Oath Breaker

by Michelle Paver

  Up the ridge they went, with Wolf racing after them, loping this way and that, so they'd think they were hunted 156 by many hungry wolves. Rocks fell and branches snapped as they crashed into the next valley, down toward Tall Tailless and the Bitten One. The earth shook as Wolf drove them on, and his heart leaped.Thiswas what one wolf could do! 157

  NINETEEN

  At first, Torak thought it was a rockfall. The earth shook as if the Mountains were falling. He froze, knife in hand. The thunder swelled to a roar. A bison crashed into the grove. Torak ran for his life.

  He reached the hollies, threw himself at the nearest branch, and swung himself up--as the grove was engulfed by a heaving torrent of hoof and horn. Like a flash flood, the bison swept through, and Torak clung to the shuddering tree. The din pounded through him. It was never going to end. It did. The silence after it had gone was deafening. A pall of smoke and dust hung in the air, with the musky

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  smell of bison. The Great Oak and the Great Yew towered above it: inviolate, their branches pricking the night sky.

  As the dust settled, Torak saw sparks from the trampled fire scattered like stars over the ground. He dropped to earth and ran to search the grove. Thiazzi was gone.

  In disbelief, Torak stumbled about in the gloom, searching the stony slopes. Nothing. The pounding hooves had obliterated all hope of a trail. Thiazzi had vanished like smoke.

  " No!" shouted Torak. The echoes died. Pebbles fell like a rattle of stony laughter.

  He slumped onto a boulder. He'd lost his chance for vengeance.

  Wolf bounded out of the darkness and pounced on him joyously. His fur was full of burrs, and fluffed up with excitement. Torak had no idea why.

  Much prey, Torak told Wolf wearily.Nearly trampled. Good you weren't here. To Torak's bemusement, Wolf dropped his ears, gave an embarassed yawn, and rolled onto his back, sayingSorry. Torak asked him if the Bitten One was close.Gone,was all Wolf would say. Torak rubbed a hand over his face. He'd achieved nothing. The only thing to do now was make the long trudge back to the Red Deer camp and try to persuade 159 them that the Forest Horse Mage was indeed Thiazzi. And start all over again.

  A great weariness swept over him. He missed Renn. She would be furious with him for leaving her; but whatever she said couldn't be as bad as what he was saying to himself.

  By moonset, he'd reached the end of the valley of the horses and could go no farther. He found a fallen tree a few paces above the Windriver and made it into an inadequate shelter with branches and moldy bracken. He'd left his sleeping-sack with the Red Deer, but he was too tired to care; he would drag in more bracken for bedding. After chewing a slip of dried horse meat and tucking the last of it in a birch tree for the Forest, he wrapped his nettlestem mantle about him and fell asleep.

  This time, he knows he is dreaming. He is lying on his back in the shelter, but above him the sky is a blizzard of stars. He is in a cold sweat of terror, but he cannot move. A shadow darkens the stars as something leans over him. Wet hair slithers over his face. He hears the soft creak of moldering sealhide. His flesh shrinks from icy breath.

  It's lonely at the bottom of the Sea.... Fish eat my flesh. The Sea Mother rolls my bones. It's cold. So cold.

  Torak tries to speak. His lips won't move.

  Why didn't you come to me on the Crag? I was lonely, waiting for you. I'm lonelier now. And so cold...

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  Torak woke with a start.

  Dawn had not yet come. He hadn't slept long. Wolf was gone, but Rip and Rek were hopping about outside the shelter, cawing.Wake up, wake up! Torak dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I'm sorry, kinsman. I missed my chance. But I'll find him again, I swear. I will avenge you." The ravens would watch over Tall Tailless, and Wolf would not go far. But he couldn't ignore those howls.

  He had heard them in his sleep. Darkfur had come down from the Mountain, she was trying to find him! Then he'd woken up, and disappointment had crushed him. She was in theother Now,not this one.

  But he'd heard her again. Very faint and far away, but it was her. He would know her howl anywhere. Panting with eagerness, he loped through the Forest. As the Light came, he leaped a little Fast Wet, and splashed through a bigger one. Tall Tailless would be all right with the ravens. And Wolf would not be away for long.

  The ravens flew from tree to tree, fluffing up their head-feathers and making stony chuk-chukwarning calls. Warning of what? wondered Torak. Dawn was breaking as he left the Windriver and headed north, toward the Red Deer camp. The wind 161 was gusting, the trees moaning. His misgivings grew: a tightness in the chest that made it hard to breathe.

  Others felt it too. Birds fled across the sky--jays, magpies, crows. Reindeer cantered past, scarcely swerving to avoid him, as if escaping a greater threat. Torak thought of Renn and quickened his pace.

  Ahead, a figure emerged from behind a rowan, and he recognized the Red Deer woman with the bark-bound head. She dithered, then overcame her shyness and ran down to him. "At last!" she said with a timid smile. "We've been looking for you everywhere!"

  "What's wrong?" he said brusquely. "Is Renn all right?"

  "She's safe with the others; it's you we were worried about. We didn't know where you'd gone."

  They headed up the trail, the woman lagging behind, Torak running ahead. He heard a distant growl of thunder. The first drops of rain pattered on the leaves, and he put up his hood. Something grabbed his ankle and yanked him high into the air.

  The earth swung sickeningly. As the dizziness cleared, he realized that he was hanging by one leg from a young rowan tree--which, moments before, had been bent double.

  You fool,he berated himself. A simple spring trap, and you blunder right into it!

  His knife wasn't in its sheath. It lay where it had fallen

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  in a clump of goosefoot, out of reach. Furious, he shouted at the woman to come and cut him down.

  She came running up the trail. "You're caught in a trap," she said.

  "Well, obviously!" he snapped. "Cut me down!"

  Her arms hung limp at her sides.

  Were her wits completely gone? Snarling with frustration, Torak made a grab for the rope, which was drawn tight around his left ankle. He fell back with a growl."Cut me down!"

  "No," said the woman.

  "What?"The rope creaked. Rain pattered on the leaves.

  Only it isn't rain, he realized. It's ash. Flakes of ash, swirling like dirty snow. And that glow in the sky, it's in the wrong place for dawn. Not east, but west. "Fire," he said. "There's a fire in the Forest."

  "Yes," said the woman in an altered voice.

  Upside down, Torak saw her pull off the bark that covered her head and shake out her long, ash-gray hair.

  "The fire has escaped," she said. "It is eating the Forest. The Chosen One has set it free."

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  TWENTY

  Like a fish on a hook, Torak dangled from the tree, while the sky darkened to an angry orange twilight which had nothing to do with the sun. "You can't leave me here to burn!" he cried.

  "You are an unbeliever," said the woman. "You are for the fire." "Why? What have I done?" Bending double and hauling himself up the rope, he made a grab for the nearest branch. It snapped. He fell back, jarring his leg. "What have Idone?"

  Squatting on her haunches, the woman peered at him. Her face was blistered and peeling, and in her lashless eyes 164

  he saw the cunning behind the madness. "The Chosen One watches him," she hissed. "She sees him wake the fire with stone; she sees him dishonor it. She knows." "What do youwant?"

  She licked her cracked lips, and he saw the ash crusting the corners. "To serve the Master, and through him to know the fire once more. The red so pure it makes all else gray..."

  "But the Master wants to rulethe Forest," he panted. "He can't want you to destroy it!" She smiled. "The Master says to watch the unbeliever, but the Chosen One will do more. She will give him to the fire." "Wait," he sai
d, desperate to keep her with him. "Was it--was it the Master who made you the Chosen One?"

  Her features lit up like embers. "It was the fire," she whispered. "On a clear blue day, the lightning sought her from the sky. No thunder, no warning. Just that blazing brightness, brighter than the sun--and she at its very heart." She leaned closer, and he smelled her acrid breath. "In that moment, she seeseverything.The bones in her flesh, the veins in the leaves, the fire that sleeps in every tree. She sees the truth.Everything burns:"

  The roar of the fire was getting louder. Smoke was seeping through the trees. "But you survived," he said. "The lightning let you live. You should let me live. Cut me down!"

  165 She was oblivious, lost in her story. "The fire took her for its own. It turned her hair to ash. It scorched the child from her womb. Ittransformedher...." Her burning fingers stroked his cheek, and her smile was tender and merciless. "It will transform you, too."

  He thought of Thiazzi's charred sacrifices on the tree. "You can't leave me here to burn," he pleaded. "Listen to it grow!" With raised arms she saluted the fire. "The more it eats, the greater its hunger! You are honored. The fire will take you for its own." Then she was gone.

  "Don't leave me!" shouted Torak. "Don't leave me," he begged.

  A shard of blazing bark struck the ground by his head. Around him the trees thrashed in the fire's searing breath. The sky had deepened to bloody amber. He saw it coming for him from the west, and he remembered what Fin-Kedinn had said.It can leap into a tree faster than a lynx, and when it does--when it gets into the branches--then it goes where it likes. You wouldn't believe how fast....

  The Bright Beast came roaring through the Forest, faster than Wolf thought possible. It was eating everything: trees, hunters, prey. Where was Tall Tailless? Wolf should never have left him. He hadn't found Darkfur, and now he couldn't find his pack-brother. Desperately, Wolf loped into the bitter breath of the 166

  Bright Beast. The panicked prey thundered past, fleeing the other way, and he dodged their trampling hooves. He splashed across a little Fast Wet. He skittered down a gully--and the Bright Beast reared above him, big as a Mountain. His pelt crisped; his eyes stung. He couldn't go any farther, couldn't seek his pack-brother in its very jaws. It was eating everything, and if it caught him, it would eat him, too.

  Spinning around, he raced back up the gully, and the Bright Beast raced after him. It lashed out a glittering claw. Wolf leaped to avoid it. It pounced on a tree and ate it. Another sapling groaned--Wolf sped beneath it just before it crashed---and the Bright Beast's cubs flew through the air and devoured more trees. Hot stones bit Wolf's pads. He ran as he'd never run before, and the Bright Beast raced after him. It flew, it leaped from tree to tree, it soared over the Wet. It was eating the Forest. Nothing could escape.

  Snarling with effort, Torak pulled himself upright and made another grab at the rowan. His fingers brushed bark, but couldn't grasp it. Yet again he fell back. He had another try. This time, he caught a branch. He clung on. This had to work. If it didn't, he was finished.

  Shaking his boot off his free foot, he slapped his bare sole against the rowan's trunk and half kicked, half hauled himself into the fork. He lay gasping, the tree digging 167

  into his belly. He was upright at last.

  No time to rest. He wriggled and squirmed till he'd got into a crouch in the fork, supported on his right foot. His left leg, tethered to higher up the trunk, stuck out awkwardly.

  Chunks of blazing bark thudded like fiery hail as he tugged at the noose around his ankle; but his weight had pulled it savagely tight around his boot, it wouldn't budge. Frantically he worked at the knot. His right calf trembled with the strain of supporting him.

  The noose gave slightly. He worked at it. It loosened a little more. It was all he needed. Twisting and tugging, he yanked his foot from his boot, wriggled out of the noose, and jumped to earth.

  After a desperate scramble in the undergrowth, he found his knife and staggered to his feet. His eyes were streaming, his skin prickling with heat. Smoke had turned day to night.

  A roe buck sped past. He guessed it was heading for wetlands and ran after it. Cinders stung his feet. He was barefoot. No time to go back for his boots. As he ran, he glanced over his shoulder. Flames taller than trees were licking at the sky. The noise was like nothing he'd ever heard, it was the thunder of a thousand thousand bison, it seized his heart and squeezed it dry, it sucked the air from his lungs.

  He dropped to a crouch and gulped cleaner air, and

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  when he straightened up, the smoke was so thick that he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. He didn't know where he was, but he knew he had to decide now, this instant, which way to run--or he would die. A loudcark!

  He couldn't see the ravens but he heard them calling to him as they flew high above the smoke. Blindly, he followed their cries. Burning branches rained down. He was running in the very breath of the fire, and all around him trees were snapping and groaning.

  Again he glanced back. A river of flame slithered up a pine tree, which exploded in a shower of sparks. A wood grouse flew skyward, then dropped back again, sucked to its death in the burning wind.

  Quork! Quork! called Rip and Rek.Follow! Suddenly the ground was gone, and Torak was rolling and bumping downhill.

  He jolted to a halt and struggled to his knees. Hands and feet sank into mud: cold, wet, blessed mud. The ravens had led him to a lake. He splashed into the shallows-and fell headlong over a rock.

  The rock gave a piteous whinny. It was a foal, a small black foal, sunk to its knobbly fetlocks in mud, shaking with terror. It was too frightened to move, but Torak couldn't stop to help. He waded past.

  Ahead of him, the murk thinned for a moment, and in the lake he made out the bobbing black heads of horses 169 swimming for their lives, and beyond them a beaver lodge as big as a Raven shelter.

  Another anguished whinny from the foal--and in the lake, one of the black heads turned. The mother must have waited as long as she dared, but when her foal wouldn't follow, she'd had to leave. Now she swam reluctantly with the herd, forced to leave her young one to its doom.

  That was what Torak should do: swim for the beaver lodge and leave the foal to burn.

  With a growl, he turned back, grabbed a handful of its spiky mane, and pulled.

  The foal rolled its white-rimmed eyes and refused to budge. "Comeon!"yelled Torak."Swim!It's your last chance!" That only made things worse. The foal didn't understand people talk, but what was Torak supposed to do? If he said it in wolf talk, it'd die of fright.

  Getting behind the little creature, he shoved his head under its belly and heaved it onto his shoulders. It struggled feebly, so he grabbed its legs to hold it still, and staggered into the lake.

  When he was waist deep, he chucked the foal in the water. "You're on your own!" he shouted above the clamor of the fire. "Swim!" He threw himself in and struck out for the beaver lodge.

  The fire's name-soul glared at him from the water. Over his shoulder, he saw it claiming the slope down

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  which he'd fallen. He saw the foal swimming bravely behind him.

  He was nearly at the beaver lodge, and tiring fast. Billows of black smoke rolled toward him. He couldn't breathe. He'd intended to climb onto the lodge and shelter there till the fire had leaped the lake, but now he realized that if he did, he would choke to death. He had to get inside. Beaver lodges have a sleeping-chamber above water level, which the beavers reach by underwater tunnels. Torak took a deep breath and dived.

  Groping at branches, he sought the mouth of a tunnel. His chest was bursting. He couldn't find a tunnel, couldn't see a thing, it was like swimming in mud. He found an opening. Squeezed through it--burst from the water--and struck his head on a sapling.

  He could barely see in the red gloom, but the roar of the fire wasn't quite so deafening. Through the stench of smoke, he caught the musky stink of beaver, but he couldn't see any; maybe the fire h
ad overtaken them on the shore.

  They had built their lodge well. The sleeping-platform was littered with wood chips to keep it snug and dry, while above, the branches were loosely packed to make an air vent which reached to the top of the lodge. The sleeping-platform was only beaver high, and Torak didn't want to get stuck, so he decided to stay in the water and wait out the fire.

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  Gasping for breath, he thanked the beavers and Rip and Rek and the Forest for his shelter.

  "Please," he panted,"pleasekeep Wolf and Renn safe."

  His words were lost in the roar of the fire, and he felt in his heart that it was hopeless. The fire was eating the Forest. Nothing could survive. Not Wolf. Not Renn.

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  TWENTY-ONE

  Renn stumbled about in a world burned black.. The Forest was gone. It simply wasn't there anymore. She wandered between charcoal spikes which had once been trees. She felt their bewildered souls thronging the soot-laden air, but was too devastated to pity them. Even the sun was gone, swallowed up in an unearthly gray halflight. Had the fire taken the whole Forest? The Open Forest as well as the Deep?

  The stink made her cough, and the sound echoed eerily. When she stopped, all she could hear was a furtive crackle of embers, the occasional crash of a falling tree. Death, she thought, death everywhere. Where is

  173 Torak? Is he alive? Or is he ...

  No.Don't think it. He's with Wolf. They are both alive, and so is Fin-Kedinn, and Rip and Rek. Rubbing her face, she felt the grittiness of soot. She was covered in it. She tasted it on her tongue. Her eyes were swollen and sore. She'd swallowed so much smoke, she felt sick.

  She was thirsty, too, but she had no waterskin. Only her axe and knife and the wovenstem quiver the Red Deer had given her, containing her last three arrows. And of course her bow.

  To give herself courage, she unslung it from her shoulder and rubbed the grime from its waist. Golden heartwood gleamed. She thought of Fin-Kedinn making it for her many summers ago, and felt a little less alone.