Sounds from outside were muffled and remote. Was that a wolf's yelp? A raven's caw? Through her rasping breath, she caught Thiazzi's mocking tones, but nothing from Torak.
She went on sawing at the rope.
The ravens wheeled and cawed, and for a moment Thiazzi glanced up. Torak seized his chance, grabbed a branch from the fire, and lashed out.
The Oak Mage dodged it easily, and Torak saw that his branch wasn't burning, it was a lifeless grey stump.
'You can't use fire against me,' sneered Thiazzi. 'I am Master of Forest and fire!'
As if in answer, a gust of wind stirred the trees, blinding Torak with smoke.
Again Rip swooped. Thiazzi's whip caught his wing, and though Rip soared to safety, a black feather drifted onto the embers.
The smoke made Torak cough. When he stopped, the coughing went on.
Thiazzi saw him falter, and his eyes glittered with malice. 'The fire can't hurt me, but it'll only take smoke to kill your girl.'
Wildly, Torak cast about him. Where was the coughing coming from? But the wind was gusting more strongly, he couldn't tell.
Thiazzi darted a glance at the Great Oak.
Of course. The ladder. The oak must be hollow. Renn was inside the oak.
Edging round the fire, Torak moved closer and raced for the ladder.
To his surprise, the Oak Mage simply watched. When Torak was halfway up, he called out. 'Not as clever as you think you are, Spirit Walker. Now I've got you like a squirrel up a tree, while she chokes to death.'
Torak gripped the ladder. Thiazzi had tricked him. The coughing wasn't louder, it was fainter. It wasn't coming from the oak, but from the yew.
Shakily, he wiped the sweat from his face. 'Don't wait too long,' he panted with a desperate show of defiance. 'The clans are on their way . . . And you don't have your mask. They'll see you for what you really are.'
'Then I'll make it quick,' said Thiazzi. Striding to the foot of the ladder, he started to climb.
THIRTY-SEVEN.
The wrist-bindings snapped. Renn yanked the gag over her chin, swallowed a chestful of smoke, and coughed till she retched. Frantically, she sawed at the bindings round her ankles, then struggled to her feet and hopped to the crack.
She couldn't see for smoke, couldn't hear Wolf or the ravens or Torak. Don't think about it. Get out, get out.
Groping through the haze, she sought for footholds, handholds, anything to help her climb. Her fingers found something jutting above her head. It felt like a peg. It couldn't be. It was. She swung herself up, her good foot scrabbling for a hold. She found a dent barely deep enough for her toes. Her free hand clawed wood. Another peg. Someone had hammered them in, someone taller than her, she had to stretch to reach; and the yew seemed to be helping, leading her from peg to peg. Or maybe it just wanted her gone.
The top was the hardest, as the pegs ran out and the edge was rotten. Grabbing a branch, she hauled herself over and hung half in, half out. She'd scraped her fingers raw, and a broken branch was digging into her belly, but she was clear of the smoke, gulping the cool green breath of the Forest.
She was dizzyingly high up. No boughs below, and too far to jump. Trying not to jar her knee, she thrust aside branches. They sprang back in her face as if to say, We helped you once, don't push your luck. Then she saw Torak.
He was almost level with her, having cleared the top of the ladder and climbed onto one of the oak's outstretched arms. He didn't see her, he was straining to push the ladder away, while Thiazzi, still on it, held firm to both ladder and tree.
It was a battle Torak couldn't win. Renn watched helplessly as Thiazzi pulled himself onto a branch and reached round the bole of the tree. Torak dodged and caught sight of Renn. His mouth shaped her name as he took in her predicament: trapped, no way to get down. Thiazzi darted round the other side to grab him. Torak dodged, seized the ladder, and heaved. Renn saw the pine trunk tilt towards her and crash into the yew, striking it halfway up the trunk. Torak had given her a way down.
It nearly cost him his life. As he reached for the next branch, Thiazzi lunged. Torak swung himself out of the way an instant too late, and Thiazzi's blade caught his thigh. Snarling in pain, he stamped on Thiazzi's wrist and sent the knife flying.
An empty victory. Renn could see that he didn't have a chance. The Soul-Eater didn't need weapons, he would climb after Torak till he reached the uppermost branch, and then . . .
She tore her gaze away. She couldn't help him from here, she had to get down.
The pine-trunk ladder was too far below, she'd have to jump onto it. Twisting round, she lowered herself over the edge till she was hanging by her hands, and let go. The pine shuddered as she struck it with her good foot, but it held. She didn't bother with the notches, she simply slid, scraping her hands and landing in a blaze of agony on her injured knee. When she looked, Torak was gone.
No there he was, clinging to the oak's tapering bole. The Soul-Eater was gaining on him. Renn saw Thiazzi stretch to grab Torak's leg. He missed by a finger. Torak was nearly at the crown, where the tree branched for the last time. Renn saw him dark against the stormy sky, turning his head, wondering what to do. She pictured the Oak Mage seizing him by the ankle, hurling him screaming to his death.
Setting her teeth, she crawled towards the fire, dragging her bad leg. She grabbed a pine knot full of tree-blood, fiercely ablaze. She crawled towards the oak.
'Torak!' Her voice came out as a reedy gasp. 'Torak!' she yelled. 'Catch!'
His head whipped round.
Kneeling on her good leg, Renn drew back her arm to take aim. This had to be the finest throw of her life.
The burning brand spun through the air in a flurry of sparks and Torak caught it.
Hanging on with his free hand, he lashed out at Thiazzi.
The Soul-Eater dodged behind the bole of the oak reached round and would have grabbed Torak's foot if his clan-creature wreath hadn't snagged on a branch, jerking him back. He tore it off, raining acorns and mistletoe, but clutching the fire-opal pouch to his breast.
That gave Torak a moment to scramble higher. He reached the crown and edged onto the sturdiest branch. It sagged beneath him. He made a swipe with the brand. The Oak Mage struck it a blow with his fist that nearly broke Torak's wrist and sent the brand flying. Time stopped as Torak watched his last chance spin in a trail of sparks and thud to earth.
Thiazzi was exultant. 'I am the Master!' he roared.
But as he bellowed his triumph, the breath of the Forest blew a spark into the tangle of his hair. Torak saw it catch. The Oak Mage did not.
Desperately, Torak tried to distract him. 'You'll never be Master,' he taunted. 'Even if you kill me, you'll never get what you want!'
'And what's that?' sneered the Oak Mage, climbing closer.
'What you killed my kinsman for: the fire-opal.'
'But I have it!' Gloating, he brandished the pouch.
A bolt of black feathers shot from the sky and Rek made a grab for it, but Thiazzi brushed her aside with a sweep of his arm.
The laughter froze on his lips as a shadow slid over him. The eagle owl scythed the air with silent wings, swung her talons forwards, and ripped the pouch from his hand. Howling in fury, he reached for her, but she was gone, winging her way towards the High Mountains.
Now Thiazzi's howl became a scream, for the fire had taken hold, and it was hungry. Clawing at his mane, his beard, his clothes, he faltered lost his balance and fell.
High in the oak, Torak saw the Soul-Eater lying lifeless on the roots. He saw a throng of Deep Forest hunters emerge from the hollies, break through the ring of thorns, and surround the corpse. Then the clouds burst and the rain lashed down, quenching the flames and sending up plumes of bitter smoke; and the Forest gave a vast, shuddering sigh, having purged itself of the evil which had threatened its green heart.
Rain streamed down Torak's face as he climbed to safety, but he scarcely noticed. He was shaking with fatigue, yet strangely numb. He couldn't even feel the wound in his thigh.
Jumping to earth, he staggered to Renn, who was slumped by the ruins of the fire. Kneeling beside her, he gripped her shoulders. 'Are you hurt? Did he hurt you?'
She shook her head, but she was white as bone, and her eyes were shadowed with a darkness Thiazzi had created. She opened her mouth to say something; then her face worked and she twisted away from him. The nape of her neck was smooth and defenceless. He put his arms around her and pulled her close.
As they clung together, the medicine horn at his hip began to hum. Raising his head, he saw Wolf standing between the Great Yew and the Great Oak, his eyes glowing with the amber light of the guide. Watch, he told Torak. It comes . . .
From nowhere, a fierce wind swept through the sacred grove, whipping branches but making no sound. The sun rent the clouds, the great trees blazed so green that it hurt to look, but Torak could not avert his eyes. The humming of the horn was deep inside him, thrilling through his bones. The world splintered and fell away. He couldn't hear the sizzle of embers or the hiss of rain. He couldn't smell the smoke, or feel Renn in his arms.
In the drifting haze between the oak and the yew stood a tall man. His face was dark against the dazzling sky, and his long hair floated in the voiceless wind. From his head rose the antlers of a stag.
With a cry, Torak covered his eyes with his hand.
When he dared look again, the vision was gone, and there was Wolf, his pack-brother, wagging his tail and bounding towards him through the rain.
THIRTY-EIGHT.
When Torak woke up, he didn't know where he was. He lay beneath a mantle of warm hare fur. Green sunlight shone through a spruce-bough roof. He smelt woodsmoke, and heard the sounds of a camp: the crackle of a fire, the little grinding crunches of someone sharpening a knife.
Then it started coming back. Kneeling with Renn in the sacred grove. The Deep Forest clans crowding round; someone pressing his knife into his hands. The journey to camp, on foot and in a dugout. A woman sewing up the wound in his thigh, another poulticing Renn's knee. A honeyed drink which made him drowsy, then nothing.
Shutting his eyes, he curled into a ball. There was a faint ache in his chest, as if something were trying to get out, and he had a gnawing feeling of apprehension. Thiazzi was dead; but Eostra had the fire-opal. And he and Renn were at the mercy of the Deep Forest clans.
When he emerged from the shelter, he found a throng of people waiting. They bowed low. He did not bow back. Two days before, they'd been baying for his blood.
To his surprise, he spotted Durrain and the Red Deer among them, with a few Willow and Boar Clan, but no Ravens. Where was Renn? He was about to ask when the Forest Horse Leader made an even deeper bow, and bade him come to the scarlet tree and wait.
Wait for what? he wondered. Around him the Deep Forest clans stared in unnerving silence.
It was a huge relief to see Renn hobbling towards him on crutches. 'Do you know,' she said in an undertone, 'you've slept a whole day and a night? I had to prod you to make sure you were still alive.' Her voice was brisk, but he saw that something was wrong, although she wasn't yet ready to tell him.
'Everyone keeps bowing,' he said under his breath.
'Nothing you can do about that,' she replied. 'You rode the sacred mare and fought the Soul-Eater. And the Great Oak is coming into leaf. They're saying you made it happen.'
He didn't want to talk of that, so he asked about her knee, and she shrugged and said it could be worse. He asked why Durrain was here, and Renn told him that the Deep Forest clans had rejected the Way as fiercely as they'd adopted it, and that they no longer scorned the Red Deer, who'd never followed it at all. 'And the Aurochs are so ashamed of having been tricked by a Soul-Eater that they mean to punish themselves with lots more scars. And nobody's going to attack the Open Forest.'
'Is that why the Boars and Willows are here, too?'
Her shoulders rose, and she stabbed the earth with her crutch. 'Fin-Kedinn sent them,' she said in a taut voice. 'He had a struggle preventing Gaup and his clan from attacking, but in the end he persuaded them to send only their Leader: to talk, not fight. The Willows and Boars came with them for support.'
'And Fin-Kedinn?' Torak said quickly.
She chewed her lip. 'Fever. He was too ill to come. That was a few days ago. No-one's heard anything since.'
There was nothing he could say to make that better, but he was about to try when the crowd parted and two Auroch hunters approached, dragging the ash-haired woman between them.
They released her and she stood swaying, peering at Torak with lashless eyes.
The Forest Horse Leader forced her to her knees at the point of her spear, and addressed the throng. 'Here is the sinner we caught near our camp!' she cried. 'She confessed. She was the one who released the great fire.' She bowed to Torak, her horsetail sweeping the ground. 'It's for you to decide punishment.'
'Me?' said Torak. 'But if anyone, it should be Durrain.' He glanced at the Red Deer Mage, but she remained inscrutable.
'Durrain says you must do it,' said the Leader. 'All the clans agree. You saved the Forest. Decide the sinner's fate.'
Torak regarded the prisoner, who was watching him intently. This woman had tried to burn him alive. And yet he felt only pity. 'The Master is dead,' he told her. 'You do know that, don't you?'
'How I envy him,' she said with weary longing. 'He knew the fire at last.' Suddenly, she smiled at Torak, baring her broken teeth. 'But you you are blessed! The fire let you live! I will submit to your judgement.'
Beside him, Renn stirred. 'It was you,' she said to the woman. 'You put the sleeping-potion in their water.'
The woman twisted her dry red hands. 'The fire let him live! They had no right to kill him.'
Angry murmurs from the crowd, and the Forest Horse Leader shook her spear. 'Speak the word,' she told Torak, 'and she dies.'
Torak looked from the vengeful green face to the ash-haired woman. 'Leave her alone,' he said.
There was a storm of protest.
'But she drugged us!' cried the Forest Horse Leader. 'She released the great fire! She must be punished!'
Torak turned on her. 'Are you wiser than the Forest?'
'Of course not! But '
'Then this is how it will be! The Red Deer will keep watch on her always, and she will swear never to release the fire again.' He met the Leader's gaze and held it, and at last she lowered her spear. 'It shall be as you say,' she muttered.
'Ah,' breathed the crowd.
Durrain stood motionless, observing Torak.
Suddenly he wanted to be rid of them all, these wild-eyed people with their caked heads and scarlet trees.
As he pushed through the crowd, Renn hobbled after him. 'Torak, wait!'
He turned.