Spirit Walker

by Michelle Paver

Renn struggled to take that in. "So there could be one here, and maybe another went after him?"

  Saeunn spread her hands.

  Suddenly the Forest Renn had grown up in seemed full of menace. "But

  why

  are they causing the sickness? What do they

  want?"

  "I don't know," said Saeunn.

  That frightened Renn more than anything. Saeunn was the Mage. She was supposed to know.

  With a shiver, Renn stared at the thundering water. She thought of Torak heading east--maybe trailed by something far worse than he knew. . . . "You cannot go and warn him," Saeunn said sternly. "It is too late. You would never find him."

  "I know," said Renn without turning her head.

  To herself she added, But I've still got to try.

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  Chapter THIRTEEN

  Wolf couldn't find Tall Tailless, but he knew that he had to keep trying.

  Once, he'd caught the scent in a tangle of beech saplings where his pack-brother had dug a Den--but then he'd lost it again. The scent was chewed up with that of boar scat, and with the stink of the badness that haunted the Forest--and a troubling new smell: the smell of demon. Wolf had learned that smell when he was a cub. The memory was very bad.

  Once more he cast about, but in vain. And always the fear snapped at his hindpaws.

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  The Thunderer was angry with him for leaving the Mountain. Wolf felt it in his fur and in the tingling of his pads. It was coming after him. Soon it would attack.

  The Up had gone very dark, and the breath of the Thunderer was stirring the trees. Sounds were becoming louder, smells sharper, as they always did when it began to growl.

  At last Wolf caught the scent of his pack-brother. He could have howled for joy. Filled with new purpose, he ran on, and the prey ran with him, desperate to escape, and sensing that Wolf wasn't hunting them. A beaver slid off a riverbank and swam for its den. A red deer doe raced with her fawn for the safety of the thickets. Suddenly the Thunderer vented its fury. The Wet burst upon the Forest, flattening bracken and bending trees like grass. A deafening crash--and down from the Up came the Bright Beast-That-Bites-Hot, missing Wolf by a pounce, and hitting a pine tree instead. The tree screamed. The Bright Beast swallowed it whole. Wolf swerved--but one of the Bright Beast's cubs fell in front of him and bit him on the forepaw. With a yelp he leaped high--then raced away with the stink of dying tree in his nose.

  He felt as frightened as a cub. He wanted his mother. He wanted Tall Tailless. He was all alone, and very, very scared.

  $ $ &

  107

  Renn was all alone in the Forest, and getting scared.

  She'd slipped away from the camp two days before, and still hadn't found Torak. Twice she'd heard the demented shrieks of the sick echoing through the trees, and once she'd caught a rustling overhead. It felt as if every bush, every tree, concealed a tokoroth. And now the storm was coming. The World Spirit was angry.

  Through a gap in the branches she saw a heavy bank of wolf-gray cloud, and heard a rumble of thunder. She was already within striking range. She must take cover.

  The valley she was crossing had granite crags on its eastern side, and she saw some promising dots of darkness that might be caves. She ran, snatching up sticks of firewood as she went.

  The storm burst with appalling suddenness. The World Spirit hammered at the clouds, splitting them open to let loose the rain, hurling dazzling arrows of lightning upon the Forest. Renn caught the flare of a tree going up in flames in the distance. If she wasn't careful, she'd be next.

  At last she found a cave--but wet as she was, she hung back. A cave can be a shelter or a death trap, so she checked for signs of bear or boar, and that the roof was high enough: otherwise the lightning might find its way down a crack, and through her head. When she was sure it was safe, she plunged in. 108

  She was shaking with cold and desperate for a fire, but first she saw to her bow. Pulling it out of its salmon-skin wrapping, she hung it on a tree root jutting from the cave wall. After that she propped up her arrows to dry, so that they wouldn't warp. Then she woke up a fire.

  Out in the Forest, the storm raged. Renn wondered where Torak was, and if he'd found shelter. Tracking him from the Raven camp had not been easy, and to begin with she'd had to guess. She'd reasoned that he'd stayed off the main clan trails, which left a number of choices. Bears and other hunters tend to stay down by the rivers where the prey comes to drink, which means that elk and deer trails are higher up the slopes. After what had happened last autumn, Renn had guessed that Torak would want to avoid bears, which meant he'd probably have taken the prey trails.

  She'd been proven right when she'd found his shelter, but it had given her a shock to see it crushed beneath an ash tree. A huge relief to find no body inside; and she'd quickly located the remains of the new shelter beside it. She'd known it was his because he made his fires in a star pattern, which wasn't the Raven way. Next morning she'd lost the trail again. A boar had obliterated the tracks.

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  The fire spat, jolting her back to the present.

  Her wounded hand throbbed. As she huddled closer to the flames, she pictured the tokoroth's sharp brown teeth; heard again that malevolent hiss. . . . "Something to eat," she said to chase away the thought.

  Her pack contained dried elk meat, smoked salmon from the racks, and salmon cakes--although in a fit of mischief she hadn't taken fresh ones, but had raided Saeunn's private store: a neat stack of cakes packed into a length of dried auroch gut.

  She took one, broke off a bit for the clan guardian, then ate the rest. It was from last summer's catch but still good. It reminded her sharply of the clan. Beside her lay the wickerwork quiver that Oslak had taught her to make. On two fingers of her left hand were the leather finger guards that Vedna had sewn. Her right forearm bore the wrist guard of polished green slate that Fin-Kedinn had made for her when he'd taught her to shoot. She rarely took it off, and her brother had often teased her about that. Her brother . . . He had died the previous winter. It hurt to think of him.

  To cheer herself up, she took out the little grouse-bone whistle that Torak had given her the previous autumn. It didn't make any sound that she could hear, but she always kept it with her. Wolf seemed to hear it 110

  well enough, and once she'd used it to summon him, and it had saved her life.

  Now she gave it a tentative blow.

  Nothing happened.

  Of course, she hadn't expected that it would. Wolf was far away on the Mountain.

  Feeling lonely, she unrolled her sleeping-sack and curled up by the fire.

  She awoke to the prickling certainty that she was not alone.

  The storm had passed, but the rain was still coming down in torrents, gurgling through secret channels in the cave walls. The fire had sunk to a smoldering glow. Beyond it--in the dark at the mouth of the cave-- something was watching her. She struggled upright and groped for her axe.

  The thing in the cave mouth was big: too big for a tokoroth. A lynx?

  A bear?

  But if it was a bear, she would hear it breathing. And it wouldn't stay outside.

  Somehow that didn't make her feel any better.

  "Who's there?" she said.

  She sensed rather than heard the creature come forward. Whatever it was, it moved as silently as breath.

  Then she saw the gleam of eyes.

  She cried out.

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  The creature backed away. Then it edged once more into the light.

  Renn gasped.

  It was a wolf. A big one, with a heavy coat of sodden gray fur. Its head was lowered to catch her scent, and it didn't look threatening or afraid. Just--wary. Renn took in the thick mantle of black fur across its shoulders. The great amber eyes.

  Those eyes . . .

  It couldn't be.

  Slowly she put down her axe.

  "Wolf?"

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  Chapter FOURT
EEN

  Wolf?" Renn said again. The wolf's tail was down but faintly wagging, his ears rammed forward. He was watching her intently, but not meeting her eyes--and he was shivering, although whether from cold, fear or eagerness, she couldn't tell. She leaped to her feet.

  "Wolf!

  It's me, Renn! Oh Wolf, it is you, isn't it?"

  At her outburst, the wolf backed away, giving short little grunt-whines that sounded aggrieved.

  She couldn't remember how Torak had said "hello"

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  in wolf talk, so she got down on her hands and knees, grinning and trying to catch the wolf's eye.

  That didn't seem right either. The wolf turned his head and backed even farther away.

  But was it really Wolf? When she'd known him he'd been a cub--but he'd grown so much! From nose to tail he was almost longer than she was; and if they'd stood side by side, his head would have reached her waist.

  When he was a cub, his fur had been a fluffy light gray, with a sprinkling of black across the shoulders. Now it was rich and thick, the gray subtly blended with white, black, silver and foxy red. But he still had that black mantle across the shoulders; and those extraordinary amber eyes. Thunder crashed directly overhead.

  Renn ducked.

  The wolf yelped and shot to the back of the cave. His ears were flattened, and he was trembling violently.

  Whoever he is, thought Renn, he's not yet full-grown, even if he looks it. Inside, he's still part cub.

  Out loud she said gently, "It's all right. You're safe here."

  The wolf's ears flicked forward to listen.

  "Wolf? It is you, isn't it?"

  He put his head on one side.

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  She had an idea. From her food pouch she shook a handful of dried lingonberries into her palm. As a cub, Wolf had adored lingonberries. The wolf drew close to her outstretched hand, and his black nose twitched. Then he delicately snuffled up the berries.

  "Oh,

  Wolf?

  cried Renn, "it is ou!"

  He darted back into the shadows. She'd startled him.

  She shook more lingonberries into her palm; and after some cajoling, he came forward and snuffled them up. Then he tried to nibble her finger guards. To distract him, she put a salmon cake on the ground. Wolf patted it with one forepaw in a gesture she remembered-- then gulped it down without even chewing. Four more went the same way, and now Renn was sure. The Wolf she'd known had loved salmon cakes.

  On hands and knees, she crawled toward him. "It's me," she said, reaching out and stroking the pale fur on his throat.

  Wolf leaped up and raced to the mouth of the cave, where he ran in circles, whining. She'd done something wrong. Again.

  In dismay she retreated to the fire and sat down. "Wolf, why are you here?" she said, although she knew he wouldn't understand. "Are you trying to find Torak, too?" 115

  Wolf licked crumbs of salmon off his chops, then trotted to the back of the cave and lay down with his muzzle between his paws.

  Outside, the thunder faded into the north as the World Spirit strode back to its Mountain. The cave filled with the gurgle of rain, and the pungent smell of wet wolf.

  Renn longed to tell Wolf how glad she was to see him, to ask if he'd found Torak; but she didn't know how. She'd never paid much attention when Torak spoke wolf, because she'd found it disturbing; it had made her feel as if she didn't really know him. Now she searched her memory. Wolves,

  Torak had said once,

  don't talk with their voices as much as we do, but more with their paws and tails, and ears and fur, and

  -

  um, with their whole bodies.

  But you haven

  't

  got a tail,

  Renn had pointed out.

  Or fur. And you can't move your ears. So how do you do it?

  I leave bits out. It's not easy, but we get by.

  If it was hard for Torak, how was she going to manage? How was Wolf going to help her find Torak if they couldn't even talk to each other? Wolf did not

  at all

  understand the female tailless.

  Her yip-and-yowls told him she was being friendly, but the rest of her was all chewed up: sometimes

  116

  threatening, sometimes saying sorry, and sometimes just--unsure.

  At first she'd seemed glad to see him, although he'd sensed a lot of mistrust. Then she'd stared at him rudely, and made it worse by rearing on her hind legs. Then she'd tried to apologize. Then she'd given him lingonberries and the flat fish without eyes that smelled of juniper. Then she'd apologized again

  by scratching his throat. Wolf had been so confused that! he'd run in circles.

  Now the Dark was over, and he was bored with waiting for her to wake up, so he pounced on her and asked her to play.

  She pushed him off, saying something in tailless talk that sounded like "Way! Way!" Wolf remembered Tall Tailless doing that. It seemed to be tailless for a growl.

  Leaving the female to get up and stumble out into the Light, he bounded off to explore the Den, and was soon digging a hole, enjoying the power of his paws and the feel of the earth against his pads.

  He heard a mouse scurrying in a tunnel. He stomped on the earth and seized the mouse in his jaws, tossed it high, then crunched it in two. He ate some beetles and a worm, then trotted out to find the female. The Hot Bright Eye was shining in the Up, and

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  he smelled that the Thunderer was gone. Greatly relieved, he raced through the ferns, relishing their wetness on his fur. He heard a fledgling magpie exploring its nest, and a forest horse in the next valley, scratching its belly on a fallen spruce. He smelled the female down by the Fast Wet, and found her standing with the LongClaw-That-Flies in her forepaws, pointing it at the ducks.

  Scaring ducks was one of Wolf's favorite games. It was how he'd learned to swim, when he'd leaped into what he'd

  thought

  was a little Wet covered in leaves, and gone under instead. Now he longed to crash into the Wet and send the ducks hurtling into the Up. Not to hunt them; only for fun. First, though, he must check with the female.

  Politely he waited, asking her with a flick of his ears if she was hunting the ducks.

  She ignored him.

  Wolf waited some more, knowing that taillesses hear and smell so poorly that you can be right in front of them and they don't know you're there. At length he decided it must be all right, and crept through the ferns to where the ducks paddled, unaware.

  He pounced. The ducks shot into the Up in a satisfying spray of indignant squawks.

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  To Wolf's astonishment, the female yowled at him angrily. "Woof! Woof!" she howled, waving the Long-Claw at him.

  Offended, Wolf trotted away. She should have

  told

  him she was hunting. He had asked.

  But he wasn't offended for long. And as he ran off to explore, he reflected that in some strange way, he needed the female to help him find Tall Tailless. Wolf didn't know how he knew this; it was simply the sureness that came to him sometimes. And now it was telling him that he needed to stay close to the female.

  The Hot Bright Eye rose in the Up, and at last she started along a deer trail to seek Tall Tailless. Being the leader, she went ahead and Wolf trotted behind-- which was an effort, because she was as slow as a newborn cub.

  After a while, they stopped at a little Wet, and the female shared some of the juniper fish. But when Wolf licked her muzzle and whined for more, she laughed and pushed him away. He was still wondering why she'd laughed, when the wind curled around, and the scent hit him full on the nose.

  He stopped. He raised his muzzle and took long, deep sniffs.

  Yes!

  The best scent in the Forest! The

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  scent of Tall Tailless!

  Wolf turned and ran back to follow the scent trail, all the way to a pine tree where, some Lights before, Tall Tailless had rest
ed his forepaw. Wolf raised his head to smell where the scent trail led. Back there!

  They were going the wrong way!

  Tall Tailless

  wasn't

  heading for the deep Forest--he was heading

  back,

  to where the Hot Bright Eye sinks down to sleep!

  The female was too far off for Wolf to see, but he could hear her crashing through the bracken, heading the wrong way.

  He barked at her.

  Wrong way! Back back back!

  He was frantic to follow his pack-brother, for he felt in his fur that Tall Tailless was many lopes away. But still the female refused to understand. Snarling with frustration, Wolf ran to fetch her.

  She stared at him.

  He leaped at her, knocking her to the ground and standing on her chest, barking.

  She was frightened. And she seemed to be finding it hard to breathe.

  Leave her, then.

  Wolf spun around on one forepaw and raced off to find Tall Tailless.

  V V V

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  Winded, Renn got up and brushed herself off.

  The Forest felt empty after Wolf had gone, but she was too proud to use the grouse-bone whistle to call for him. He had left her. That was that.

  In low spirits, she reached a fork in the trail, and stopped. She searched for some sign that Torak had come this way. Nothing. Just impenetrable holly trees and dripping bracken. Wolf had been so excited. And he'd been heading

  west. . .

  . West? But that would lead to the Sea. Why would Torak have turned away from the Deep Forest and headed for the Sea?

  Suddenly, Wolf appeared on the trail before her.

  Joy surged through her--but she repressed a cry of welcome. She'd made mistakes before. She wasn't going to repeat them.

  Squatting on her haunches, she told him in a soft voice how pleased she was to see him: keeping her eyes averted, and only now and then letting her gaze graze his. Wolf trotted up to her, wagging his tail. He nosed her cheek and gave her a ticklish grooming-nibble, followed by a lick.

  Gently she scratched behind his ears, and he licked her hand, this time refraining from trying to eat her finger guards.

  Then he turned and trotted west.

  "West," she said. "You're sure?"

  Wolf glanced back at her, and she saw the certainty in his amber eyes.