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
Silence boomed in Torak's ears. Dust clogged his throat. "Renn?" he called. No answer. "Fin-Kedinn? Wolf?" The rocks threw back the sound of his terror.
"Renn!" he shouted. "Fin-Kedinn!"
Wolf appeared on the crown of the hill and ran down to
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A flurry of wings, and Rek lit onto a branch ten paces away. Wolf raced toward her and barked. Torak wobbled after them.
Through the branches he saw a shock of dark-red hair. "Renn?"
He tore at the branches, dragged saplings out of the way. Thrusting his arm through a gap, he grabbed her sleeve.
She moaned.
"You all right?"
She coughed. Mumbled something that might have been yes.
"Fin-Kedinn," she said.
"I can't find him."
The blood drained from her face. "He saved my life. Threw me out of the way."
Wolf stood below them in a wreck of dead spruce, looking down between his forepaws. His ears were
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pricked. Eagerly, he glanced at his pack-brother.
The spruce lay on top of a larger beech, itself aslant more spruce. Under the beech lay Fin-Kedinn.
"Fin-Kedinn?" Renn's voice shook.
"Fin-Kedinn!"
The Raven Leader's eyes remained closed.
Frantically, they tugged at branches and tree trunks. There was a creak, and the whole pile shuddered. They didn't speak, for fear of bringing down disaster.
"We'll have to drag him out," said Renn. It took both of them to haul him free. Still he didn't move. Renn held her wrist to his lips to feel for breath. Torak saw her throat work.
Fin-Kedinn's eyelids flickered. "Where's Renn?" he murmured.
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***
By taking the weight of the other trees, the beech had saved his life, but it had crushed the left side of his chest.
Renn set to work, pulling off his parka and cutting the laces on his jerkin. She was as gentle as she could be, but the pain was so bad that he nearly passed out. "Three ribs broken," she said as she probed his back with her fingers.
"Don't talk," warned Renn.
"Hurts less than breathing," said her uncle. "Where are we?"
Torak told him.
He groaned. "Ah, not here! Not the hill!"
"We can't move you, not tonight," said Renn. "This is a bad place," muttered Fin-Kedinn. "Haunted. Evil."
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"No more talk!" admonished Renn, cutting strips from the hem of her jerkin for bandages.
"What do you mean?" said Torak.
"Go after him. That's what you want."
He stared at her. "I'm not leaving you."
"But you want to."
He flinched.
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"It'll take days to get Fin-Kedinn back to the clan," she said, still failing to get a spark. "And all the time, Thiazzi's getting away. That's what you're thinking, isn't it?" "Renn--"
"You never wanted us to come!" she burst out. "Well, here's your chance to be rid of us!"
"Renn!"
They faced each other, white and shaking.
"I won't leave you," said Torak. "In the morning I'll bring around the canoes. Then we'll figure out what to do."
Savagely, Renn struck a spark. Her lips trembled as she blew life into it.
Torak went down on his knees and helped feed the fire with kindling, then sticks. When it was fully awake, he took her hand, and she gripped so hard that it hurt. "He's beaten us," she said.
"For now," he replied.
a clump of comfrey near the river, and Renn pounded its roots into a poultice, while Torak made the leaves into a strengthening brew in a swiftly fashioned birch-bark bowl. Together, they bandaged Fin-Kedinn's ribs. The binding had to be tight, to help set the broken bones. When it was done, all three of them were sweating and pale.
After that, Renn fed the fire with juniper boughs and wafted some of the smoke into the shelter to drive off the worms of sickness. Torak tucked a slip of dried horse meat in a crack in a boulder to thank the Forest for letting his foster father live. Then, as they were both famished, they shared more meat. Fin-Kedinn did not eat at all.
The moon set, and his restlessness increased. "Don't let the fire die," he murmured. "Renn. Draw lines of power around the shelter."
Renn gave Torak a worried look. If his wits were wandering, it was a bad sign.
Renn took her medicine pouch and went to draw the lines.
"Don't go far," warned Fin-Kedinn.
Torak fed the fire another stick. "You said this was a
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bad place. What did you mean?"
Fin-Kedinn coughed, and Torak held his shoulders. When it was over, the skin around the Raven Leader's eyes had a bluish tinge. "Many summers ago," he said, "this hill was thick with trees. Birch, rowan, in cracks between the rocks. Holding the demons inside." He shifted position and winced. "Soul's Night. Long past. People came to let them out."
Torak began to be afraid. "Was anyone hurt?"
Fin-Kedinn nodded. "Trapped. Terrible burns. One killed." He grimaced, as if he smelled charred flesh.
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Torak peered into the dark. "What
is
this place?" he whispered.
"Don't you know?" said Fin-Kedinn.
The hairs on Torak's arms prickled. "Is this where ..."
"Yes. This is where your father shattered the fire-opal. Where he broke the power of the Soul-Eaters."
Out in the night, a vixen screamed. From far away came the deep
oo-hu, oo-hu
of an owl. Torak and Renn exchanged glances. It was an eagle owl. Renn said, "When I was drawing the lines of power, I felt a presence. Not only demons. Something else. Lost. Searching."
"There are ghosts here," said Fin-Kedinn. "The one who died."
Flames leaped in Renn's dark eyes. "The seventh Soul-Eater."
The Raven Leader made no reply.
An ember collapsed in a shower of sparks. Torak jumped. "Were you here that night?" he said.
Renn put her hand on his shoulder. "You need to rest. Don't talk anymore."
"No! I must tell this!" He spoke with startling force,
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and his burning blue gaze held Torak's. "I was angry. I wanted revenge against him for--for taking your mother. I turned them away."
Torak heard the click of raven talons on stone. He looked into the face of his foster father and wanted it not to be true, and knew that it was.
Torak touched his hand. "You couldn't have known what would happen." The Raven Leader's smile was bitter. "So you tell yourself. Does it help?"
The Chosen One watches the unbelievers sleep, and hungers to punish them and set the fire free. The girl who woke the fire did it wrongly and without respect. She is an unbeliever. She does not follow the True Way. The boy threw a branch at the fire and kicked it. He too has lost the Way.
66 The Master shall know of this. The Master honors the fire, and the fire honors him. The Master will punish the unbelievers.
Anger kindles in the breast of the Chosen One.
The unbelievers are evil.
They must be punished.
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Below him the valley of the Blackwater floated in mist. The Forest rang with birdsong, but the ravens were gone.
On the hill, he could see nothing except naked rock. He climbed to the crown. Nothing. Only an ancient tree stump on the western slope, its roots still clinging to the demon-haunted cracks. He thought of his father, who had sparked the events that had brought him to this place. He was shocked to realize that he could scarcely remember Fa's face.
He caught a flicker of movement in the mist by the river. His heart contracted.
Someone stood on the bank, staring up at him. The face was indistinct; the hair long, pale. An arm rose. A finger pointed at him. Accusing.
The birds had stopped singing. On either side of the
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trail, hemlock floated in vaporous white. Footsteps heading his way.
A wild-eyed man burst from the mist and blundered into him. "Help me!" he gasped, clutching Torak's parka and glancing back over his shoulder. Staggering under his weight, Torak breathed the stink of blood and terror.