Authors: Michelle Paver,Geoff Taylor
Tags: #Good and evil, #Death, #Animals, #Wolves & Coyotes, #Juvenile Fiction, #Philosophy, #Prehistoric peoples, #Battles, #Fiction, #Voyages and travels, #Good & Evil, #Prehistory, #Adventure fiction, #Historical, #Fantasy & Magic, #Demoniac possession, #Friendship, #Murder, #Enemies
As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she saw that the Mage was entirely covered in leaves. Layer on layer of fresh foliage--holly, birch, spruce, willow--feathered his robe in every shade of green. On his breast hung chunks of grass-colored amber knotted on a nettlestem string. His hood was drawn low over his face--Renn couldn't see his eyes, but she felt his scrutiny.
"Why do you disturb my prayers?" he murmured, although without reproach.
Renn wondered how to begin. If the Auroch Mage was as fair as people said, and if he hadn't fallen wholly under Thiazzi's spell, she had a chance. If not... "There's a Soul-Eater in the Deep Forest," she blurted out.
"A Soul-Eater?"
"His name is Thiazzi. He set the Aurochs against the Forest Horses and now he's making them attack the Open Forest." She gulped. It was a huge relief to get it out. The green robe rustled as the Mage reached for a stick and prodded the embers. Willow leaves at the hem 218 curled in the heat, and Renn saw a beetle scramble for safety. "This is grave news," whispered the Mage. "Who is this-
Thiazzi?
"
"No?" He sounded bemused. "And--you've made all this out by yourself?"
"Yes," Renn lied.
"Who are you?"
"I'm Renn. A Mage of the Raven Clan. I tried to warn the others, but they wouldn't listen."
"And you came here to defeat the Soul-Eaters."
"With your help, Mage."
"Ah," sighed the Mage, his chest gently heaving with each breath.
In the fire, the amber bead sizzled and flared. Renn caught a familiar tang. That's not amber, she thought. It's spruce-blood.
The Oak Mage was in no hurry to kill her. Reaching into the sleeve of his robe, he brought out a handful of spruce-blood pellets and shook some into his mouth. Renn watched his yellow teeth grinding them to nothing. She saw a golden speck caught in the tangle of his beard. The truth settled upon her like snow. Thiazzi was the Auroch Mage
and
the Forest Horse Mage. He'd killed them both and taken their place, making use of the Forest Horse mask and the Aurochs solitary vigils. Soon one of them would disappear, and the other would rule alone.
Only Renn knew his secret. And he knew that she knew.
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The yellow teeth went on grinding. The green eyes watched her lazily.
She tried not to tremble. "No point," she said.
His eyes gleamed. "And no point pretending you're not terrified."
She did not reply.
With awesome speed for so huge a man, he crossed to her side of the fire, engulfing her in rustling leaves and a stinging smell of spruce. His hand circled her throat: his three-fingered hand. Rough stumps searched her flesh till they found the vein. He grinned to feel her terror hammering under her skin. He could snap her neck like kindling. One twist, and it was the end.
She took a leap in the dark. "You haven't told her," she said.
"Told who?" he replied a shade too quickly.
"Eostra,"
she whispered, and the name turned her
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voice as cold as the breath of a bone-mound. "You haven't told her you've got it. But she knows. Oh, yes. The Eagle Owl Mage always knows. She's coming after you." His red tongue slid out and licked his lips. "You can't possibly know that."
"But I do. I have my mother's gift."
"Your--mother?"
"Can't you see?" She met his gaze. "The Viper Mage. I bear her marrow in my bones.... I know what Eostra intends."
"How could you know? You're not a Mage!"
"I know that the spirit walker has escaped," she said, feeding on his unease. "I know that your plans have gone awry. What's gone wrong? Who's turned against you?" He threw her from him, and she hit her head on the doorpost. Dazed, she struggled upright. She heard him laugh.
"Yes," he mused, "maybe this way is better. Maybe live bait will be more effective than dead."
He brought his face close to hers. "You've got something to do before you die," he breathed. "You're
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going to give me the spirit walker." Wildly she shook her head.
"Oh yes. You're going to bring him to me at the sacred grove."
Torak thought he saw Wolf on the bank, but when he called, Wolf did not appear. Nor did the ravens. It was as if they knew what he'd done, and condemned him for it. "But I didn't abandon her," he said.
"She
left
me
."
A gust of wind ruffled the river, and the alders stirred reproachfully. A gnarled oak scowled at him as he paddled by.
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and the sighs of slumbering trees.
She'll be all right, thought Torak. She can take care of herself.
As dawn broke, he stopped for a rest and something to eat. Everything reminded him of Renn. The early-morning sun trembled in a patch of wood strawberries. If she'd been with him, she would have dug up a couple of roots and chewed them to clean her teeth. As he groped in the shallows for reed stems and crunched them raw, he remembered a day last summer when she'd tried to feed one to Wolf, and it had turned into a game of tag. All three of them had ended up in the water, Torak and Renn helpless with laughter, while Wolf splashed about, worrying his prize and play-growling as if it were a lemming.
"Enough!"
said Torak.
On the opposite bank, an otter raised her sleek head and stared at him, then went back to munching the trout in her forepaws.
Both ravens alighted near Torak and demolished the
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fish. Sharing it, he noted, just as he and Renn shared everything. He struck the earth with his fist.
"Not you too," Torak told the ravens irritably.
Rip waggled his tail and stared at the pouch.
Without knowing why, Torak opened it and took out his medicine horn. Both ravens tilted their heads, as if listening.
Moodily, Torak turned the horn in his fingers. It was carved with spiky marks which looked like spruce trees. Fin-Kedinn had once told Torak that this had been his mother's sign for the Forest, which was how he'd recognized the horn as hers. Now, Torak saw what he'd forgotten. Twisted around the tip of the horn was the strand of Renn's hair, which he'd found in her sleeping-sack when he was outcast.
Slowly, he unwound it. Rip hopped onto his knee, took the hair in his beak, and ran it through his bill as delicately as if he were preening a feather. Torak heaved a sigh. Renn had sent the ravens to help him last summer when he was soul-sick. And he'd abandoned her.
Just as he'd abandoned Bale.
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The thought made him go cold. It was happening again. He'd quarreled with Bale, and Bale had died. Now Renn ...
His fist closed over the strand of hair. He would go back and find her. He would
make
her come with him. Vengeance must wait a little longer. Jumping into the dugout, he turned it around and started downriver.
This time, the ravens flew with him.
Now Wolf was confused as well as worried. What was Tall Tailless doing?
Ever since the Bright Beast had eaten the Forest, Wolf had followed, and not understood. He'd prowled about the great Dens of the taillesses and watched them snarl at each other, then tear the strips of hide from their heads. Then they'd dragged in his pack-brother, and Wolf had been about to leap to his aid when Tall Tailless had snarled at
them.
That terrible, snarling blood-hunger ... it was not-wolf. Wolf didn't understand it. It frightened him.
After that, Wolf had kept to the Dark as he'd followed
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What madness, he wondered, made them blindly follow orders? Couldn't they see that Thiazzi was stealing their freedom, like a fox raiding a carcass? When the camp had drifted out of sight, he took up his paddle. The afternoon wore on. The west wind
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carried the stink of the wasteland. And still he found no sign of Renn.
Landing the dugout, Torak made his way warily up the bank.
A swathe of men's tracks led into the Forest. Among them he found Renn's. She'd been recaptured. Why had they brought her here?
Forcing himself to concentrate, he realized that the men had returned a short while later and paddled away. Had they taken Renn with them? He didn't think so.
The doorway was barred by two crossed branches: one oak, one yew. Filled with misgiving, Torak stepped over
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them and went inside. The fire was dead white embers, crumbly as bones, but something lay across it. His belly turned over. It was the remains of Renn's bow.
In disbelief he took up the black, broken pieces of yew on which she had lavished so much care. He remembered a day last summer when he'd found her grinding hazelnuts to oil it. The sun had blazed in her red hair, and he'd wondered what it would feel like to wind it around his wrist. She'd turned and met his eyes, and his face had flamed. Wolf had nosed past him after the hazelnuts, and Renn had batted his muzzle away, "No, Wolf, not for you!" But she'd soon relented and given him a handful.
And Thiazzi had Renn.
Lurching to his feet, Torak stumbled from the shelter. Moonlight washed the clearing in icy blue. He thought of Renn being forced to watch Thiazzi snap her bow in 231
two. How the Soul-Eater must have enjoyed that. And he'd wanted Torak to know it. He'd left the bow as a sign, with his three-fingered handprint.
Thiazzi did this.
The sacred grove, where corpses dangled from the oak.
Torak staggered to a tree and retched. This was his fault. In his hunger for vengeance, he had delivered Renn into the power of the Oak Mage. Tall Tailless was only a pounce away, but Wolf couldn't go to him. Something was keeping them apart, like a great Fast Wet rushing between them.