Spirit Walker (24 page)

But where was Tall Tailless?
With all the smells whirling in the windless air, Wolf couldn't catch the one scent he longed to find.

And now the female and the pale-pelt were snarling at each other--and as Wolf ran toward them, he saw that the pale-pelt was carrying meat for the female in his forepaws:

 

meat that stank of demon!

 

Wolf sensed that the female was hungry, and wanted to eat. He had to stop her! But what if she ignored his warning, just as Tall Tailless had done? What if she didn't even understand what he was telling her?

Wolf lowered his head and crept forward, placing each paw with silent care. He had an idea. There was one thing the female always understood. A snarl.
"I'm not hungry!" snarled Renn as the Seal boy set the bowl on the ground. "And for the last time,
I'm not sick!'"
"Just eat," said the boy. Backing out of the cave, he dragged the seal hide across the cave mouth, leaving a gap a couple of hands wide for air. 314

Renn didn't like the Seal boy, but she wished he hadn't gone. It was frightening being in here on her own. She could feel the suffering of the sick from three summers ago; the walls were dank with their despair.

But
you're
not sick, she reminded herself. You're just tired and hungry, and worried about Torak.
She decided to try again with the Seal boy. "Do you know
why
the Hunter attacked?" she called out.
Silence.

"Because your Mage killed one of its young. I found the carcass. He trapped it in a seal net--the kind only your clan makes--and he took nothing but its teeth. Does that sound like something a good man would do?"

No reply.
She clenched her jaw. "I know it was him," she said. "I heard his belt clink as he rowed across the lake."
Still no answer, but she could tell that he was listening. She could hear him breathing on the other side of the door.
"The teeth of a Hunter?" she went on. "Only a Mage would have any use for those." She paused. "If I'm right, and he made the sickness--then he killed your brother." For a moment there was a stunned silence. "How do you know about my brother?"
"Oh, I know many things," said Renn. "He killed
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your brother," she said again. "I know what it's like to lose a brother. I lost mine not long ago."
"Be quiet," said the Seal boy.
"Think back," said Renn, "to just before your brother fell sick. Tenris had been up on that cliff top, hadn't he? Doing Magecraft."
"So?" came the reply. "He's the Mage, that's what he does."
"He did Magecraft, and then your brother got sick."
It was a guess, but a good one. She heard a sharp intake of breath.
"He did it to bring the prey," whispered the Seal boy. "He did Magecraft to bring the prey. . . ."
"That's what he told you," said Renn.
She heard the crunch of sand as he walked up and down. "No more talk," he said abruptly. But there was doubt in his voice.
"You know I'm right," she said.
"I
said no more talk!"
he shouted.
"Why won't you
Hsten!"
Renn shouted back.
The seal hide shuddered, and she knew that he'd punched it.
After that, neither of them spoke.
The smell of meat filled the cave. Renn hesitated-- then went over to examine the bowl. Smoked whale meat with juniper berries. It smelled really
good. But if she ate it, the Seal boy would think she was giving in.
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She put the bowl down. Paced the cave. Went back and picked it up.

She was just about to try a piece when the Seal boy gave a cry, and in through the gap leaped Wolf--leaped straight at her--sending her flying, sending the meat spattering against the wall--flattening her beneath him. He was snarling, his black lips drawn back from his big white fangs. She tried to scream, but his forepaws were heavy on her chest. What was

wrong
with him?
"Wolf!" she gasped. "Wolf--it's me!"
"I'm coming!" yelled the Seal boy, wrenching aside the hide and leaping in with his harpoon.
With astonishing speed, Wolf sprang off Renn and twisted around to face him.
"No!"
screamed Renn. "Don't hurt him! He must be sick--or--something!"
The Seal boy ignored her, and jabbed at Wolf with his harpoon.
Wolf sprang sideways, snapping at the shaft.
Renn saw her chance to escape--the cave mouth was wide open--but what about Wolf?
He was dodging the harpoon with ease.
She picked herself up and fled.
Behind her she heard another yell from the Seal boy--more in outrage than in pain--and glanced back to see Wolf leap from the cave and disappear. 317
Too shaken to make sense of it, she turned and raced off into the fog.
It was thicker than ever. She had no idea where she was; no idea how to find Torak.

She tripped over a pile of driftwood, then blundered into a rack full of whale meat. A shelter loomed out of the whiteness, and she clapped her hand to her mouth to keep from screaming. At any moment she dreaded to see the Seal boy leaping out at her--or the tokoroth-- or the Soul-Eater.

Suddenly to the north, fire flared high in the sky.
She stopped.
Torak had said that the cure would be made in a rite on a cliff top. Although "the cure" had to be a Soul-Eater trap.
She set off at a run toward the fire.
A noise behind her. She ducked. Too late. A hand grabbed her arm and yanked her back.
On the Crag, no trace remained of Tenris the kindly Seal Mage. That mask had been burned away, leaving nothing but ashes and bitterness.

Muttering spells under his breath, the Soul-Eater squatted by the altar rock, painting signs on Torak's chest. His brush was a bundle of seal's whiskers bound to the shinbone of an eagle; his paint was a dark, stinking sludge. Torak guessed it was the blood of the

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murdered Hunter; that the pale objects set in a ring around him were its teeth.

A scratching at his ankles told him that the boy tokoroth was back, to finish tightening the bindings. Torak kicked out hard, knowing his only hope lay in wriggling free when the time was right.

 

"Hold still," snapped Tenris. He'd been chewing on a foul-smelling paste that had stained the whites of his eyes yellow, and turned his tongue black. He didn't look like a man anymore.

Out of the corner of his vision, Torak caught a furtive movement.
There--beyond the wall of driftwood the girl tokoroth was building, and soaking in seal oil.
Wolf.
Torak's heart tightened with dread. Three against one. If Wolf tried to help him, he'd get himself killed.
"Uff!"
called Torak, warning him back.
"Uff! Uff!!"

Wolf pricked his ears, but did not retreat. He'd found a gap in the wall where the girl tokoroth hadn't yet piled the driftwood high. But it was right on the edge of the cliff.

Go back!
Torak tried to tell him silently.
You can't help me!
Fortunately, neither Tenris nor the tokoroth had spotted Wolf. All three were staring at Torak.
"What
did you say?" Tenris scowled.
Torak thought quickly. Jerking his head at the ring
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of teeth around him, he said, "Those teeth--they're the Hunter's, aren't they? What are they for?"

Tenris regarded him narrowly. "Spells," he said, dipping his brush in the blood. "When you showed me your father's knife, I suspected that you were the one. But I had to make sure."

"And for that a Hunter had to die?"
"What do I care? They can't hurt me." With his twisted claw he touched the amulet at his throat. "A masking charm."

Torak thought of Detlan, clenching his teeth in agony as Bale tended his shattered leg. If he lived, he would be a cripple. And all because Tenris had needed "to make sure."

Wolf was nosing his way through the gap, perilously close to the edge.
Quickly Torak spoke to Tenris. "You said you thought I was 'the one.' What did you mean?"
The ruined face darkened. "The one who destroyed the bear."
Torak tensed. "The bear."
"I created it," Tenris said between his teeth. "I caught the demon. I trapped it in the body of the bear. You destroyed it."
For a moment, Torak forgot about Wolf. "You're lying. Whoever made the bear was crippled. A crippled wanderer."
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Tenris put back his head and laughed. Still laughing, he rose to his feet and circled the fire, limping piteously. "Easy, isn't it? Although I confess I did get very bored." Tenris had created the bear--the bear that killed Fa. . . .
Torak thought of the clearing where he and his father had camped on that final night. Fa's face, laughing at the joke Torak had made. Fa's face as he lay dying . . . "What's this?" sneered Tenris. "Tears?"
"You killed him," whispered Torak. "You killed Fa. . . ."
At that moment the boy tokoroth touched his ankle. Torak lashed out savagely.
"You killed Fa!"
he screamed, fighting his bonds with all the rage and grief inside him. The rawhide held firm.

Just then, Wolf hurtled out of the mist and leaped at Tenris. The Seal Mage snatched up his harpoon--the tokoroth scuttled like spiders, drawing knives, seizing firebrands and lashing out at the attacker.

"Wolf!" shouted Torak, struggling to push himself off the horn of rock, but held back by the bindings around his ankles.
"Ufft Uffl Uff!"
Tenris lunged with the harpoon.
Wolf gave a great twisting leap--and the vicious barbs pierced empty fog.
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Tenris barked a command, and the girl tokoroth set her firebrand to the driftwood wall. Flames shot up, licking at the sky. The tokoroth lashed out at Wolf with their torches--and he shrank back against the burning wall, snarling, cornered.

 

Just when Torak thought he was finished, Wolf spun around and scrambled over the last section of driftwood that had yet to catch light--pursued by the tokoroth with their flaming torches. The fire roared higher. The gap closed. The neck of the Crag was cut off by the blaze.

Tenris threw down his harpoon and turned to Torak. "He's gone," he said. "Not even a wolf could get past that now."
"Nor can your tokoroth," said Torak. Both tokoroth were gone, clattering off down the mountain after Wolf.
Tenris shrugged. "I don't need them anymore," he said as he took up the knife that lay on Torak's chest. "I can manage this part on my own."

Torak's heart was pounding. Wolf was gone. The wall of flames cut him off from all hope of rescue. He might be able to work his feet out of the bindings--he might even be able to push his wrists over the horn and roll off the altar--but what then? He was trapped on a cliff top, pitted against a grown man with a knife and a harpoon, who meant to kill him and eat his heart.

But there was one thing he had to find out first.
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"Why did you do it?" he said as he stared up into the yellow eyes of the Soul-Eater. "Why did you kill my father?"
Tenris shook his head in wonder. "Ah, you're just like him! Always wanting to know
why.
Why, why, why."

He circled the altar rock, fingers flexing on the knife, mouth twisting as he tasted bitter memories. "He betrayed me," he said. "He was weak. Worthless. And yet he thought that he could--"

"He wasn't worthless," said Torak.
"What do you know?" snarled Tenris.
"He was my father," said Torak.
Tenris stood over him and bared his blackened teeth. "He was my brother."
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Chapter THIRTY-TWO

Renn craned her neck to see what was happening on the cliff, but the mist was too thick, the overhang too deep. Only when the Soul-Eater moved right to the edge did she glimpse him: dark and sticklike against the flames.

"He's got a knife," she said.
"It's too far up," said the Seal boy beside her. "We'd never get there in time."
"But we can't just--"
"Look at that fire--it's right across the Neck! What are you going to do? Fly?"
Renn shot him a suspicious glance. Despite his
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professed change of heart, she still didn't trust him. But as she opened her mouth to protest, a wolf howled.
"What
is
that?" said the Seal boy.
"It's Wolf," said Renn. She cupped her ear to listen. "Oh, this is bad, he's somewhere in the west!
Why?

Why isn't he up there helping Torak? If not even Wolf can reach him ..." She thought quickly. "You're right," she told the Seal boy. "We can't get up there in time. Fetch my bow."

His jaw dropped. "I won't let you shoot him! Whatever he's done--"
"How else do we save Torak?"
"But he's still our Mage!"
"Bale," said Renn urgently, "I don't want to kill him any more than you do, but we have to do something!"
Just then the Soul-Eater moved away from the edge, and disappeared. With a cry Renn ran backward, desperate to catch sight of him again. "The overhang's too deep," said Bale. "Quick. The skinboat."
"What?" cried Renn.
Bale seized her wrist and dragged her after him. "You can't see the altar rock from the land--only from the Sea!"
Down they raced toward the water. Bale ducked into a shelter, then came out again, and tossed Renn her quiver and bow. Grabbing his skinboat from a rack, 325

he slid it into the shallows, practically threw her into the prow end, then vaulted in after her and snatched up his paddle. Renn had to grip the sides with both hands as they moved off faster than she would have thought possible.

 

A wind was getting up: an east wind from the Forest. As Renn turned to face the cliff, the fog blew apart to reveal the Soul-Eater--holding a knife high above his head, like an offering. At his feet lay a figure. It wasn't moving.

"I can see them!" shouted Renn.
With astonishing skill, Bale brought his craft about. Renn lurched and would have fallen overboard if he hadn't taken hold of her jerkin and yanked her back.

Her hands shook as she whipped out an arrow and nocked it to her bow. Despite Bale's best efforts, the skinboat rocked in the swell. She'd never be able to stand, she'd have to shoot from kneeling.

On the cliff, Torak still wasn't moving. A terrible fear seized her that they were too late.
"We're too far out," muttered Bale. "No one could make that shot."
Setting her teeth, Renn forced herself to ignore him--to think only of the target, as Fin-Kedinn had taught her.
Staring hard at the target, she took aim.
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The arrow came arching out of the sky, and thudded deep into Tenris's palm. With a howl he fell to his knees, and the knife clattered away across the rock.

Torak seized his chance and wriggled out of the bindings around his ankles, then used his heels to launch himself forward. His arms felt heavy and bloodless, but he managed to hook his wrists over the horn-- and rolled off the altar.

 

On the opposite side, Tenris was still on his knees, clutching his wounded hand. Rising to his feet, he staggered away from the cliff edge--out of range of further arrows.