Chronicles of Ancient Darkness Part 10

She stood up, struggling to overcome her unease. 'They've gone. It's time we headed north.' She replaced her arrow in her quiver and slung her bow over her shoulder, and for a moment Torak thought she was having a change of heart. Then she drew her knife and jabbed at him to get moving.

They reached a streamlet that tumbled out of a rocky gorge, and started to climb. Torak began to feel dizzy with tiredness. He hadn't slept the night before, and hadn't eaten for over a day.

At last he couldn't go another step, and sank to his knees. Wolf jumped out of his arms, falling over his paws in his eagerness to reach the water.

'What are you doing?' cried Renn. 'We can't stop here!'

'We just did,' snarled Torak. He grabbed a handful of soapwort leaves, mashed them in water, and washed off the last of the wolverine dung. Then he bent and drank his fill.

Feeling a lot better, he rummaged in his pack for one of the rolls of dried roe buck that he'd prepared what seemed like moons ago. After biting off a piece and tossing it to Wolf, he began to eat. It tasted wonderful. Already he could feel the deer's strength coursing through him.

Renn hesitated, then unslung her pack and knelt, but still with her knife trained on Torak. Plunging one hand into her pack, she brought out three thin, reddish-brown cakes. She held one out to him.

He took it and bit off a small fragment. It tasted rich and salty, with an aromatic tang.

'Dried salmon,' said Renn with her mouth full. 'We pound it with deer fat and juniper berries. It stays good all winter.'

To his surprise, she held out a salmon cake to Wolf.

He pointedly ignored it.

Renn hesitated, then gave the cake to Torak. He rubbed it between his palms to mask her scent with his, then offered it to Wolf, who gulped it down.

Renn tried not to show her hurt. 'So?' she said with a shrug. 'I know he doesn't like me.'

'That's because you keep shoving him in bags,' said Torak.

'Only for his own good.'

'He doesn't know that.'

'Can't you tell him?'

'There's no way of saying it in wolf talk.' He took another bite of salmon cake. Then he asked something that had been bothering him. 'Why did you bring him?'

'What?'

'Wolf. You got him out of the camp. It can't have been easy. Why?'

She paused. 'You seem to need him. I don't know why. But I thought it might be important.'

He was tempted to tell her that Wolf was his guide, but checked himself. He didn't trust her. She'd been useful for helping him evade the Ravens, but that didn't change the fact that she'd taken his weapons and called him a coward. And she still had her knife pointed straight at him.

The gorge got steeper. Torak judged it safe to let Wolf walk, and the cub plodded before him with drooping tail. Wolf didn't like the climb any more than Torak.

Around mid-afternoon, they reached a ridge overlooking a broad, wooded valley. Through the trees, Torak caught the faraway glitter of a river.

'That's the Widewater,' said Renn. 'It's the biggest river in this part of the Forest. It flows down from the ice rivers in the High Mountains and makes Lake Axehead, then goes over the Thunder Falls and on to the Sea. We camp down there in early summer for the salmon. Sometimes, if the wind's in the east, you can hear the Falls . . .' her voice trailed off.

Torak guessed that she was wondering how her clan would punish her for helping their captive escape. If she hadn't called him a coward, he might have felt sorry for her.

'We'll cut across the valley,' she said more briskly. 'It should be easy to ford the river where those meadows are. Then we can head north '

'No,' said Torak suddenly. He pointed at Wolf. The cub had found an elk trail that wound into a wood of tall spruce dripping with beard-moss. He was waiting for them to follow.

'That way,' said Torak. 'Up the valley. Not across it.'

'But that's east. If we head east, we'll reach the High Mountains too soon. That'll make going north much harder.'

'Which way will Fin-Kedinn go?' said Torak.

'West for a while along the trails, then north.'

'Well, then. Heading east sounds like a good idea.'

She frowned. 'Is this some kind of trick?'

'Look,' he said. 'We're heading east because Wolf says we should. He knows the way.'

'What? What do you mean?'

'I mean,' he said quietly, 'that he knows the way to the Mountain.'

She stared at him. Then she snorted. 'That little cub?'

Torak nodded.

'I don't believe you.'

'I don't care,' said Torak.

Wolf hated the female tailless.

He'd hated her from the first moment he'd smelt her, as she pointed the Long-Claw-that-Flies at his pack-brother. What a thing to do. As if Tall Tailless was some kind of prey!

After that, the female tailless had done terrible things. She'd wrenched Wolf away from Tall Tailless, and pushed him into a strange, airless Den, where he was b.u.mped around so much that he'd been sick.

Even worse was the way she behaved towards Tall Tailless. Didn't she know that he was the lead wolf? She was so sharp and disrespectful when she yipped at him in tailless talk. Why didn't Tall Tailless just snarl and chase her away?

Now, as Wolf trotted along the trail, he was relieved to hear that she was several strides behind. Good. She should stay away.

He paused to munch some lingonberries at the side of the trail, spat out a bad one, and moved on, feeling the dry earth beneath his pads, and the warmth of the Hot Bright Eye on his back. He raised his muzzle to catch the scents wafting from the valley: some jays and a few stale elk droppings; several storm-broken spruce; lots of willowherb and withered blueberries. All were good, interesting smells; but beneath them was the cold, terrifying scent of the Fast Wet.

Fear snapped at Wolf afresh. Somehow, he and Tall Tailless had to get across the Fast Wet. The crossing place was still many lopes ahead, but already Wolf could hear it roaring. It was so loud that soon even his poor, half-deaf pack-brother would hear it.

There was danger ahead, and Wolf longed to turn back, but he knew that he couldn't. The Pull was getting stronger: the Pull that was like the Den-pull, but not.

Suddenly, Wolf caught another scent. He flared his nostrils to take it in. His ears went back.

This was bad. Bad bad bad.

Wolf spun round and raced back towards Tall Tailless.

FOURTEEN.

'What is it?' whispered Renn, staring at the terrified cub.

'I don't know,' murmured Torak. His skin began to p.r.i.c.kle. He couldn't hear any birds.

Renn took his knife from her belt and tossed it over to him.

He caught it with a nod.

'We should turn back,' she said.

'We can't. This is the way to the Mountain.'

Wolf's amber eyes were dark with fear. He padded slowly forwards: head down, hackles raised.

Torak and Renn followed as quietly as they could. Junipers snagged their boots. Beard-moss trailed thin fingers against their faces. The trees were utterly still: waiting to see what would happen.

'Maybe it isn't . . .' said Renn. 'I mean, it could be a lynx. Or a wolverine.'

Torak didn't believe that any more than she did.

They rounded a bend and came to a fallen birch that was bleeding from deep claw-marks gouged in its bark.

Neither spoke. Both knew that bears sometimes claw at trees to mark their range, or frighten off other hunters.

Wolf approached the birch for a better sniff. Torak followed then gave a sigh of relief. 'Badger.'

'Are you sure?' said Renn.

'The scratches are smaller than a bear's, and there's mud on the bark.' He circled the tree. 'It got its front claws clogged with earth, digging for worms. Stopped here to sc.r.a.pe them clean. Went back to its sett. That way . . .' he waved a hand east.

'How do you know all that?' said Renn. 'Did Wolf tell you?'

'No. The Forest did.' He caught her puzzled glance. 'A while back I saw a robin with some badger hairs in its beak. It came from the east.' He shrugged.

'You're good at tracking, aren't you?'

'Fa was better.'

'Well you're better than me,' said Renn. She didn't sound envious; she was merely acknowledging a fact. 'But why would a badger have frightened Wolf?'

'I don't think it did,' said Torak. 'I think it was something else.'

She took his axe, bow and quiver, and held them out. 'Here. You'd better take these.'

They crept up the trail. Wolf went first, Torak next, scanning for signs, and Renn last, straining to see through the trees.

They'd gone another fifty paces when Torak stopped so abruptly that she walked into him.

The young beech tree was still moaning, but it hadn't long to live. The bear had reared on its hind legs to vent its fury: snapping off the entire top of the tree, ripping away the bark in long bleeding tatters, and slas.h.i.+ng deep gouges high on the trunk. Terrifyingly high. If Renn had stood on Torak's shoulders, she wouldn't have been able to reach the lowest claw-mark.

'No bear could be that enormous,' she whispered.

Torak did not reply. He was back in the blue autumn dusk, helping Fa to pitch camp. Torak had made a joke, and Fa was laughing. Then the Forest exploded. Ravens screamed. Pines cracked. And out of the dark beneath the trees surged a deeper darkness . . .

'It's old,' said Renn.

'What?' said Torak.

She gestured at the trunk. 'The tree-blood has hardened. Look, it's almost black.'

He studied the tree. She was right. The bear had clawed the bark at least two days before.

But he couldn't share Renn's relief. She didn't know the worst of it.

With each kill, Fa had said, its power will grow . . . When the red eye is highest . . . the bear will be invincible.

Here was the proof. On the night when the bear had attacked, it had been huge. But not this huge.

'It's getting bigger,' he said.

'What?' said Renn.

Torak told her what Fa had said.

'But that's not even a moon away.'

'I know.'

A few paces off the trail, he found three long black hairs snagged on a twig at about head height. He stepped back sharply. 'It went that way.' He pointed down into the valley. 'See how the branches have sprung back in a slightly different pattern.'

But that didn't rea.s.sure him. The bear could have returned by another trail.

Then, from deep in the undergrowth, came the sharp 'tak tak' of a wren.

Torak breathed out. 'I don't think it's anywhere close. Otherwise that wren wouldn't be calling.'