Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

by Michelle Paver

  The ice storm had obliterated all hope of a trail, but the day before, Wolf had headed south, so that was where they went.

  It proved almost impossible. The ice was the snow’s evil sister. When they broke through frozen branches, it sent shards flying at their eyes. It made them fall, and punished them when they did. Soon they were covered in bruises.

  Now and then, Torak stopped to howl. I am seeking you, pack-brother! The Forest threw back his howls unanswered.

  At last they reached the frozen river. Torak saw the corpse of a mallard trapped in reeds, its brilliant green head carapaced in ice. He put his hands to his lips and howled.

  No reply.

  The river was so slippery they had to cross it on hands and knees, but when they reached the opposite bank, they found the way blocked by a stand of fallen beech. They had no choice but to head upstream.

  Torak howled till he was hoarse.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ said Renn. ‘He will hear you. He will howl back.’

  But Wolf did not howl back, and Torak feared that he never would. This was the valley of the Redwater, where the demon bear had killed his father. Maybe it was where Wolf, too, had met his death.

  Around mid-afternoon, the trees thinned and a bitter wind rattled the leaves. It was the wind off the fells. They were nearing the edge of the Forest.

  They came to a grove of crushed pines, and a boulder hung with icicles longer than spears.

  Beneath the boulder, they found Wolf.

  TWELVE

  Wolf was alive – but only just. Ice caked his fur, and his muzzle was white with frozen breath. When Torak swung his axe and sent the icicles clattering from the boulder, Wolf opened his eyes. Renn was shocked. His gaze was dull. It didn’t light up when he saw his pack-brother.

  Renn watched Torak crawl in beside him, trying to reassure with glance and touch and whine. Wolf’s tail barely twitched.

  ‘We’ve got to get him warm,’ said Torak, clawing ice from Wolf’s pelt.

  ‘I’ll wake a fire,’ said Renn, ‘you build a shelter around us.’

  They worked in silence, Torak dragging fallen saplings, chipping off the ice, setting them against the boulder to close in the space; Renn rousing a smoky, reluctant blaze. In the warmth, Wolf’s fur began to steam, but his eyes remained incurious, their amber light quenched.

  Renn set a salmon cake by his muzzle. He ignored it. Alarmed, she tried to tempt him with a few dried lingonberries. He ignored them too. When Rip and Rek stalked in and stole the lot, he didn’t turn a whisker.

  ‘Thank the Spirit we found him in time,’ said Torak, dragging the door shut behind him. ‘He’ll be all right once he’s warmed up.’

  Renn bit her lip. ‘Give me your medicine horn. I’ll try a healing rite.’

  Feeling Torak watching her, she shook earthblood into her palm and daubed some on Wolf’s forehead, muttering a charm.

  ‘He’ll get better now,’ said Torak. ‘Won’t he? Renn?’

  She did not reply. Wolf was sick to his souls with grief. And from that you can die.

  As the moon rose, they got into their sleeping-sacks. Torak lay with one arm over Wolf, trying to comfort by his nearness, as in the past, Wolf had comforted him. At times, Wolf’s tail stirred listlessly, but Renn could see that he was giving up.

  Next day dawned icily clear, with no sign of a thaw. As light stole into the shelter, Renn saw with a clutch of terror that Wolf was no better.

  Torak saw it too, but said nothing. Renn guessed that he was staring into the abyss of a future without Wolf.

  Worried about their supplies, she said she would set some snares. Torak would not leave Wolf, so she went alone, not going far for fear of tokoroths. When she got back, she tried every healing rite she knew. Wolf submitted without so much as a twitch of his ears. He didn’t care.

  ‘I’ve done all I can,’ Renn said at last.

  ‘There must be something more,’ said Torak.

  ‘If there is, I don’t know it.’

  ‘But he’s better than when we found him. He could barely move, he’s stronger now.’

  ‘Torak. You know what’s happening as well as I do.’

  She saw the terror in his face.

  ‘But he’s still got us,’ he insisted. ‘We’re part of the pack, too.’

  He was right. But whether that was enough to keep Wolf alive, Renn didn’t know.

  As dusk came on, she went to check the snares. Her hunting luck had held; one held a frozen hare. She told herself this was a good sign, but on her way back, she saw tracks. Small. Human. With claws.

  At camp, she found Torak standing outside. His lips moved in silent prayer, and for one terrible moment, she thought Wolf had died. Then she saw the lock of dark hair tied to a branch. Torak was offering part of himself to the Forest in return for Wolf’s life.

  ‘Torak,’ she said gently. ‘You can’t do this.’ She reached out to untie the offering, but Torak pushed her hand away.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he cried. ‘It’s for Wolf!’

  ‘I know, but think! Your hair contains part of your world-soul. There are tokoroths about. If they got hold of it, there’s no knowing what they might do.’

  In furious silence he watched her untie the hair and stow it in her medicine pouch. ‘You think Wolf’s going to die, don’t you?’ he said. He made it sound like a betrayal.

  ‘If he doesn’t want to live,’ she said in a low voice, ‘then no spells, or prayers, or offerings can make him.’

  Angrily, Torak turned his back on her.

  Feeling shaky and sick, she stowed her catch in the shelter, and fed the fire, and stroked Wolf, and asked Rip and Rek to watch over him. Then she went to draw lines of power around the camp. To keep the tokoroths away.

  Renn was right about Wolf, and Torak came close to hating her for it.

  But what he really hated was what was happening to his pack-brother. He hated that he couldn’t stop it. He hated the eagle owl. Most of all, he hated Eostra.

  He slept fitfully, waking often, and always finding Wolf gazing at the fire. I’m here, pack-brother, Torak told him.

  I miss them, Wolf replied.

  I know. I’m here.

  Torak sank his fingers into the warm fur of his pack-brother’s chest, and felt the beat of his heart. He willed it to carry on.

  Next time Torak wakes, it is to utter blackness. Wolf is gone. Renn is gone. He is alone.

  He walks, but he can’t feel the ground beneath his feet. He is cold, but he can’t feel the wind in his face, or hear the creak of the trees. It is so dark that he can’t see his hand when he holds it before him.

  This is not spirit walking: he feels no wrenching pain. This is worse. He is still himself, Torak, but something is missing. Inside him there is a terrible, yawning emptiness.

  ‘Renn? Wolf?’ he calls, but his voice stays trapped inside his head. There is nowhere for it to go. He is alone in nothingness.

  ‘Renn!’ he screams as he spins in endless dark. ‘Wolf!’

  Wolf woke with a start.

  He heard the growls of the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot, and the pack-sister whiffling in her sleep. Tall Tailless was gone.

  Worry gripped Wolf from nose to tail. Tall Tailless was clever, but he could hardly smell or hear, and in the Dark he was as helpless as a cub.

  Swivelling his ears, Wolf caught sounds outside the Den. He heard trees shivering beneath the Bright Hard Cold, and voles scrabbling to break out of their burrows. He couldn’t hear his pack-brother, but he sensed that Tall Tailless needed him.

  Stepping silently over the pack-sister, Wolf left the Den. Hunger made him weak, but his senses prickled.

  Lifting his muzzle, he snuffed the scents. His hackles rose as he caught the smell of demon.

  Placing each paw with stalking care, Wolf moved noiselessly over the brittle ground.

  Tall Tailless stood a few lopes away, beneath a spruce tree. He was swaying. His eyes were open, but he did not see, and Wolf knew th
at he slept.

  In the tree above Tall Tailless’ head, a shadow moved.

  In a snap, Wolf took in everything. He saw the tailless cub-demon crouched on the branch above his pack-brother. He sensed its hunger and hatred, he saw the great stone claw in its forepaw, ready to strike.

  With a snarl, Wolf sped across the Bright Hard Cold.

  Something smashed into Torak and felled him.

  He caught the glitter of demon eyes, the glint of a knife – then Wolf – Wolf – was leaping at the tokoroth, and it was scrambling up a tree and into the dark.

  ‘Are you all right?’ cried Renn, running towards him.

  Dazed, he struggled to his feet. Branches cracked as the tokoroth escaped from tree to tree, and Wolf – a silver arrow in the moonlight – raced after it.

  Torak tried to go after him, but his knees buckled.

  ‘Come back inside,’ urged Renn.

  ‘I’ve got to help Wolf.’

  ‘You’re not wearing your parka. Inside before you freeze!’

  Once they were in the shelter, Torak found that he was shaking, but not with cold. ‘Wh-at happened to me?’

  ‘You were sleepwalking.’ In the firelight, Renn’s face was ashen. ‘I woke up, you were gone. I went out, saw you standing beyond the lines of power. You looked right through me. It was horrible. I saw the tokoroth in the tree, it was aiming at your head. Then Wolf came out of nowhere. He saved you.’

  Torak thought of Wolf chasing the demon.

  ‘I think Eostra made you sleepwalk,’ said Renn, wrenching him back.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I think she tried it once before, in the Deep Forest. Remember?’

  Torak shut his eyes. That brought the blackness back, so he opened them again. ‘Why would she?’ he mumbled.

  ‘I think,’ said Renn, ‘she wanted to make you go beyond the earthblood I’d laid down, so that her tokoroth could get you. But why?’ she said to herself. ‘It wouldn’t make sense to kill you, then your power would be lost. It doesn’t fit. None of it fits.’

  Torak rested his forehead on his knees. Renn touched his cheek with the back of her hand and asked how he was feeling, and he said all right. She asked how he’d felt when he was sleepwalking, and he said, ‘Empty. I was in nothingness. I was lost.’

  Renn sucked in her breath. Torak asked her what it meant, but she wouldn’t say. He knew she was keeping things from him. He didn’t care. Wolf had saved him, and now he was out there alone. Against the tokoroth.

  The demon disappeared into a thicket, and Wolf lost the scent. Shaking himself in disgust, he turned and trotted back to the Den.

  The Bright Hard Cold bit his pads, and he was extremely hungry and weak; but he felt better than he had since the owl attacked, and he held his tail high. He had saved his pack-brother from the demon. This was what he was for.

  As he neared the Den, the ravens swooped and croaked at him, and he made a feeble play-leap to chase them away. The ravens were with the pack, but not of it; they had to be kept in their place.

  The pack-sister came out of the Den and said something surprised in tailless talk. Then she ducked inside and came out again, with her forepaws full of those small, flat salmon that didn’t have any eyes. Wolf gulped the lot, and felt much better. He was licking the last bits off her paws when Tall Tailless came out of the Den. Tall Tailless saw Wolf, and went still. Wolf gave a whimper and threw himself at his pack-brother, and they rolled, whining and rubbing their noses in each other’s delicious scent.

  The Hot Bright Eye rose in the Up, splashing the Forest with light, and Wolf felt that this was good. Darkfur and the cubs were gone, and he would miss them always; but he understood now that he couldn’t be with them. Tall Tailless and the pack-sister were part of the pack, too, and they needed him.

  A wolf does not abandon his pack.

  THIRTEEN

  The wolf cub did not at all understand what was going on.

  How had he got to this empty hillside so far from the resting place? And where was the pack?

  He remembered the ravens cawing, and the terrible owl attacking his mother. He’d watched them fighting from under the juniper bush: his mother leaping and snapping, the great owl lashing out with its claws. Then his mother wasn’t there any more, and his father was fighting the owl, and Tall Tailless was barking at the cub to stay, but he couldn’t. He fled, and suddenly claws were biting his flanks and he couldn’t feel the ground, he was flying.

  He’d wriggled and whined, but nobody heard him. His father and Tall Tailless shrank to dots as the terrible owl carried him higher. Even the ravens dropped behind. Then there was no more Forest, only empty whiteness speckled with sticks that looked like trees.

  The cub had whimpered in terror.

  The owl flew for an endless time. Next thing, the cub woke to angry caws, and the ravens were diving out of the Up. They were mobbing the owl, who was twisting and swerving. The cub tried to bite its legs, but he couldn’t reach. Again and again the ravens attacked. Suddenly the owl let go and the cub was falling.

  He plopped into the Bright Soft Cold and lay shaking, too frightened to move.

  When nothing happened, he struggled upright and poked out his head.

  The terrible owl was gone.

  So was everything else. No ravens. No Forest. No wolves. Only the wind and the white.

  Digging himself out of the Bright Soft Cold, the cub floundered uphill to sniff the smells, as he’d seen his father do. His flanks hurt and his legs shook. He was hungry and very, very scared. He put up his muzzle and howled.

  Nobody came.

  The cub had eaten some of the Bright Soft Cold, but though it filled him up a bit, it didn’t chase away the hunger.

  Wearily, he padded along the hillside. The wind had dropped and the Dark was coming. His claws felt strangely tight, and he sensed that everything – the hill, the Bright Soft Cold, even the Up – was waiting: for something bad.

  He came to a clump of small, twisted willows that clung to the slope. They reminded him of the resting place, so he decided to stay close.

  Nosing around, he found what seemed to be a Den. From it came an interesting smell that he couldn’t remember.

  Just then, something hit him on the nose. With a yelp, he sprang back – and something hit him on the rump. Now it was pelting him all over, hitting his back, ears, paws. It was coming from the Up. He raised his head. It hit him in the eye. He shot under a willow.

  The pattering grew to a thunder. The Bright Hard Cold was roaring from the Up, snapping branches, pummelling the cub.

  The Den. Get inside the Den.

  Seizing his courage in his jaws, he made a dash for it. Ha! The Bright Hard Cold couldn’t get him in here! He heard it snarling, furious at not being able to reach him.

  The Den was only a bit bigger than he was, but at the back, that interesting smell was much stronger. The cub remembered it now. Wolverine.

  Wolverines are extremely fierce, but luckily, this one wasn’t moving. The cub sniffed. He extended a wary paw. The wolverine was Not-Breath.

  The cub was used to eating soft, chewable meat which his mother and father sicked up; he had to struggle to get his jaws around a part of the wolverine. The meat was so tough it was like chewing a log, but after much gnawing, he tore off a chunk and gulped it down.

  He ate till his jaws ached and his belly felt full. Then he rolled in the rotten smell and went to sleep.

  When he woke up, the Bright Hard Cold was still pounding the hillside, so he ate some more wolverine and slept. And woke. Ate. Slept . . .

  When he woke again, all was quiet.

  In the Now that he’d gone to in his sleep, he and his pack-sister had been clambering over his mother, play-biting her tail while she nuzzled their bellies.

  In this Now, he was alone.

  He whimpered. The noise he made in the stillness frightened him, so he stopped, and gnawed some more wolverine. Then he padded to the mouth of the Den.
>
  The glare hurt his eyes. No smells. The only sounds were a strange crackling, and the hissing of the wind.

  Blinking, he saw that the willows lay broken beneath the Bright Hard Cold. The whole world lay beneath the Bright Hard Cold.

  He ventured out. His paws shot from under him and he fell. He scrambled upright, digging in his claws.

  Above him rose the white hill. Below him it swooped down, then up again. The cub didn’t dare move. There was nowhere to move to. He lifted his muzzle and howled.

  It was the strongest, least wobbly howl he’d ever managed – but no wolf answered.

  Instead, a raven flew down, landing a few lopes away from him. Then another.

  The cub lashed his tail and yowled with joy. These were his ravens, they belonged to the pack! Sleeking back his ears, he bounded towards them, slithering about on the Bright Hard Cold.

  The ravens flew off, laughing. The cub didn’t care, he was used to their tricks: they often pecked his tail and stole his meat. He raced after them – forgot about digging in his claws – and slid down the hill.

  Still cawing with laughter, the ravens flew after him.

  Crossly, the cub got up and shook himself.

  The ravens lifted into the sky and flew away.

  He barked. Come back!

  The ravens circled over him, then flew off again, waggling their tails as they disappeared over the hill. Quork! Follow!

  The cub laboured after them. When he reached the top of the hill, what he saw made him whimper in terror.

  Above him rose the biggest rocks he’d ever seen; far bigger than even the boulder beyond the resting place.

  Quork! croaked the ravens.

  The cub was terrified. But he didn’t want to get left behind.

  Narrowing his eyes against the wind, he started after the ravens, towards the Mountains.

  FOURTEEN

  ‘How many daywalks to the Mountains?’ said Torak.

  Renn shook her head.

  They stood with the Forest at their back, staring over the rolling, snowbound fells. Far in the distance – yet dreadfully present – rose the shining peaks of the High Mountains.