Outcast (8 page)

The river was murky, eager to carry him to Aki. His numb fingers lost their grip, and as the current spun him, he caught a flash of the log he was about to crash into. He tried to dive, couldn't get deep enough, took a blow on the temple. Kicking water, he burst free--to a
104
blaze of sunlight and a fishing spear aimed at his chest. It wasn't a log he'd crashed into. It was Aki's dugout.
Frantically, Torak twisted, then dived under the boat. He bobbed up on the other side. Aki was waiting. Again the spear jabbed. Again Torak dived beneath the boat. His legs were stone, his chest bursting. An image flared in his mind of the elder-branch pipe he'd used for tapping birch-blood. Should've kept it, should've thought... Once more he surfaced--but this time as Aki lunged, Torak grabbed the spear-shaft and yanked with all his might. Aki howled and pitched over the side.

Locked together, they fought, each battling to wrench the spear from the other. Aki jerked the shaft beneath Torak's chin and slammed him against the boat. Choking, Torak drove his knee into Aki's groin. Aki roared and let go of the spear. Torak went for it, but the river carried it away.

That lunge nearly cost him his life. As he reached for the spear, Aki seized his hair and pushed him under. Flailing, Torak clutched Aki's jerkin--leggings-- anything. Couldn't catch hold of the slippery buckskin, couldn't claw loose from the grip on his hair. His sight darkened, his mouth gaped to scream--and the river took the bubbles of his breath. In the last moment he twisted around and sank his teeth into Aki's thigh.

105
A muffled bellow, and Aki released him. Torak exploded from the water, gulping air like a landed salmon.

Forcing himself under again, he surfaced in a clump of alders, upstream of the dugout. Aki was downstream, his bristly scalp just visible as he clung to a tree and fought for breath. The boat was between them, wedged among willows. That gave Torak an idea.

 

Sinking beneath the surface, he let the river carry him, emerging without a ripple closer to the dugout, but still upstream. He heard Aki's labored breathing on the other side of the boat but couldn't see him. The Boar Clan boy sounded spent, and Torak hesitated. Then a hardness like a splinter of bone seemed to enter his heart. Bracing his shoulders against a willow, he kicked the dugout with both feet. It bucked like a forest horse. He kicked again--it jolted loose--and the river took hold. The moment before the dugout struck Aki, Torak grabbed a tree and pulled himself high enough to see. He saw the boy's head jerk up, his eyes widen in fear. He saw the heavy oak smack into him and bear him down, down toward the rapids. Aki didn't even have time to scream.

Grimly Torak clung to the tree. The lapping water was gentle. From downstream came no sound except the roar of the rapids.
106

Torak turned and swam upriver to where he'd left his gear. He hauled himself out and collapsed. The muddy taste of the river was in his mouth, the sour smell of moss in his nostrils. The wound in his chest ached.

 

Retrieving his things, he spotted a way up the rocks which he hadn't noticed before, and started to climb. Granite scratched his bare feet, and he remembered that the river had taken his boots. He shrugged.

 

When he reached the top, he retraced his steps till the rapids were in sight. To make sure.

 

The dugout had slammed into a boulder above them. Between boulder and boat, Torak glimpsed a hand. It wasn't moving. Maybe Aki was unconscious and drowning. Maybe he was already dead. Torak couldn't bring himself to care.

 

Drawing his knife, he cut a switch from an elder tree and trimmed it to make a breathing tube. Then he jammed it in his belt and started upstream, leaving Aki to his fate.

There was something wrong with Tall Tailless.
Wolf had sensed this in his pack-brother for a while. Tall Tailless no longer listened to Wolf, or even to the Forest, and he was beginning to do bad things. It was getting worse. A badness was gnawing him on the inside, like the badness that had gnawed the tip of
107
Wolf's tail in the Great Gold.
Anxiously Wolf followed his pack-brother, staying out of sight because Tall Tailless had told him to go away, but watching nevertheless.

Wolf kept level with him now as they followed the Fast Wet toward the Mountains. As he wove between the trees, Wolf smelled otter and beaver, and a whiff of the Otherness that hid its true scent. He didn't know what to do about that, so he chewed a juniper branch, which made him feel better.

Suddenly he smelled wolf.
The scent drove all else from his mind. Yes, fresh wolf scat, and the strong, sweet scent-markings of the lead wolf.
His heart gave a bound. He
knew
this scent! The Mountain pack!
Wild with joy, Wolf gave two short barks:
Where are you?

The wind carried an answering howl--and Wolf flew toward it. Now he could be among wolves again,
and
help Tall Tailless! This was what Tall Tailless needed: to be among his own kind, to be among wolves!

 

It didn't take long to find them, because they'd paused to wash the blood from their muzzles at a little Fast Wet. As Wolf sped toward them, he took in everything in a snap. The hunt had been good: he smelled deer blood on their fur, saw their bellies

108
sagging with meat they were carrying back to the Den.

The lead pair were the same, but there had been changes, as there always are in a wolf pack. The old wolf was gone, and the one who loved digging for mice was lame and had become underwolf, while the cubs who'd played with Wolf on the Mountain were young full-growns like himself, although smaller. One of these was a beautiful, dark-furred female who'd been extremely good at hunt-the-lemming. She caught Wolf's scent and gave an excited twitch of her tail--but she didn't come to greet him, because it was up to the leaders to decide if he was allowed back.

Skittering to a halt, Wolf approached the lead male in the proper way for a young full-grown to greet his elder. Sleeking back his ears, Wolf belly-crawled toward him, apologizing for being gone so long. The leader looked proudly away. With fearsome speed, he grabbed Wolf's muzzle in his jaws, threw him onto his back, and stood over him, growling. Wolf thumped his tail and whined. The pack watched.

The leader released Wolf and raised his head, narrowing his eyes. Wolf took the hint and licked the leader's muzzle, whining respectfully and waggling his' hindquarters to thank him for being allowed back.

Now the lead female shouldered her mate aside to
109
get her share of the greeting, and after that, everyone followed in a frenzy of nibble-greeting and rubbing of flanks.

Darkfur playfully pawed Wolf's shoulder but was body-slammed away by a male with a black ear: the leader of the young full-growns. Blackear tried to muzzle-grab Wolf, but Wolf wriggled out of Blackear's grip, muzzle-grabbed him back, and flipped him onto his flank, straddling him and growling till Blackear thumped his tail in apology. Wolf released him and licked his nose to show that this was accepted.
So. Now I am above you in the pack.
And that was decided.

At the same time, Wolf was breathing in the wonderful, sweet smell of cubs on everyone's fur. The fierce love of wolf cubs flared in his chest. Oh, to race to the Den and meet them! To snuffle them and let them clamber over him!

Why did you leave?
Darkfur asked with a glance and a twitch of her tail.
Why did you leave the Mountain?
Wolf replied.

The others crowded around, and he got as many answers as there were wolves.
Thunderer. Great Soft Cold. Cubs. Ancient Den. Big Wet. Wrong Smell. Needed. Sent...

Suddenly the lead female raised her muzzle and tasted the air. Then she flicked an ear at Wolf.
You hunt with us now.
110 Wolf wagged his tail.
I bring my pack-brother.
A ripple of tension ran through her.
You are of this pack. No other.
Anxiously Wolf dipped his head.
He is my pack-brother. He is--he has no tail. He runs on hind legs.
He is not-wolf!
The lead male gave an irritable twitch.
Wolf whined and dropped his ears to show--as politely as he could--that this wasn't so.
A glance passed between the lead pair. Darkfur threw Wolf a puzzled look.
The lead male moved off, then turned his grizzled head.
A wolf cannot be of two packs.
Wolf's tail drooped.
The Up darkened, and the Wet began to fall. Wolf stood in the Wet and watched the Mountain pack trotting away into the trees. 111

THIRTEEN
It was raining, and Torak was chilled to the bone, but he was too scared to wake up a fire. The rockfall had crushed his shelter. He'd only just escaped.

For half a moon he'd survived in the gulley off the Axehandle. At least, he
thought
it was half a moon, although he was losing track of time, as he was losing his skill at tracking prey. When Wolf was with him, things were better; but then he would start worrying that Wolf was in danger, and send him away again--and things would turn bad.

Now the rocks had forced him from the gully. Or maybe it was the Hidden People. They were
112
everywhere: in tree and rock and stream. Maybe they were watching him right now.
Shouldering his bow, he headed off. "Step by step," he muttered, "that's the way."
He twitched. Fin-Kedinn had told him that. But Fin-Kedinn had cast him out. Thinking of him hurt.
It hurt to think about Renn, too. She had Bale now. He'd seen that. She didn't need him anymore.
At the Axehandle he stooped to drink, and his name-soul stared back. He recoiled. He looked like the Walker. Filthy. Mad. Was that how he was going to end up? He stumbled upriver, talking to himself, fingering the wound on his chest. He'd yanked out the stitches, but it still refused to heal.

He walked for a long time, till he reached the very edge of the Forest. He found himself on a hillside, with the east wind cold on his face, like icy breath. Before him, stretching all the way to the High Mountains, lay a vast inland sea: an endless expanse of misty, shimmering gray. Lake, mist, rain. He couldn't tell where one ended

 

and the other began. The world had turned to water.

and the other began. The world had turned to water. Lake Axehead, he thought muzzily. This must be Lake Axehead. A strange, shivering cry split the air. Torak gave a start.
The cry fell away. Its echo lingered in his mind.
113

"Lake Axehead is--different," Renn had told him once. "So are the Otters." Torak had seen some at last winter's feast, but he didn't know what kind of people they were, except that the Walker had been Otter Clan, and they'd cast him out.

 

Below him, the Axehandle seeped from the Lake through a marshy bed of reeds. To the south, needle-pricks of watery green light glimmered in the haze. That must be the Otters' camp. He remembered hearing that they only camped on the south shore. He didn't know why.

Better avoid the south shore, then, and keep to the north.
Wolf appeared and gave him a subdued greeting, rubbing his wet flank against Torak's thigh. Together they descended the slope.

The ground turned boggy. They leaped from tussock to tussock, sending up silver darts of water. The reeds--which had appeared knee-high--now loomed taller than the tallest man.

 

Torak hated them. He hated the murky, rotten-smelling water lapping their stems; their menacing, knife-sharp leaves; their bent brown heads that slyly watched him pass.

He came to a tussock like a hunched man about to rise. Beyond it, a walkway disappeared into the reeds. It was only logs lashed together with wovenbark rope, but 114
Torak felt its power, and caught a faint hum at the edge of hearing.
Nothing would make him go in there.

With the reed-bed on his right, he squelched north. To his relief, Wolf found firmer ground: an elk trail skirting the shore. But shortly afterward, the mist closed in, and his spirits sank.

 

Wolf, too, seemed cowed as he padded forward. Then the mist swallowed him, leaving Torak on his own. He didn't dare howl. He dreaded to think what might answer. Putting out his hands, he groped forward.

Suddenly Wolf hurtled toward him, eyes bulging with terror. He sped past Torak and vanished the way they'd come. At the same moment, Torak's fingers sank into a clammy, stinking softness. With a gasp he sprang back. Something red flapped wetly in his face. He tore it off. The mist thinned. His heart jerked. The trail was barred: strung across with a nightmare tangle of fleshy, glistening coils. He breathed the stench of blood, saw plump, wriggling maggots. He'd stumbled into a web. A web of entrails.

Whimpering, he fled, rubbing his face where the web had touched it. Splashing back into the marsh, he sank to his knees, and the reeds rippled with laughter. He was back at the walkway.
"No," he whispered. "Not in there."
He ran south. The marshy Axehandle was easily
115
crossed, and Wolf joined him, his big paws scarcely sinking.
They hadn't gone far when they heard voices, saw lights bobbing up and down. Otter Clan hunters.
Then there they were: small, lithe people with spears and fierce green faces, paddling swift craft of yellow reeds.
"There!" shouted one. "Near the reeds!"
Reeds to his left. To his right, a hillside of crowberry scrub, giving no cover. He barked a command to Wolf to split up--Wolf obeyed--Torak waded into the reeds. Grimacing as his feet sank into slime, he forced himself deeper, up to his neck. They wouldn't find him here.
The mist parted, and ahead there were no more reeds. He'd reached open water.
He spotted a floating beech bough, probably ripped off in a storm. He ducked behind it.
Something slithered over his foot. He cried out.

More shouts from the Otters--they'd heard him. Now they were coming through the mist: three reed boats curved at prow and stern, like water birds. Two hunters in each, one with a paddle, the other a rushlight and a greenstone fishing spear.

Dipping behind the branch, Torak peered through the leaves.
116
Somewhere behind him rose the eerie, shivering cry he'd heard before.
The Otters froze. Then the woman in the middle boat dug in her paddle and slid forward, coming to a smooth halt not two paces from Torak's branch. He didn't dare duck, in case the movement caught her eye.
As she steadied the craft, her companion scanned the reeds, unaware that the quarry lay under his nose.