Chronicles of Ancient Darkness

by Michelle Paver

  Fin-Kedinn took this in silence. Then he said, ‘Thull isn’t the only leader among them. What about the others?’

  ‘The Willow Clan Leader helped keep order for a while, and Durrain of the Red Deer. Then the sickness attacked them too. They’ve had to be confined to their shelters. And now Saeunn is dying.’

  ‘Saeunn has the shadow sickness?’ Fin-Kedinn said sharply.

  ‘No. She wore herself out tending her people. When we left, she was sinking fast. Thull says he can’t lead without her. He’s right. The clans won’t listen to him alone.’

  ‘They’ll have to,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘I must reach the Mountain.’

  ‘But why?’ Uneasily, Etan peered into the thicket, where a shadowy figure hid beyond reach of the light.

  ‘Who is that with you?’ asked one of the Rowan hunters. ‘Why won’t they come out and speak their name?’

  Fin-Kedinn did not reply. The shadow in the thicket edged deeper into the dark.

  ‘What do you hope to gain out here?’ said Etan. ‘What can even Fin-Kedinn achieve against the evil one?’

  ‘If we’re to have a chance against Eostra,’ said the Raven Leader, speaking the name distinctly, ‘it won’t be by might, but by Magecraft. I journey with one who knows these things; who knows how to find Eostra in the Mountain of Ghosts, and how to remain hidden from her and her creatures. That’s all I can tell you.’

  Etan met his eyes. ‘Maybe this will change your mind. Saeunn herself sends word. She says only you can steady the clans.’

  ‘Saeunn was against my leaving,’ said Fin-Kedinn. ‘Of course she wants me back.’

  ‘She bids you remember what she saw in the embers. She says, the spirit walker will die. Not even you can alter that. She says the place of the Raven Leader is with the living. She says you must return.’

  The fire sputtered. The hunters waited for Fin-Kedinn’s answer. The figure in the thicket watched and listened.

  Fin-Kedinn rose and strode to the edge of the trees, where a lone boulder stood guard over the lake. In the distance, the Mountains were black against the stars. They were still a long way off. If he returned to the Forest now, could he be sure that his companion would make the journey alone?

  He stared at the sky. It gave him no answers. The World Spirit was far away, battling the Great Auroch. The troubles of men were not its concern.

  And somewhere out there were Torak and Renn: isolated, vulnerable, like two tiny sparks about to be snuffed out by the night.

  Fin-Kedinn ground his fist against the boulder. Duty called him to the Forest. His heart pulled him towards the Mountains.

  The wind sank to a whisper. The granite was hard beneath his hand.

  Fin-Kedinn turned from the darkness and walked back towards the fire.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  As Wolf slewed to a halt in the windy Dark, he sensed that his pack-brother was many lopes away. He’d made a mistake. He should never have run off into the Mountains.

  He’d been gnawing the reindeer head near the great Den of the Taillesses when the eagle owl had swooped over him. He had known it was a trick, but he couldn’t not follow. It had taken his cub.

  Through Darks and Lights he had chased it, but now it was gone, and he didn’t know where he was. His paws sank into the Bright Soft Cold, and the Mountains loomed over him. The wind carried the smell of ptarmigan and hare – but no Tall Tailless.

  Lifting his muzzle, Wolf uttered sharp, seeking barks. Where are you?

  No beloved answering howl.

  The wind veered and Wolf turned into it – and caught a smell he’d never smelt before. Dogs; but something was wrong with them. Wolf smelt that they were big and strong, cunning and full of hate. His claws tightened. Against such as these, Tall Tailless had no more chance than a newborn cub.

  It was a blustery day, and the wind moaned through the Gorge of the Hidden People. Torak had heard no strange howls, but whenever a pebble fell, he started.

  From time to time, he came across a boulder on which a spiral had been hammer-etched. Juksakai had said that his ancestors had made them to mark the trail to the Mountain; but no-one had ventured in for many winters.

  Who, then, had scraped the spirals clean of ice?

  And where was Wolf?

  Torak tried not to think of what Eostra’s dogs could do to his pack-brother. And he couldn’t even howl for him, except in his head.

  In places, the snow lay thigh-deep; in others, Torak had to scramble over rocks scoured bare by the wind. He was soon sweating, but thanks to his Mountain clothes, he didn’t get chilled. His jerkin had dense diverbird plumage at front and back, but looser-feathered ptarmigan under the arms to let out the sweat. His musk-ox wool socks were light as gossamer, yet incredibly warm. Pads of dried moss in his boots prevented blisters, and rawhide coils on the soles gave a good grip.

  But nothing could protect him from the thinning air. His head ached. He felt constantly breathless. Worst of all was the knowledge that he was where he should not be.

  The Gorge of the Hidden People was a bewildering maze of gullies and spurs and twisting valleys. Looming cliffs shut out the sky. The Redwater had fled underground. This was a world of stone.

  And the Hidden People didn’t want him here.

  ‘They make you see things,’ Juksakai had said. ‘Once near the mouth of the Gorge, I found a snow-vole turned to stone. Another time I saw a great white bird vanish into the cliff.’

  ‘But what are the Hidden People?’ Torak had asked. He knew they lived in lakes and streams and rocks; he’d even sensed them at times, and the memory was very bad. But he’d never paused to consider what they were, or where they came from.

  ‘They used to be clans, like us,’ Juksakai had told him. ‘But long ago in the Great Hunger, they took to killing and eating people. The World Spirit punished them by decreeing that they must hide for ever, only coming out when no-one is near. That’s why you never see them. If ever you get close, all you find is stones.’

  Torak sensed them peering at him from clefts in the rockface. He passed a ring of standing stones that leant towards each other. Glancing back, he caught a blur of movement. As he walked, he heard a furtive rustling. It stopped when he did, but when he went on, it started again.

  Around mid-afternoon, he paused for breath. ‘I mean you no harm,’ he told the dwellers in the rocks. ‘I seek the Soul-Eater. I have no quarrel with you.’

  A whirring overhead. He threw himself sideways. The boulder exploded on impact, pelting him with fragments.

  Later, he heard the gurgle of water, and traced it to a spring in a gully. He found clumps of the heathery scrub Juksakai had used for waking fire; and an overhang that he could wall in with rocks, for a shelter.

  No stones whistled down in the night, and he heard no strange howls. But there was no sign of Wolf, either.

  Next morning the wind was gone. The stillness felt unnatural. Intentional.

  Torak wasn’t long out of the gully when he found tracks in the snow. Some time before, a pack of dogs had raced through the Gorge. Torak made out seven sets of prints, all bigger than any he’d ever seen.

  Dry-mouthed, he drew his knife, and followed the trail round a spur.

  The young hare had been torn apart. Dark-red entrails were flung across the snow like discarded rope. Ice-rimed eyes stared from its mangled skull.

  Torak pictured the hare’s desperate zigzag as the dogs ran it down. They had ripped it apart, spattering flesh and brains over thirty paces, but eating nothing. They had done it because they could.

  Pity and disgust churned inside him as he muttered a prayer for the hare’s souls. But as he headed off, it was for himself that he prayed. He had told Renn that Eostra wanted him alive. But alive, he reflected, did not necessarily mean whole.

  The smell of sweat wafted from the neck of his robe. A dog would scent that from a daywalk away. I’m frightened, it said.

  A thud behind him.

  He spun round.

&nbs
p; And sagged with relief.

  Rek raised her head from the hare’s skull and gave a preocuppied croak, then went back to pecking out an eye.

  As Torak sheathed his knife, Wolf came bounding towards him over the snow.

  Did you follow the owl? asked Torak when their first delirious greeting was over.

  Yes, said Wolf. But I didn’t find the cub.

  I’m sorry.

  Where is the pack-sister?

  Safe, said Torak, but she hurt her paw.

  You miss her.

  Yes.

  Me too.

  Wolf snuffed the air. Dogs. Far away.

  They’re strong, and many, said Torak. Much danger.

  Wolf leant against him and wagged his tail.

  They hadn’t gone far when the Redwater reappeared, in an echoing channel under the cliffs. Rip and Rek flew to the top of a spur that cut across the Gorge, then back to Torak, calling impatiently. Come on, it’s easy!

  ‘No it’s not,’ panted Torak as he and Wolf started to climb. The spur was made of knives. Some malign force had shivered its rocks into thousands of blades standing on edge. Even through his boots, Torak’s feet were soon bruised. He hadn’t gone far when he noticed that Wolf was limping. His pads were criss-crossed with cuts.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Torak.

  Wolf licked his ear.

  In the Far North, Torak had seen sled dogs with paw-boots. The best he could do for Wolf was to bind his paws with strips of buckskin from his old jerkin. Wolf kept butting in to see what he was doing, and when the bindings were securely tied, Torak had to tell him sternly not to eat them.

  He was so intent on watching Wolf that he didn’t realize when they reached the top of the spur. Straightening up, he caught his breath. The Gorge of the Hidden People lay behind him. Above him loomed the Mountain of Ghosts.

  Its summit pierced the clouds. Its glaring white flanks warded him back. Sacred, sacred. A place of spirits, not of men.

  Sinking to his knees, he sprinkled earthblood as an offering. In hushed tones, he begged the Mountain to forgive him for trespassing.

  Clouds closed in, hiding it from view. Torak didn’t know if that was a good sign, or bad.

  To his right, a scree slope fell steeply to a shadowy valley. Ahead, glimpsed through the swirling whitenenss, a huge boulder-field led onto the Mountain. The Redwater cascaded from a small black cave mouth nestled in its midst.

  Torak made out a spiral marker on one of the boulders. Filled with apprehension, he started towards it. Wolf padded after him, his tail down.

  The boulders were treacherous with ice, and in places the snow was deep enough to make the going hard. They struggled past another marker, and another. They were now on the very Mountain itself.

  And Torak had to find somewhere to camp.

  They came to a spur where snow had drifted deep. Torak was relieved. He preferred hacking out a snow hole to rearranging so much as a rock in this sacred place.

  He didn’t dare wake a fire. Huddled in his snow hole, he shared a scrap of smoked reindeer with Rip and Rek, while Wolf chewed the paw-boots – which, as his pads were already healing, Torak had given him for nightmeal.

  As night deepened, Torak listened to the distant voice of the stream and the silence of the Mountain. It had allowed him to camp, but it could crush him in a heartbeat.

  And Eostra . . . What of the Soul-Eater who waited within?

  With the assurance of absolute power, she had let him venture through the Gorge; but she could send her pack to take him whenever she wanted. And the day after tomorrow was Souls’ Night.

  On his forearm, Torak felt the weight of Renn’s wrist-guard. She had never seemed so far away.

  He dreams it is summer, and he is playing with Wolf in a lake strewn with yellow water lilies. Wolf leaps clear of the water and lands with a splash. Torak dives, trailing silver bubbles of underwater laughter. Still laughing, he bursts into the sun. Everything feels right. His world-soul is a golden thread stretching out to all living things. And there is Fa, standing smiling in the shallows. ‘Look behind you, Torak!’

  Torak jolted awake. He heard the boom of falling rocks. The ravens’ stony alarm calls.

  Yanking on his boots and grabbing his axe, he scrambled out of the snow hole – and into a wall of fog.

  Rip and Rek were invisible, he couldn’t see two paces ahead. He glimpsed Wolf, a grey blur racing over the stones.

  Stumbling towards him, Torak saw that part of the spur had collapsed; a few boulders were still rolling to rest.

  Wolf halted, his black lips peeled back in a snarl.

  Torak followed his stare. In the fog, all he could make out were the rolling boulders.

  Wolf’s growls shook his whole body.

  Torak narrowed his eyes.

  Not boulders.

  Dogs.

  TWENTY-SIX

  Relentless as a tide, Eostra’s pack surged towards them through the fog.

  They were bigger than any wolf or dog Torak had ever seen. He took in shaggy manes clotted with filth. Bloodshot eyes empty of feeling.

  Slipping off his mittens, he tucked them in his sleeves. He gripped his axe. Beside him, Wolf wrinkled his muzzle and bared his fangs.

  Torak uttered a deep grunt-growl. Stay together.

  Wolf edged closer to him without taking his eyes off the pack.

  Silently, the dogs came on, utterly concentrated on their prey.

  Defiance surged in Torak. All right, then. Let’s see you fight.

  One huge black beast lunged at him.

  He swung his axe. Wolf leapt. The creature drew back, melting into the fog.

  Another tried, then two together: harrying, disappearing, but always spreading out to surround them.

  Torak knew what they were doing. With wolves and dogs, most hunts begin like this. Make the prey fight, make it run. Find the weakest. Go after that.

  The weakest was Torak. He knew it. Wolf knew it. The dogs knew it.

  Grabbing a stone, he threw it as hard as he could, hitting a brindled monster on the shoulder. The dog twitched an ear, as if at an importunate wasp.

  The ravens dropped out of the sky with furious caws, their talons skimming the marauders’ backs. The pack ignored them. Cowed, Rip and Rek flew higher – as if, thought Torak, they were already circling a carcass.

  He threw more stones, and the dogs withdrew into the swirling white. But he could feel the ring closing in.

  His grip on his axe was slippery with sweat. An axe wouldn’t be much use except in close combat, and if it came to that, he wouldn’t stand a chance. The only weapon that would’ve been any good was his bow, and that was in the snow hole, five paces away. It might as well be five hundred.

  With the speed of a striking snake, a huge grey beast went for Wolf. Wolf whirled, sank his teeth into its rump. With a yowl it ripped free and fled, spattering blood.

  The pack went on circling.

  Wolf shook himself, unhurt.

  At the corner of his vision, Torak glimpsed a black blur leaping towards him. He swung his axe, struck a glancing blow on the skull. The creature fell with a thud, then sprang to its feet as if nothing had happened.

  As the pack prowled around them, the brindled beast – the leader – walked stiffly forwards and halted three paces from Torak. Torak felt Wolf tense for the attack. Urgently, he told him to stand his ground.

  The leader’s small, dull eyes fixed Torak’s, and for an instant, he knew its mind. What it saw before it was not a boy, but a sack of meat, to be savaged till it moved no more. What kept that black heart beating was rage at all these running, howling sacks of life – this life which must be destroyed.

  By an act of will, Torak tore his gaze away.

  He had an image of himself lying dead. Then he realized that that was wrong, it wouldn’t be his body; Eostra wanted him alive. This was about getting Wolf away from him: about slaughtering his pack-brother.

  Two dogs sprang at him. Wolf darted to interc
ept in a flurry of fur and fangs. The brindled leader attacked Torak from behind. His axe caught it flat on the ribs. With a yowl it slunk back – but only a pace.

  As Torak ran to help Wolf, the leader sprang again, seizing the hem of his tunic in its jaws, dragging him down. He lashed out. It dodged, hauling him after it, strong as a bear. Torak slipped, nearly lost his footing. He pretended to weaken, let the creature drag him closer – then brought down his boot, heel-stamping between the eyes. For a moment the great jaws loosened. Torak wrenched his tunic free and staggered back to Wolf.

  With a wet slapping of jowls, the leader shook itself, then lowered its head for the next attack.

  Three dogs sprang at Torak, four at Wolf. But in mid-air the marauders yelped and twisted, as if struck from behind. Stones came hurtling through the fog. The pack faltered, casting about for the unseen attacker.

  Torak thought he glimpsed a pale figure vanish into the fog.

  Who’s that? he asked Wolf.

  Tailless, Wolf told him.

  More stones smacked into the dogs: now from one side, now from another. Confused, the pack turned from Torak and Wolf and sought its mysterious assailant.

  Shakily, Torak touched his pack-brother’s scruff. Wolf’s rump was bleeding, his left ear torn, but his eyes were bright; he wasn’t even panting.

  Torak was. He couldn’t get enough air into his lungs.

  He thought fast. Whoever was distracting the dogs wouldn’t be able to do so for long. They would be back. And although Wolf could keep up the defence all day, he, Torak, could not. Soon he would go down. And they would kill Wolf.

  Behind him, Torak saw a narrow cleft on the other side of the spur: a crack in the Mountain. He backed towards it.

  Wolf threw him a warning look. No!

  Torak kept moving. Reluctantly, Wolf came too. The dogs, battling a hail of stones, didn’t notice.