That was when she'd forgotten one of the first rules Fin-Kedinn had ever taught her, and stuck in her hand without looking.
The pain was terrible. Her scream shook the Forest and sent woodpigeons bursting from the trees.
Howling, she yanked back her hand but whatever had bitten her clung on tight. She couldn't see it, the leaves were too dense, and she couldn't shake it off. Pulling out her knife, she plunged in then jerked back in horror. It wasn't a viper or a weasel, it was a child. In a flash she took in a glitter of eyes in a mass of grimy hair; sharp brown teeth sunk deep in her palm.
She raised her knife to ward it off and the creature shot her a look of pure malevolence, let go of her hand, and hissed at her hissed like an angry wolverine then fled.
That was when Thull and Fin-Kedinn had come running, axes at the ready.
For some reason Renn did not understand, she didn't tell them what had happened, but hid her hand behind her back and concealed how shaken she was by a show of embarrassment. 'Stupid of me not to look first! Lucky it was only a weasel!'
Thull had been relieved it was nothing worse, and had headed back for camp. Fin-Kedinn had given her a measuring look, which she'd returned in silence.
'What was it?' she said now as the Raven Mage halted twenty paces into the gorge. Uneasily, Renn glanced about. She didn't like the gorge, and seldom ventured in unless she had to.
Though it was midday, they were in deep shadow. The gorge was always in shadow, its looming sides shutting out all but a sliver of sky. The Widewater didn't like it any more than Renn. Angrily it thundered over a chaos of boulders.
Renn shivered. In here, a tokoroth could creep up behind you, and you'd never even hear it . . .
'Tokoroth,' muttered Saeunn, making her jump.
'But what does that mean?'
Saeunn didn't answer. Crouching on a patch of hard red earth by the river's edge, she tented her tunic over her bony knees. Her feet were bare, her toenails brown and hooked.
Once, Torak had told Renn that Saeunn reminded him of a raven. 'An old one, with no kind feelings left.' Renn thought she was more like scorched earth: dried up and very, very hard. But Torak was right about the feelings. Renn had known the Raven Mage all her life, and she'd never seen her smile.
'Why should I tell you about tokoroth?' said Saeunn in her rasping croak. 'You want to know this, yet you refuse to learn Magecraft.'
'Because I don't like Magecraft,' retorted Renn.
'But you're good at it. You know things before they happen.'
'I'm good at hunting too, but you -'
'You lose yourself in the hunt,' cut in Saeunn, 'to escape your destiny. To escape becoming a Mage.'
Renn took a deep breath and held onto her temper. Arguing with Saeunn was like trying to cut flint with a feather. And it didn't help that there might be some truth in what she said.
She resolved to be patient until she'd got what she wanted. 'Tell me about the tokoroth,' she said.
'A tokoroth,' said Saeunn, 'is a child raised alone and in darkness, as a host for a demon.'
As she spoke, the gloom deepened, and a thin rain began to fall, pocking the red earth.
'A tokoroth,' she went on, 'knows no good or evil. No right or wrong. It is utterly without mercy, for it has been taught to hate the world. It obeys no-one but its creator.' She stared at the black, rushing water. 'It is one of the most feared creatures in the Forest. I never thought to hear of one in my lifetime.'
Renn looked down at her injured hand. Beneath Saeunn's poultice of coltsfoot and cobwebs, the wound throbbed painfully. 'You said "its creator". What do you mean?'
Saeunn's claw-like hand gripped her staff. 'The one who captured the child. The one who caught the demon and trapped it in the body of the host.'
Renn shook her head. 'Why have I never heard of this before?'
'Few now know about tokoroth,' said Saeunn, 'and even fewer speak of them. Besides,' she added with an edge to her voice, 'you don't wish to learn Magecraft. Or had you forgotten?'
Renn flushed. 'How are they created?'
To her surprise, the corners of the lipless mouth went down in an approving grimace. 'You go to the roots of things, that's good. That's what a Mage does.'
Renn stayed silent.
Saeunn drew a mark in the earth which Renn couldn't see. 'The dark art of creating tokoroth,' she said, 'was lost long ago. Or so we thought. It seems that someone has learnt it afresh.' She took away her hand to reveal the three-pronged fork of the Soul-Eaters.
Renn had half expected that, but it was a shock to have her suspicion confirmed. 'But how are they made?' she said, her voice barely audible above the roar of the Widewater.
Saeunn rested her chin on her knees and gazed into the water, and Renn followed her gaze down, down, to the murky bottom of the river. 'First,' said the Mage, 'a child is taken. Maybe it goes missing when its kin turn away for a moment. They search, thinking it has wandered off into the Forest. They never find it. They grieve, believing it lost, or taken by a lynx or a bear.'
Renn nodded. She knew people who'd lost children that way, everyone did, and she always felt a tearing pity for them. She too had lost kin. Her father had been missing for five moons before his body was found. She'd been seven summers old. She remembered the agony of not knowing.
'Better for the child,' Saeunn said grimly, 'if it had fallen prey to a bear. Better than being taken for a tokoroth.'
Renn frowned. 'Why? At least it's still alive.'
'Alive?' One bony hand clenched. 'Kept in darkness for moon after moon? No warmth but what will barely keep it alive? No food but rotting bat meat tossed into its own filth? Worst of all, no people. Not till it has forgotten the touch of its mother's hand; forgotten its very name.'
Renn felt the chill of evil seeping into her bones. 'Then,' said Saeunn, 'when it is nothing but an empty husk only then does its creator summon the demon, and trap it in the body of the host.'
'You mean the child,' mumbled Renn. 'It is still a child.'
'It is a host,' Saeunn said flatly. 'Its souls are in thrall to the demon for ever.'
'But -'
'Why do you doubt this?' said Saeunn.
'Because it's still a child, maybe it could be rescued -'
'Fool! Never let kindness get in your way! Now tell me. What is a demon? Quick! Tell!'
It was Renn's turn to be fierce. 'Everyone knows that. Why do you want me to say it?'
'Don't argue, girl, do as I say!'
Renn blew out. 'A demon,' she said, 'comes into being when something dies and its souls are scattered, so that it loses its clan-soul. With only the name-soul and world-soul left, it doesn't have any clan feeling, so it can't know right or wrong. It hates the living.' She broke off, remembering the moment last autumn when she'd looked into the eyes of a demon, and seen nothing but hot, churning hatred. 'It lives to destroy all living things,' she faltered. 'Only to destroy.'
The Mage struck the ground with her staff and gave a croak almost like laughter. 'Good! Good!' She leaned forwards, and Renn saw the thick vein throbbing at her temple. 'You've just described a tokoroth. It may look like a child, but do not be deceived! That's only the body. The demon has won. The child's souls are buried too deep ever to escape.'
Renn hugged herself. 'How could anyone do that to a child?'
Saeunn lifted her shoulders in a shrug, as if the existence of evil was too obvious to need comment.
'And what is a tokoroth for?' said Renn. 'Why would you want to make one in the first place?'
'To do your bidding. To slink into shelters. To steal. To maim. To terrify. Why do you think Fin-Kedinn sets a watch every night?'
Renn gasped. 'You mean you knew it was here?'
'Since the sickness came. We just didn't know why.' Renn thought about that. 'So you think the tokoroth is causing it?'
'The tokoroth does the bidding of its creator.'
'The Soul-Eaters.'
Saeunn nodded. 'The tokoroth is causing the sickness at the bidding of its masters in some way we don't understand.'
Again Renn was silent. Then she said, 'I think Torak saw it. Before he left, he tried to warn me. But he didn't know what it was.' A new thought struck her. 'Is there more than one?'
'Oh, I think we can be sure of that.'
Renn struggled to take that in. 'So there could be one here, and maybe another went after him?'
Saeunn spread her hands.
Suddenly the Forest Renn had grown up in seemed full of menace. 'But why are they causing the sickness? What do they want?'
'I don't know,' said Saeunn.
That frightened Renn more than anything. Saeunn was the Mage. She was supposed to know.
With a shiver, Renn stared at the thundering water. She thought of Torak heading east maybe trailed by something far worse than he knew . . .
'You cannot go and warn him,' Saeunn said sternly. 'It is too late. You would never find him.'
'I know,' said Renn without turning her head.
To herself she added, But I've still got to try.
THIRTEEN.
Wolf couldn't find Tall Tailless, but he knew that he had to keep trying.
Once, he'd caught the scent in a tangle of beech saplings where his pack-brother had dug a Den but then he'd lost it again. The scent was chewed up with that of boar scat, and with the stink of the badness that haunted the Forest and a troubling new smell: the smell of demon. Wolf had learnt that smell when he was a cub. The memory was very bad.
Once more he cast about, but in vain. And always the fear snapped at his hindpaws.
The Thunderer was angry with him for leaving the Mountain. Wolf felt it in his fur, and in the tingling of his pads. It was coming after him. Soon it would attack.
The Up had gone very dark, and the breath of the Thunderer was stirring the trees. Sounds were becoming louder, smells sharper, as they always did when it began to growl.
At last Wolf caught the scent of his pack-brother. He could have howled for joy. Filled with new purpose, he ran on, and the prey ran with him, desperate to escape, and sensing that Wolf wasn't hunting them. A beaver slid off a riverbank and swam for its den. A red deer doe raced with her fawn for the safety of the thickets.
Suddenly the Thunderer vent its fury. The wet burst upon the Forest, flattening bracken and bending trees like grass. A deafening crash and down from the Up came the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot, missing Wolf by a pounce, and hitting a pine tree instead. The tree screamed. The Bright Beast swallowed it whole. Wolf swerved but one of the Bright Beast's cubs fell in front of him and bit him on the forepaw. With a yelp he leapt high then raced away with the stink of dying tree in his nose.
He felt as frightened as a cub. He wanted his mother. He wanted Tall Tailless. He was all alone, and very, very scared.
Renn was all alone in the Forest, and getting scared.
She'd slipped away from the camp two days before, and still hadn't found Torak. Twice she'd heard the demented shrieks of the sick echoing through the trees, and once she'd caught a rustling overhead. It felt as if every bush, every tree, concealed a tokoroth.
And now the storm was coming. The World Spirit was angry.
Through a gap in the branches she saw a heavy bank of wolf-grey cloud, and heard a rumble of thunder. She was already within striking range. She must take cover.
The valley she was crossing had granite crags on its eastern side, and she saw some promising dots of darkness which might be caves. She ran, snatching up sticks of firewood as she went.
The storm burst with appalling suddenness. The World Spirit hammered at the clouds, splitting them open to let loose the rain, hurling dazzling arrows of lightning upon the Forest. In the distance, Renn caught the flare of a tree going up in flames. If she wasn't careful, she'd be next.
At last she found a cave but wet as she was, she hung back. A cave can be a shelter or a death-trap, so she checked for signs of bear or boar, and that the roof was high enough: otherwise the lightning might find its way down a crack, and through her head. When she was sure it was safe, she plunged in.
She was shaking with cold and desperate for a fire, but first she saw to her bow. Pulling it out of its salmonskin wrapping, she hung it on a tree-root jutting from the cave wall. After that she propped up her arrows to dry, so that they wouldn't warp. Then she woke up a fire.
Out in the Forest, the storm raged. Renn wondered where Torak was, and if he'd found shelter.
Tracking him from the Raven camp had not been easy, and to begin with she'd had to guess. She'd reasoned that he'd stayed off the main clan trails, which left a number of choices. Bears and other hunters tend to stay down by the rivers where the prey comes to drink, which means that elk and deer trails are higher up the slopes. After what had happened last autumn, Renn had guessed that Torak would want to avoid bears, which meant he'd probably have taken the prey trails.
She'd been proven right when she'd found his shelter, but it had given her a shock to see it crushed beneath an ash tree. A huge relief to find no body inside; and she'd quickly located the remains of the new shelter beside it. She'd known it was his because he made his fires in a star pattern, which wasn't the Raven way.
Next morning she'd lost the trail again. A boar had obliterated the tracks.
The fire spat, jolting her back to the present.
Her wounded hand throbbed. As she huddled closer to the flames, she pictured the tokoroth's sharp brown teeth; heard again that malevolent hiss . . .
'Something to eat,' she said to chase away the thought.
Her pack contained dried elk meat, smoked salmon from the racks, and salmon cakes although in a fit of mischief she hadn't taken fresh ones, but had raided Saeunn's private store: a neat stack of cakes packed into a length of dried auroch gut.
She took one, broke off a bit for the clan guardian, then ate the rest. It was from last summer's catch, but still good. It reminded her sharply of the clan.
Beside her lay the wickerwork quiver that Oslak had taught her to make. On two fingers of her left hand were the leather finger-guards that Vedna had sewn. Her right forearm bore the wrist-guard of polished green slate which Fin-Kedinn had made for her when he'd taught her to shoot. She rarely took it off, and her brother had often teased her about that. Her brother . . . He had died the previous winter. It hurt to think of him.