Outcast

by Michelle Paver

  "Let's get going!"

  "Not yet." He pointed east. Above the ice river, purple-gray clouds were massing. The World Spirit was restless.

  "But we can still try!" she said desperately.

  "If I knew the Lake, yes. But out here, with a storm coming? No. We'd be no use to Torak drowned."

  She ran to the water's edge. Now she saw that everything had conspired to bring her here. Maybe this was why the Otter Mage had sent them east: to force her into doing what she'd resolved she never would. Turning her back on the ice river, she stared west. Spiky black islands floated on the amber Lake. Somewhere beyond them, Torak was dying of soul-sickness. "Then I've got no choice." She faced Bale. "We'll have to send help from here."

  "What do you mean?"

  She took a deep breath. "I'll have to do Magecraft."

  ***

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  "Renn, this is madness!" yelled Bale as he fought to keep the skinboat afloat in the teeth of the storm. "We've got to get back to shore!" "Not yet!" shouted Renn. "We have to get past that last island. Imusthave a clear view to the west, or the help won't reach him."

  "But we're taking on water!"

  "If you care about Torak,keep going!"

  The sky turned black, the wind screamed in her ears, tugging at her clothes and whipping her hair about her face, churning the Lake to a frenzy of white water. The skinboat reared and plunged, and only Bale's skill kept them from going under.

  Somehow she managed to stay kneeling on the cross bar, gripping the boat with one hand as she thrust the other into her medicine pouch. She'd done all she could on the shore. Only the final charm remained.

  As she pulled out what she needed and held it up, she felt a thrill of grim satisfaction. The Viper Mage might have Torak's name-pebble, but she, Renn, possessed something just as potent. "What's that?" cried Bale.

  "His hair," she shouted. "Last winter he needed a disguise, and I cut it off and kept it!"

  Staggering to her feet, she raised her fist, and Torak's long, dark locks streamed in the wind.

  Bale grabbed her belt to hold her steady. "For the

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  last time, we've got to get back to shore! That's hail on the way. If it holes the boat, we're sunk!"

  "Not yet!"

  Throwing back her head, Renn howled the charm to the storm--she summoned the power of the guardian of all Ravens, who flies over Ice and Mountain, Forest, and Sea--she summoned it and sent it to seek Torak-- and the wind wrenched the charm from her lips and bore it west across the Lake.

  But in the midst of the charm, as she braced her legs on the frame of the pitching boat and clutched Bale's shoulder to steady herself, she felt a powerful will confronting hers. I feel your purpose.... You shall not succeed. Renn's knees buckled--she nearly went down.

  You shall not succeed.

  She tried to shut it from her mind--but it was too strong. Stronger than the Otter Mage, stronger even than Saeunn--it had the awesome power of the Soul-Eater--and it was not to be outdone by the puny spell of some untried girl. The World Spirit hammered open the clouds, and down came the hail, pummeling their faces with arrows of ice.

  Bale swung the skinboat about. "Rocks! Rocks ahead!"

  Renn raised her fist one final time. "Fly!" she

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  screamed. "Fly to the aid of the soul-sick!" The wind ripped Torak's hair from her fingers and scattered it over the Lake, and Renn was flung backward as the skinboat gave a terrific heave and reared out of the water. "We've hit a rock!" yelled Bale. "Grab hold of the boat! Don't let go !"

  The hailstorm thundered west, carrying Renn's charm with it. It swept across the Lake, flattening the reeds, pounding the Island of the Hidden People.

  At the edge of the black beach, the pine trees thrashed, and beneath them Torak's miserable shelter shook. Pine cones and branches rained down upon it. Then something heavy dropped out of a tree and thudded onto the roof ...

  ... and Torak woke up.

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  TWENTY-ONE

  Torak cowered on his scratchy bed of pine-needles,listening to the World Spirit punishing the trees. He was terrified of the hail, and of whatever had fallen onto the roof. He was terrified of everything: the Lake, the Hidden People, but most of all, the wolves. They were waiting for him in the Forest. Sometimes he glimpsed the big gray one sneaking about just out of stone-shot, waiting to pounce.

  Because of the wolves, he hadn't dared go into the Forest. Instead, he eked out an existence on frost-shriveled berries and blackened mushrooms, with the 185 occasional slimy green hopping thing when he could catch one.

  The world no longer made sense. The sky screamed at him, and from the trees, little red scuttling things pelted him with wooden fruit. Darts of green lightning shot past, laughing at him, and slithery brown creatures bobbed about in the water, scolding him. While he slept, a monster came and gnawed his shelter, and when he woke up, he saw branches swimming upstream.

  Again something thudded onto the roof. This time, it squawked. Torak shut his eyes tight. At last the storm blew over and the hail stopped. Shaking with fear, he grabbed his axe and crawled out.

  The ice had flattened undergrowth and ripped off branches; it had covered the beach in hard, translucent pebbles, which crunched under his bare feet. In a patch of crushed bracken, something stirred. No. Two somethings. A pair of big black birds. Gripping his axe, Torak edged closer. The larger one gave a terrified squawk and flapped, its wings, while the smaller one tucked its head into its shoulders and pretended it wasn't there. Torak saw the wreck of a nest, high-in a tree. The birds must have fallen out, bounced off his shelter and into the bracken. 186

  He took a step closer--which sent them into a frenzy of wing-flapping and high-pitched squeaks.

  He blinked.Theywere frightened ofhim.

  He saw that the corners of their mouths were a crinkly pink, and although the span of their wings was almost as wide as his outstretched arms, all that flapping wasn't achieving anything. "You can't fly," he said out loud.

  That put an end to the flapping. They huddled together and stared up at him, shivering with terror. His belly tightened. So much meat. And as they couldn't fly, it would be easy. To his dismay, he couldn't do it. They reminded him of something. Or someone. He didn't remember what. A rapidquork quork quorksplit the sky, and he dropped to all fours.

  High overhead, another big black bird wheeled-- except this one could fly. Alighting on the remains of the nest, it glared down at him. Its head-feathers were fluffed up like ears, its wings spread. Angrily it snapped off a twig and threw it at him. Then it threw down several of the wooden fruits. Quork quork quork!

  "Leave me alone!" he shouted. Greatly daring, he picked up a wooden fruit and threw it back.

  The bird hitched itself into the sky and flew away. When he was sure it wasn't coming back, Torak left

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  the young ones on their own and went to forage on the shore. If he couldn't eat them, they were no use to him.

  He found a grubby mushroom which tasted all right, except for the bits that wriggled and crunched because he'd forgotten to shake out the wood lice. Then he caught two of the slimy green hopping things, which he killed with a stone. He ate one raw and tied the other to his belt for later.

  Returning to the shelter, he found the young ones where he'd left them. When they saw the green thing at his belt, they flapped their wings and made squeaky begging noises. "No!" he said. "It's mine!"

  The squeaks became outraged squawks. They didn't stop.

  Maybe if he made them a shelter, they'd shut up. Piling an armful of twigs in the fork of a tree, he grabbed the bigger bird and shoved it on top. It pecked his sleeve and tugged. "Let go!" he protested.

  The powerful beak was bigger than Torak's middle finger, and it easily ripped off the sleeve. Gripping the buckskin in its formidable talons, the bird settled down to shred it, eyeing Torak as if to say,I wouldn't have to do this if you'd fed me like I asked. In the bracke
n, the smaller one laughed.

  Torak scooped it up and chucked it into the nest.

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  The bird thanked him by waggling its hindquarters and spurting him with white droppings.

  "Hey! Stop it!" he shouted.

  "Hey top it!" it croaked.

  Torak blinked. Birds didn't talk.

  Did they?

  If they could talk, maybe he shouldn't let them starve.

  Foraging in the undergrowth, he caught some spiders and squashed them in his fist. The birds gobbled them up, and would've started on his fingers if he'd let them.

  He fed them a leg of the green thing. And another. He decided enough was enough. The larger bird stared at him reproachfully, then tucked its head into its back feathers and went to sleep. Then the smaller one did the same. Torak wanted to sleep too, but first he cut a scrap of skin from the green hopping thing and put it on the roof. He had no idea why he did this, but it felt important. Yawning, he ate the rest of the green hopping thing, then crawled into the shelter and burrowed into the pine-needles.

  Just before he slept, he said out loud,"Frog.The slimy green hopping thing is afrog."

  ***

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  The young black birds ruled his days.

  They were noisy and hungry, and if he didn't feed them often, they got noisier. But they had keen eyes and ears, and they scared off the biting monster which came in the night, and the red scuttling things in the trees.

  After a few days, he took to letting them out of the nest. They hopped and waddled after him, and he found himself showing them things, and remembering as he did so. "This is a pinecone. Hard to eat. And this is lingonberry, very good--ow! And this is willowherb. If you peel it, you can wind it into twine. See?" The birds watched with their intense black gaze, and prodded everything with their beaks, to see if they could eat it.

  Mostly, they could. They ate berries, crickets, frogs, scat, his clothes if he let them. But although they got quite adept with their large beaks, they preferred stealing food to catching it themselves.

  They were good at it too. When Torak caught his first tiny fish with a bramble-thorn hook on a line, he was so proud that he rashly showed it to them. Next day he found the bigger one pulling in the line with its beak, while the smaller one looked on hopefully. To deter them, Torak planted his knife by the line; but although they left the line alone, they picked at the 190 sinew binding on the hilt. He swapped his axe for the knife, and that worked better. Next day, as he emerged from the shelter, the bigger one cawed a greeting from the nest--and flew down to him. "You flew!" said Torak, amazed.

  Startled by its achievement, the bird sat trembling at his feet. Then it spread its wings and flew to the top of a tree--where it lost courage and begged forlornly to be rescued. Torak eventually tempted it down with a handful of chopped frog and a couple of fish eyes, and from then on it sat and laughed at its sister, who was still flapping furiously in the nest. It was midafternoon by the time it made its first flight.

  After that they learned rapidly, and soon the sky rang with their raucous cries as they wheeled and somersaulted overhead. Their feathers were a glossy black, with beautiful rainbow glints of violet and green, and when they flew, their wings made a strong, dry rustling, like the wind in the reeds. It made Torak wistful, as if he too had once been able to fly but never would again.

  One morning they lifted into the sky, and didn't come back.

  Torak told himself it didn't matter. He set a snare-- one of his newly regained skills--and ate a few berries, taking care to leave some on a boulder, as an offering. 191

  But he missed the ravens. He'd gotten to like them. And they reminded him of something--he couldn't remember what--except that he knew the memory was a good one. When dusk fell, he checked the snares he'd set the previous night. He was in luck: a waterbird. He woke up a fire and roasted it, but didn't have the heart to eat much. Suddenly he heard a familiar cawing; then strong, rhythmic wingbeats--and down they came, alighting with a thud, one on each shoulder. He yelped--their claws were sharp--and lifted them off. But he was glad they'd come back.

  That night all three of them had a feast. The ravens--whom he'd named Rip and Rek--ate so much that they got too fat to fly, and he had to carry them to their roost.

  After they'd gone to sleep, he sat by the Lake, watching the young swifts screaming overhead, while a woodpecker flashed past like green lightning and a red squirrel dangled from one foot to reach an unripe hazelnut on another branch. As the moon rose, a beaver waddled out of the Forest, cast Torak a wary look, and settled down to gnaw on a willow sapling. The tree toppled; the beaver chewed off a branch, then swam upstream, dragging it behind him.

  For the first time in many days, Torak felt almost at

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  peace. The wound on his chest seemed finally to be healing, and he was no longer afraid. He knew that a lot was still missing from his memory, but the world was beginning to make sense. The Lake stilled, and the Forest settled down for the brief summer night.

  Torak felt eyes on him and glanced over his shoulder.

  From the trees, an amber gaze met his. He started to his feet.

  A gray shadow turned and disappeared into the trees.

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  TWENTY-TWO

  A wolf cannot be of two packs..Wolf was tasting the bitterness of this to the full. He couldn't eat or sleep or enjoy a good howl with the others. Since that terrible moment when Tall Tailless had bitten his muzzle with the Bright Beast, misery ran with him wherever he went.

  And now, as he made his way through the Forest, jealousy ran with him too.What was Tall Tailless doing with those ravens?Wolves and ravens sometimes play together and help each other in the hunt, but they are not pack-brothers. When Wolf reached the denning place, the rest of 194

  the pack had already returned from the kill, and the cubs had fed and gone into the Den to sleep. Wolf ran to touch noses with the lead pair, followed by the others; then everyone padded back to their sleeping places to snooze. Whitepaw, who'd stayed at the Den with the cubs, went off to check that the Forest was clear of lynx and bear and the Otherness which stalked the Big Wet, and Wolf slumped down to guard the cubs.

  Tall Tailless no longer wanted him for a pack-brother. He never howled for him or came to seek him in the Forest. And now those ravens.

  The cubs burst from the Den and came racing over to Wolf, barking furiously--and for a while the misery was chased away. Leaping to his feet, he gave the high cubgreeting, and they nudged him with their stubby muzzles, and he lashed his tail as he heaved up the reindeer meat he carried in his belly. The cubs were growing fast, and soon the pack would move from the Den to a place many lopes away, where they would learn to hunt.

  As Wolf thought about this, the misery slunk back. Leaving the Den would take him even farther from Tall Tailless. He lay down and put his muzzle between his paws. As he was cub-watcher, though, he kept one ear on 195 the cubs, and he soon became aware that they were stalking him like prey.

  Growler, the cleverest, was innocently pawing a stick, but edging closer all the time; Snap, the smallest but fiercest, was down on her belly, sneaking up on Wolf from behind; and the more timid Digger was waiting to pounce when the others broke cover. Suddenly Snap charged--and sank her sharp little teeth into Wolf's flank. Growler sprang at Wolf's muzzle, and Digger attacked his tail. Wolf obligingly lay on his side, and they clambered on top of him. They chewed his ears, so he covered them with his paws, so they chewed his paws instead. And he let them, because they were cubs.

  Digger bounded off and dug up a new plaything: the foreleg of a fawn, with the hoof still on. Snap advanced with a snarl-That's mine, I'm the lead cub!--and while she was standing over Digger to punish him, Growler sneaked between them and made off with the prize.

  As Wolf watched Growler trying to get his jaws around the hoof, he was suddenly a cub again, back with Tall Tailless at their first kill, chewing a hoof that his packbrother had given him. Misery grab
bed him by the throat. The hurt was so bad that he whined. Darkfur woke and came to lick his muzzle, careful to avoid the Bright Beast-bitten side. Wolf was grateful, 196 but the hurt didn't go away.

  Whitepaw returned and took over watching the cubs, and Wolf went off and tried to sleep. But the thought of those ravens kept pecking him awake. He sprang up. This was no good. He had to know for sure.

  It didn't take long to reach the Den of Tall Tailless. Wolf sank into the bracken and belly-crawled closer.

  Before long Tall Tailless came out, stretching and talking to himself. His voice was deeper and rougher than before, but his scent was the same. It hurt, being so near yet unable to greet him. Wolf's tail ached to wag. He longed to feel those blunt claws scratching his flank.

  He was wondering whether to risk the faintest of whines, when the matter was taken out of his jaws.

  The ravens lit onto the ground, and Tall Tailless greeted them in tailless talk.

  Wolf froze.

  Tall Tailless squatted and stroked the ravens' wings. Gently he took the bigger one's beak in his forepaw and gave it an affectionate shake, and the raven gurgled. Jealousy sank its teeth into Wolf's heart. Tall Tailless used to muzzle-grabhim,and they would roll together, growling and play-biting.

  Now Tall Tailless was walking off along the Big Wet

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  to hunt, and the ravens were with him, wheeling in the Up--just as Wolf used to trot beside him, proud and happy to be his pack-brother.

  And still Wolf stayed in the bracken. When he smelled that they were truly gone, he raced into the Den and snuffled about, torturing himself with that beloved, now painful scent.

  Suddenly he heard wingbeats--then a raspingquork quork quork!As he left the Den, a pinecone hit him on the nose. The ravens were back. They sat on a branch, laughing at him!

  Wolf sprang at them--and they lifted into the Up, then swooped low, but just out of reach,tauntinghim. He waited till they came again--he leaped-- snapped a tail feather, tore it to pieces. With furious caws the ravens soared into the Up. Down they came in a flurry of angry wings, diving, pecking. Again and again Wolf leaped--twisting, snapping--until he forced them to seek refuge in a tree, where they sat, cawing and pelting him with sticks.This is our Den! Go away!