. She was so shaggy his jaws bit nothing but wool, no actual flesh. Spitting out furballs, he jumped down in disgust. The female trotted away and started to graze.

  Wolf loped up a hill to catch the scents blowing from the mountains. He smelt that the reindeer were far off in the heights and the white wolves had followed them. He heard rock-squirrels among boulders; but he’d learnt that one always kept watch and squeaked a warning to the others.

  Midges engulfed him in a whining cloud. Writhing and snapping, he trotted miserably to a smelly little Fast Wet – but when he lapped, it bit his tongue. What kind of Fast Wet bites hot?

  More and more, Wolf hated these treeless lands where the Great Bright Eye never slept and there were no Darks. He missed his pack terribly, and he was furious with the pack-sister. She had left Tall Tailless again – and she had left with another male. No she-wolf would ever do this. Tall Tailless should forget her and find a new mate. They should go back to the Forest and rejoin the pack.

  The wind turned and Wolf smelt bear. He caught the distant roars of giant fish-dogs, the ones with tusks.

  Then faint and far, he heard something that made his pelt tighten with dread: Tall Tailless’s desperate howls.

  Torak had howled for Wolf till he was hoarse, but still nothing.

  A walrus surfaced, soaking him in spray. One slash of her tusks would sink the boat, and judging by her glare, she knew whose hides it was made of. Torak swerved to avoid her. She watched him go, rolled over and disappeared.

  At last Torak spotted Wolf hurtling down the beach and into the Sea. For a moment his muzzle showed above the waves – then he vanished in the swell.

  Walruses reared as Torak paddled towards where he’d seen his pack-brother. For an age he saw nothing. Then he glimpsed a small wet head in the heaving, grunting herd. Wolf looked tiny and horribly vulnerable. He kept bobbing out of sight.

  When Torak finally reached him he was bedraggled and exhausted. Grabbing him under the forelegs, Torak heaved, summoning every last shred of strength to haul him aboard.

  The walruses had vanished, taking the wind with them. The sun lay on the Sea, the land loomed dark against the violet sky. The only sounds were waves slapping the boat, and Torak panting.

  Wolf shook himself and licked his pack-brother’s chin, none the worse for his swim. Torak was shaking and spent.

  Suddenly Wolf uttered a deep, shuddering growl.

  The ice bear had fetched her cubs from their hiding-place and slipped into the Sea. She was swimming right past the boat. Her ears were flat against her skull, her powerful forepaws thrusting aside the green water. For a moment she turned her head and stared at Torak. Then the swell hid her from view.

  He paddled till he was dizzy, his body screaming for rest. He couldn’t get the ice bear out of his mind. He’d got a good look at her when she was fighting that walrus. Her belly hung so low it almost brushed the sand – but she wasn’t pregnant, she was fat. That she could feed herself and two cubs through the lean times of summer meant she must be an extraordinarily skilful hunter.

  The best hunters are those who know how to pick the weakest prey. That was why she’d panicked the walruses, to see which couldn’t fight back. That was why she’d stared at Torak. She knew he was weak, and getting weaker.

  He would not forget her flat black stare and he knew that she would not forget him. I am hungry, that stare had said. You are prey.

  Renn hated skinboating. Seawater made her eyes smart despite her eyeshield, and while Naiginn effortlessly skimmed the waves she bumped along behind, getting splashed.

  ‘I wish you didn’t stink,’ he grumbled for the tenth time.

  ‘It’ll be worth it if it’s thrown Wolf off the scent.’

  ‘You could’ve done that by Magecraft. You have the skill, why not use it? I would.’

  ‘Not if it reminded you of our mother, you wouldn’t.’

  ‘Yes, I would.’

  They’d been bickering incessantly. At the bird cliffs he’d got slightly spattered and spent ages cleaning his clothes. At their next camp he’d sulked because she’d shot more geese than him. He reminded her of her older brot
her Hord: whatever he did, he had to be best.

  Torak wasn’t like that. He didn’t mind that she was a better shot than him. As for her clothes, she could be as messy as she wanted, it wouldn’t occur to him to care.

  She glanced at Naiginn’s handsome profile. Torak was right, he did smile too much. Torak only smiled when he had a reason, and then it was worth waiting for.

  He was right about Naiginn’s walk too. He didn’t swing his arms and he moved awkwardly. Like he’s still learning, Torak had said with lethal accuracy.

  With a pang Renn pictured Torak’s loose, vigorous stride. And the little green flecks in his grey eyes, and the way he looked at her in the dappled sunlight of the Forest.

  Pushing up the sleeve of her parka, she touched his headband wound round her wrist. It was salt-stained and no longer smelt of him.

  Naiginn paddled ahead, then waited for her to catch up. He did that a lot, it was really annoying.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he muttered.

  She shot him a glance. ‘Me too.’

  Now she felt bad. What did it matter if he was vain? It wasn’t his fault if he’d grown up in a clan which treated women as half-men. He was still getting used to a girl talking back, or even talking at all.

  ‘You’re worried about Torak,’ he said quietly.

  She nodded.

  ‘He’s a hunter, he won’t starve.’

  It wasn’t that. Torak would be furious with her for leaving him again, but underneath he’d be unhappy. Renn knew the way his mind worked. She knew how good he was at blaming himself. ‘I know you miss Fin-Kedinn and your clan,’ he’d told her once. ‘I don’t, because I’m clanless, and that’s hard for you.’

  She’d told him that was ridiculous. But what if he was beginning to wonder if the real reason she’d left was that she no longer wanted to be with him?

  Out loud she said, ‘I’m getting nowhere. I’m no closer to finding out why I’m a danger to Torak than when I left.’

  ‘We’ll be at Waigo soon. My father will know what to do.’

  ‘What about the riddle? I haven’t even begun to solve it.’