SIX.
Oslak had taken no chances. He'd gnawed through his bindings, slipped out of the sickness shelter, and climbed the Guardian Rock. Then he'd thrown himself off.
The fall had probably killed him. At least Torak hoped so. He couldn't bear to think of him being alive when he'd hit the rapids.
The Raven camp was stunned into silence when he reached it. Vedna had stopped keening, and stood stony-faced, watching the men bring the body on a litter. They took great care not to touch it with their bare hands. No-one wanted to risk angering the dead man's souls, which were still in the camp.
As they set down the litter by Oslak's shelter, Saeunn crouched beside it, and with her finger protected by a leather guard daubed the Death Marks in red ochre on the body, to help the souls stay together on their journey. Soon the Ravens would carry him into the Forest. It was vital that this was done swiftly, so that his souls would not be tempted to stay in camp.
Fin-Kedinn stood a little apart, his face a mask of granite. He betrayed no grief as he gave orders to double the watch on Bera, and to empty Oslak's shelter of all but his belongings, which would be burnt when it was put to the fire. But Torak could tell that he was taking it hard. The Raven Leader had told Oslak that he would keep him safe. He would not easily forgive himself for having failed.
Guilt.
Torak felt it too, weighing him down.
Well, the time for doing nothing was over. When the Ravens took the body into the Forest, he would stay behind, not being part of the clan and that would be his chance to slip away: to make for the Deep Forest, and seek the cure.
But first there was something he had to do.
As the rites began and women fetched clay for the mourning marks, he made his way quietly to the foot of the Guardian Rock. If his suspicion was right if the creature with the face of leaves had anything to do with Oslak's death then it might have left tracks.
The Guardian Rock was almost sheer on the side which faced the river, but on its eastern side it was more like a steep hill, which could be climbed if one was careful. Many feet had trampled the mud at its base, and some had tracked mud up this eastern flank.
The message in the mud was confused, but Torak made out a faint line of narrow, day-old prints: that was Saeunn, climbing to the top. He saw paw-marks criss-crossed by sharp little four-toed prints: that was a dog scampering up, and being teased by a raven. And over there, a man's prints. Torak saw only the toes and the balls of the feet. Oslak had been running as fast as he could.
A lump rose in Torak's throat. He forced it down. Grieve later, when you're on your way.
Slowly he followed Oslak's tracks up the rock.
Oslak had dislodged pebbles and moss as he ran. At one point he'd slipped, grazing himself: here was a tiny smear of blood. Then he'd run on.
He was running as fast as he could, thought Torak. As if all the demons of the Otherworld were after him.
At the top, Torak found what he'd been dreading. Another set of prints: much smaller than Oslak's. They were faint, but he saw enough to know that whatever had made them had not been running but standing: standing quite still, a short way back from the edge. Watching Oslak leap to his death.
The footprints were small, like those of a child of maybe eight or nine summers.
Except that this print had claws.
The clan was getting ready to leave when Torak found Renn by the long-fire, grinding earthblood for the burial rites.
Her face was streaked with river clay the Raven way of mourning but tears had cut runnels down her cheeks. Torak had never seen her cry. As he approached, she blinked hard.
'Renn,' he said, squatting beside her and speaking softly so as not to be overheard, 'there's something I've got to tell you. I went up the Guardian Rock, I -'
'What were you doing up there?'
'I found tracks.'
Saeunn called to Renn from across the clearing. 'Come! We're leaving!'
'There's something in the camp,' Torak said urgently. 'I saw it!'
Again the Raven Mage summoned Renn.
'Torak, I've got to go!' she said. Pouring the ground ochre into her medicine pouch, she got to her feet. 'We won't be gone long. Tell me when I get back. Show me the tracks.'
Torak nodded, but didn't meet her eyes. He wouldn't be here when she got back. And he couldn't tell her he was going, because she'd try to stop him, or insist on coming too. He couldn't let her do that. If Fin-Kedinn was right, if there was even a chance that he was walking into a Soul-Eater trap, he wasn't going to risk her life as well as his own.
'I'm sorry you can't come too,' said Renn, making him feel worse. Then she ran to take her place at the head of the clan beside her uncle, Fin-Kedinn.
The Ravens moved off, and Torak watched them go. He knew that they would carry Oslak's body a good distance from the camp before building the Death Platform: a low rack of rowan branches on which they would lay the corpse, facing upriver. Like the salmon, Oslak's souls would make their final journey upstream, towards the High Mountains.
The rites at the Death Platform would be brief, and after saying farewell, the clan would leave his body to the Forest. As he'd fed on its creatures in life, so they would feed on him in death. Three moons later, Vedna would gather his bones and take them to the Raven bone-ground. But for the next five summers, neither she nor anyone else would speak his name out loud. This was strict clan law: to prevent the dead man's souls from troubling the living.
Standing in the clearing, Torak watched till they were gone. When the last Raven had been swallowed by the Forest, the camp felt eerily lonely. Only the dogs remained to guard the salmon.
Quickly, Torak ran to fetch his things. He crammed his light wicker pack with his few belongings: cooking-skin, medicine pouch, tinder pouch, fish-hooks; his quiver and bow, his rolled-up sleeping-sack; Fa's knife, wrapped in rawhide; his mother's medicine horn. As he stuck his small basalt axe in his belt, he tried not to think of the last time he'd been forced to pack in a hurry. It had been last autumn, as Fa lay dying.
Torak's hand tightened on the hilt of the knife Fin-Kedinn had made for him. It was lighter and easier to use than his father's; but nothing would ever replace Fa's knife.
Don't think about that now, he told himself. Just get out of here before they come back. And this time, don't forget food.
After what had happened to Oslak, he couldn't face salmon: not the smoked meat, nor the Ravens' flat cakes of dried flesh pounded with juniper berries. Instead he cut some strips of elk meat hanging from the rafters in Thull's shelter. They'd keep him going till he reached the Deep Forest.
But how long would that take? Three days? Five? He didn't know. He'd never been near it, and had only encountered two Deep Forest people: a silent Red Deer woman with earthblood in her hair, and a wild-eyed Auroch girl, her scalp weirdly caked in yellow clay. Neither had shown any interest in him, and despite what he'd told Fin-Kedinn, he didn't expect much of a welcome.
On his way out of camp, he passed the Leader's shelter and that was when it hit him. He was leaving the Ravens, perhaps for good.
First you lost Fa, then Wolf. Now Oslak, and Fin-Kedinn and Renn . . .
It was dark inside the shelter. Fin-Kedinn's corner was neat and spare, but Renn's was a mess: her sleeping-sack crumpled and littered with arrows she hadn't finished fletching. She would be furious that he'd gone without her, and there was no way of saying goodbye.
He had an idea. Outside the shelter he found a flat white pebble. Running to the nearest alder tree, he muttered a thanks to its spirit, cut off a strip of bark, and chewed. Spitting the red mix of saliva and tree-blood into his palm, he painted his clan-tattoo on the stone: two dotted lines, one with a break in the middle. The break wasn't part of the tattoo, it was a small scar on his cheek, but when Renn saw it she would know it was from him.
As he finished making the sign, he stopped. His finger was stained red with alder juice: the same juice he'd used last autumn, in Wolf's naming rite. He'd daubed it on the cub's paws, and been exasperated when Wolf kept licking it off.
'Don't think about Wolf!' he cried aloud. 'Don't think about any of them!'
The empty camp mocked him silently. You're on your own now, Torak.
Hurriedly he shoved the pebble under Renn's sleeping-sack, then ran into the sunlight.
The Forest was full of birdsong, and achingly beautiful. He could take no joy in it.
Shouldering his bow, he turned east, and started for the Deep Forest.
SEVEN.
Sorrow ran with Wolf like an unseen pack-brother. He missed Tall Tailless. He longed for his odd, furless face and his wavering howl; for the strange, breathless yip-and-yowl which was his way of laughing.
Many times Wolf had loped off alone to howl for him. Many times he'd run in circles, wondering what to do. He was caught between the Pull of the Mountain, and the Pull of his pack-brother.
The other wolves the wolves of his new pack were puzzled. You have us now! And you're not yet full-grown, you have much to learn! You don't know how to hunt the great prey, how would you survive on your own? Stay here with us!
They were a strong, close pack, and there had been times when he'd been happy on the Thunderer's Mountain. They'd played uproarious games of hunt-the-lemming; they'd leapt into lakes to frighten ducks. But the other wolves did not understand.
Wolf was thinking of this as he raced to his favourite ridge to catch the smells wafting from the Forest.
The Forest was many lopes away, but he caught the muzzle-watering scent of a newborn fawn, and the sharp smell of tree-blood oozing from a wind-snapped spruce. He heard the slow sucking sound of a boar turning over in its wallow, and the squeak of an otter cub falling off a branch. He longed to be in the Forest with Tall Tailless.
But how could he ever go back?
It wasn't only the thought of leaving his pack which stopped him. It was the Thunderer. The Thunderer would never let him go.
The Thunderer could attack at any time: even now, when the Up was bright and clear, and there was no sign of its angry breath. It could flatten the Forest with storms, and send down the Bright Beast-That-Bites-Hot to blast trees, rocks, wolves. It was all-powerful. Wolf knew that better than most, because it had taken his pack when he was a cub.
He'd gone off to explore, and when he'd come back, the Den had been gone. His whole pack mother, father, pack-brothers had lain wet and cold and Not-Breath in the mud. The Thunderer hadn't needed to come close to destroy them. It had sent the Fast Wet roaring down from the Mountains.
Wolf had been lonely and frightened, and very hungry. Then Tall Tailless had come. Tall Tailless had shared his kills with him, and let him curl up on top of him to sleep. He had howled with him, and played tag with bits of hide. Tall Tailless had become his pack-brother.
Tall Tailless was a wolf, of course, anyone could smell that; but he wasn't a normal wolf. The fur on his head was long and dark, but the rest of him was without fur, and instead had a loose overpelt which he could take off. His face was flat, and his poor little teeth were hopelessly blunt; and strangest of all, he had no tail.
But he sounded wolf, even if he never hit the high yips. And his eyes were true wolf eyes: pale grey, and full of light. Above all, he had the heart and spirit of a wolf.
As Wolf stood on the ridge, sadness filled his chest. He put up his muzzle and howled.
That was when the new smell hit his nose.
Not hunter or prey; not tree or earth or Fast Wet or stone. This was bad. Something bad, blowing through the Forest.
Wolf whimpered with anxiety. His pack-brother was down there in the badness.
Suddenly everything was clear. The Thunderer might come after him, but Wolf couldn't let that stop him any longer. Tall Tailless needed him.
Wolf leapt down from the ridge, and started for the Forest.
He ran for two Darks and Lights, keeping the Mountains at his tail, and heading for where the Hot Bright Eye sinks down to sleep.
Fear snapped at his hindpaws.
He feared the anger of the stranger wolves whose ranges he crossed; if they caught him, they might tear him to pieces.
He feared the wrath of the Thunderer.
But worse than that, he feared for his pack-brother.
As he ran, the smell grew stronger. Something stalked the Forest.
Tirelessly Wolf wove between the trees, seeking the taillesses. Some of their packs smelt like boar, some like otter, but the one he sought smelt like raven. That was the pack Tall Tailless had joined.
At last he found it, on the banks of a furious Fast Wet.
As he'd expected, nobody knew he was here. That was one of the odd things about taillesses. Although in many ways they were like true wolves being clever and brave, with a fondness for talking and playing, and a fierce love for their pack they couldn't smell at all, and they were practically deaf. So Wolf went unobserved as he roamed the edge of the Den, seeking his pack-brother.
He couldn't find him.
It had rained the previous Light, and many scents had been washed away; but if Tall Tailless had been here, Wolf would have smelt him.
Then he caught the scent of the lead wolf, who sat by the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot, as taillesses love to do. Beside him crouched the half-grown female who was pack-sister to Tall Tailless. She was speaking to the lead wolf in the yip-and-yowl of tailless talk, and she sounded both angry and sad.
Wolf sensed that the female was worried about Tall Tailless.
Running up and down, Wolf sought his pack-brother. He found a big bare patch that smelt of new ash; and some strange, straight trees from which hung many fish. He paused only to gulp down a few before heading back into the Forest to seek Tall Tailless.
Maybe his pack-brother had gone hunting. Yes, that must be it. And he couldn't have gone far, because like all taillesses, he ran on his hind legs, which made him slow.
But though Wolf searched and searched, he found nothing.
The awful truth crashed down on him like a falling tree.
Tall Tailless was gone.
EIGHT.
To avoid meeting the Ravens, Torak stayed off the clan paths and kept to the hidden deer trails that wound up the Widewater valley.