Ghost Hunter (22 page)

Renn's courage rallied. "Come on then," she said under her breath. "Let's check your paws."

To protect them from the hill of knives, Renn had cut up her food pouch and made paw-boots. They'd worked. The she-wolf's pads were barely scratched.

A good sleep and the poultice had done wonders for her, and after licking her wound clean and gulping most of Renn's supplies, she'd been a new wolf. By midday she had been circling the shelter, limping, but snuffing eagerly at the scent trail of her mate.

Renn, however, had been apprehensive after terrible dreams of ghosts who'd whispered with Torak's voice. And when she'd crawled from the shelter, the ravens were gone.

She and Darkfur had made good speed as they'd found their way up the Gorge of the Hidden People, the she-wolf trotting ahead, then doubling back for Renn. She didn't need to know wolf talk to interpret those impatient yips.
Hurry up! Can't you go any faster?

At times, though, Darkfur would halt, and turn her head to watch something Renn couldn't see. Sometimes she wagged her tail. Sometimes her hackles rose.

A white bird flashed across the stars. Renn thought of

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the white guardian in her vision, and rose to her feet.

To her right, a scree slope fell away sharply. Ahead, a boulder field led onto the sacred Mountain. The sky was immense and pitiless. No moon to give her courage. Only the cold stars and the red glare of the Great Auroch--and beyond, the endless dark.

Renn thought, perhaps Eostra has already won. Perhaps Torak is already a Lost One.

The stillness as she labored over the boulder field was terrible. The only sounds were the rasp of her breath and the creak of her clothes. Silent as a spirit, Darkfur raced ahead. A black wolf in blackness is hard to spot, and Renn had to follow the she-wolf's breath: little puffs of life in the desolation.

Suddenly, she saw Darkfur streak over a stretch of snow to a shadowy spur, where she raced about, sniffing excitedly. She vanished into a cleft. Renn heard echoing growls. Then she emerged and loped back to the spur, lashing her tail.

Renn hurried to investigate. As she drew closer, the hairs on her forearms rose. Someone had dug a snow hole. Around it was a mess of paw-marks. Huge. Not Wolf's.

Prickling with fear, she crawled into the shelter.

Her breath was loud in the cramped space. Her hands found a quiver of arrows. A food pouch. A waterskin. A sleeping-sack, rumpled and frozen stiff.

A bow.

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Drawing off a mitten, she ran her fingers over the icy wood. There: the spiky Forest mark which Torak had notched in it last summer, matching the one his mother had carved on his medicine horn long ago.

Feeling sick, Renn set down the bow. The truth lay before her, crusted with frost. Some time before, Torak had scrambled from his shelter, leaving his gear behind. He had never returned.

Renn backed out and began to retch.

Darkfur gave a whine and shot to the edge of the scree slope, where she stood, listening intently.

Shakily, Renn straightened up.

Darkfur ignored her. Mewing, she ran in circles, as if she didn't know what to do. Then she leaped down the slope.

"Darkfur!" called Renn in a horrified whisper. "Come back!"

The clatter of pebbles died away. Darkfur was gone.

Renn's hand crept to her clan-creature feathers. She was alone on the Mountain of Ghosts.

Dimly, in the starlight, she made out the trail that led into the cleft, then out again; the swathe of churned snow heading east.

As she entered the cleft, she tripped over something. It was frozen to the ground: she had to wrench it free. Torak's axe.

Renn knew at once what had happened. He had

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climbed the cleft to escape Eostra's pack. He had fallen. The churned snow was the drag mark where someone had hauled away his body.

Renn dropped the axe and stood swaying in the gloom. "Torak!" The cry burst from her. "Torak! Torak!" The name echoed back and forth.
Torak! Torak!
Slowly it faded into the Mountain.

At the top of the cleft, a face peered at her.

Renn whipped out an arrow and nocked it to her bow.

"Don't shoot!" called a voice.

Renn tightened her draw arm and got ready to do just that.

Supple as a pine marten, a figure let itself over the edge and started climbing down.

Holding her aim, Renn took a step back.

With startling speed, the creature made its descent and leaped to the ground, spinning to face her. In one astonished heartbeat she took in a bone-pale face and a shock of white hair.

"Are you Renn?" panted the boy.

Her jaw dropped.

"Quick!" He grabbed her wrist. "We've got to save Torak!"

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THIRTY-THREE

Flames leaped. Shadows reared. On its pillar, the tokoroth clutched a sputtering torch and glared at Torak.

He glimpsed glistening fangs and hair heaving with lice. He saw unblinking eyes ringed with chalk to give them the stare of an owl. Then the creature sprang away, plunging him in darkness.

Slipping off his mittens, he drew his knife and followed.

The tunnel was cold; he felt his way through a dank cloud of breath. Shadows scuttled. His hand moved over rock as ridged and slimy as guts. In a crack, something

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scaly withdrew from his touch.

Around him he felt the awesome weight of the Mountain. He was inside it: this vast, ancient creature which had only to twitch, to crush him to pulp.

Behind him came the subdued click of Wolf's claws. He'd stopped growling, and hadn't tried to attack the tokoroth, perhaps sensing it would stay out of reach. But what alarmed Torak was that the tokoroth ignored Wolf, as if it knew that he posed no threat.

As they went deeper, Torak began to regret having let his pack-brother come with him. Eostra would never allow Wolf to reach the Whispering Cave. She would find some way to separate them--and Wolf would be killed.

He wondered how many more tokoroths lay in wait. Where was Eostra's pack? Her owl?

Crouching, he asked Wolf if this cub-demon was the only one.

More,
replied Wolf, his whiskers brushing Torak's eyelids.
Can't smell where.

Up ahead, the tokoroth bared its fangs and snarled at them to keep up.

On they went, always downward. The cold lessened. Torak felt an uprush of warmer air. Strange signs loomed at him from the dark. A chalk zigzag. A yellow handprint. An alarming charcoal creature with many limbs. Were they a warning? Or had they been put here to keep the demons behind the rocks?

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His groping fingers found a nest of pebbles, smooth and rounded as eyes. A memory surfaced from three summers ago: the riddle of the Nanuak.
Deepest of all, the drowned sight.

Behind him, Wolf gave a low
uff!

The tokoroth disappeared around a corner.

Torak felt his way past--and jolted to a halt.

Firelight glimmered beyond an arch of white rock; around it, a chaos of red handprints:
Go back, go back!

Then everything happened at once. Torak saw the tokoroth douse the torch in a pool and scramble up the arch. Something came crashing down behind him: a wall of rawhide, barring his way. On the other side, Wolf was yowling and scrabbling to reach him. Torak tried to cut through, but the rawhide was tough--his knife bounced off. The tokoroth dropped on him like a spider, gouging at his face. As he sank to his knees, it yanked back his hood to throttle him. He slashed with his knife. The tokoroth shrieked, let go of his hood. Torak grabbed its arm and twisted. It squirmed out of his grip and vanished through the arch.

Panting, sick with the demon stench, Torak hauled himself upright. He stumbled, took a step back.

Into nothingness.

Wolf lunged and snapped at the cub-demons, and they fought back with their great stone claws.

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Wolf pretended to spring one way, they leaped after him; he turned the other way, sinking his teeth into a scaly leg. The cub-demon howled and dropped its stone claw. Another bit Wolf's shoulder. He went for it, missing by a whisker. Both demons fled up the rocks where he couldn't reach.

It was too dark to see, but he sensed them. He heard their breath; the lice crawling on their flesh. Why didn't they attack?

In a snap, he knew. They might be demons, but they were in tailless bodies, so they had only feeble tailless ears and noses. If Wolf didn't move, they didn't know where he was.

Quietly, he closed his muzzle and took a silent sniff.

The stink of blood and hate was all around; but it was strongest above.

He heard Tall Tailless yowl on the other side of the hide. Wolf couldn't bear it, he leaped at the hide--and the cub-demons were on him.

They were quick, but Wolf was quicker. Whipping around, he sank his fangs into a bony neck. It snapped. The demon went limp. Wolf smelled the other and gave chase. It disappeared over the hide.

Wolf went to sniff the fallen tailless cub to make sure it was really Not-Breath. Yes. The meat was cooling. But Wolf saw the demon which had hidden inside the carcass slip out and scurry off to find a new body. He raced after

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it, cornered it in a Den where it couldn't escape, and chased it into the rocks. There. Now it couldn't get out again.

When he got back to the hide, he found the Breath-that-Walks of the tailless cub shivering beside its carcass. It was bewildered. After so long trapped with the demon, it didn't know what to do.

Wolf felt a lick of pity. It was only a cub. He nosed it up the tunnel toward the others. Go on, up there. You won't be lonely, we passed lots of your kind on the way down.

Whimpering, the Breath-that-Walks wandered off to find its pack.

From the other side of the hide came many noises. Wolf caught the growls of dogs and the click of cub-demon claws; the sly hiss of owl wings; and the distant whisper of a Fast Wet, all coming from far below.

He smelled his pack-brother, and another tailless he'd once known, but couldn't remember. Then the air shifted and he caught a smell that made his fur stand on end: the Stone-Faced One with the terrible, stiff muzzle.

Wild to reach his pack-brother, Wolf made a desperate leap at the hide. It was too high, he couldn't get over. He tried to tear it with his fangs, but it was too flat, he couldn't get his jaws around it. He had to find another way.

Turning tail, he hurtled up the Den. Through the

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twisting tunnels he loped, bumping his nose and stubbing his paws. He burst into a bigger Den, where air from many smaller ones swirled around him.

Faint and far, he caught a scent that gave him hope. It was the scent of the new tailless with the white head-fur, and with him--Wolf could hardly believe his nose--
with him was the pack-sister.