Spirit Walker (11 page)

"You wouldn't say that if you'd ever seen one," Torak said heatedly. Then to Asrif, "Leave that alone!" Fa had prepared that skin for him last spring, from the carcass of a lone wolf they'd found in a cave. Since then it had been unpicked and sewn to his winter parka, and now to his summer jerkin. He was dreading the time when it would be worn to shreds.

Bale flicked Asrif a glance, and the smaller boy shrugged, and threw away the stick.
"I may be Wolf Clan," Torak told Bale, "but my father's mother was Seal. So whether you like it or not, we're bone kin."
"That's a lie!" spat Bale. "If you were kin, you'd know the law of the Sea."
"Bale," broke in Detlan, "we should start back. She's getting restless."
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Bale glanced at the Sea. The waves had turned choppy. "This is your doing," he told Torak. "Angering the Sea Mother. Tainting her waters with the Forest." Asrif snickered. "Oh, Forest Boy, it'll be the Rock for you!"
"The Rock," Torak said blankly.
Asrif's grin widened. "A skerry near our island. You know what a skerry is, don't you?"
"It's a rock in the Sea," put in Detlan, who seemed to be struggling to grasp the depths of Torak's ignorance.

"They give you a skin of water," said Asrif, "but no food, then they leave you on the Rock for a whole moon. Sometimes the Sea Mother lets you live; sometimes she washes you off." His grin faltered, and in his pale-blue eyes Torak saw fear. "Washes you off," he repeated, "into the jaws of the Hunters."

"Asrif, that's enough," said Bale. "We'll have to take him with us, and let the Leader decide."
"No!"
protested Torak.

Bale wasn't listening. "Asrif, load up the trade goods. Detlan, we need a fire to purify us, especially him. I'm going to repair my boat." With that he jumped off the rocks and onto the beach.

Detlan seemed glad of something to do, and set about gathering armfuls of dried seaweed and driftwood. Soon he had a big fire blazing, giving off plumes 141
of thick gray smoke.
"What are you going to do to me?" said Torak.
"Give you a taste of the Sea," said Asrif with his weaselly grin.
"You can hardly go near our skinboats stinking of the Forest," said Detlan, as if that were too obvious to need pointing out.
Before Torak could protest, Detlan had stripped him naked and pushed him into the fire.
He managed to leap clear of the flames--but Asrif was waiting on the other side, and forced him back with his harpoon--back through the acrid, choking smoke. Again they pushed him through it until his eyes were streaming and his throat raw. Then they tossed him into the Sea.

The cold hit him like a punch in the chest, and he swallowed salt water. Kicking with all his might, he struggled to the surface, but couldn't break the bindings around his wrists.

Rough hands hauled him out and dragged him coughing onto the rocks. Then they cut the bindings at his wrists and bundled him into a gray hide jerkin and breeches that Asrif fetched from his boat. Torak felt naked without his knife and his clan-creature skin, and he hated having to wear someone else's clothes. "Give me-back--my things!" he spluttered.

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"Lucky for you the Salmon Clan didn't want to trade," snorted Asrif, "or you wouldn't have anything to wear!"
"He's so skinny!" said Detlan as he yanked Torak to his feet. "Don't they have enough prey in the Forest?"

Half pushing, half pulling, they led him down to the sand. Swiftly Asrif loaded his canoe at prow and stern with large, lumpy bundles wrapped in hide. A short distance away, Bale crouched by his boat, smearing a patch on its side with what looked like fat from a small hide pouch. His hands moved tenderly, but when he saw Torak, he glowered. "Take him with you, Detlan," he growled. "I don't want him near my boat."

"In you go," said Detlan, pushing Torak toward his craft. Like Asrif's, it was laden with bundles--including Torak's gear--but only at the prow end. Torak hesitated. "Your friend. Bale. Why is he so angry with me?"
It was Asrif who answered. "One of your fishhooks snagged his skinboat. It's as well for you that he can repair it."
Torak was puzzled. "But it's only a boat."
Asrif and Detlan gaped.
"A skinboat is not just a
[email protected]"
said Detlan. "It's a hunting partner! Don't ever let Bale hear you say that!"
Torak swallowed. "I didn't mean to--"
"Just get in," muttered Detlan. "Sit in the stern,
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keep your feet on the crossbar, and
don't move.
If you put your foot through the hide, we'll both go down."

The skinboat was so shallow that it rocked with Torak's every move, and he had to grip the sides to keep from falling out. Detlan, although much heavier, leaped in without a wobble. Torak noticed that he braced his thighs against the sides of the craft for balance.

 

Bale led the way, skimming across the waves at amazing speed. With the wind at their backs they sped like seabirds over the water, and when Torak twisted around, he was dismayed to see how quickly the Forest was falling away.

Soon they reached the islands he'd seen from the shore--but to his alarm, they kept going. "But--I thought we were going to your islands!" "Oh, we are!" grinned Asrif.
"Then why have we gone past them?"
Detlan threw back his head and laughed. "Not those islands! Much farther! A whole day's rowing!"
"What?"
cried Torak.
They cleared the last island, and suddenly there was no more land to right or left. There was nothing but Sea.
Torak clutched the sides and stared down into the murky water. "I can't see the bottom," he said.
"Of course you can't!" said Detlan. "This is the Sea!"
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Torak twisted around and saw the Forest sinking beneath the waves--and with it, all hope of finding the cure.
Suddenly on the wind he caught the howl of a wolf. It wasn't just any wolf. It was
Wolf.
Where are you? I am here! Where are you!
Wildly Torak staggered to his feet.
"Wolf!"
"Get down!" bellowed Detlan.
"Too late to go back now!" mocked Asrif. "And don't even think about jumping in, because then we'd have to shoot you!"
Too late . . .
Too late, Torak heard Wolf howling for him as the Forest disappeared into the Sea.
"Wolf!"
he yelled.
Wolf had heard his plea--had braved the wrath of the World Spirit to seek his pack-brother--but Torak had put himself utterly beyond his reach. 145
Chapter SEVENTEEN
The three skinboats flew over the waves as the sun sank toward the Sea, and hope died in Torak's heart.
In his mind he saw Wolf running up and down the shore: howling, unable to comprehend why his pack-brother had forsaken him.

Torak couldn't bear it. If only he'd howled a reply. But he'd been too stunned. And by the time it had occurred to him, he was far away, and Wolf's howls were nothing but memory.

Bitterly he berated himself for breaking the law of the Sea. If Renn had been with him this would never
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have happened; the Seals would never have got angry, and he'd be back there now with Wolf.
A gust of wind drenched him with spray, stinging his eyes and making the wound on his calf smart. He lurched and nearly went overboard. "Keep still!" said Detlan over his shoulder. "If you fall in, I'm not hauling you out."
"Hear that, Forest boy?" shouted Asrif from his skinboat.
"Save your breath, Asrif," cried Bale. "Still a long way to go."

Torak clutched the skinboat with numb fingers. Wherever he turned, he saw nothing but waves. The Sea had swallowed everything. Forest, Mountain, Raven, Wolf. He felt as insignificant as dust on the watery hide of this vast, endlessly heaving creature.

 

Peering over the edge, he stared into impenetrable dark. If he fell in, when would he reach the bottom? Or would he keep sinking down and down forever? A bird flew past. At first Torak thought it was a goose, but then he saw that it was black all over, and flying so low that its wing tips almost touched the Sea. Some time later, they passed a flock of small, plump seabirds sitting on the water, talking to one another in mysterious, un-birdlike groans. They had black backs and white bellies, and very bright, triangular red and yellow beaks.

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Detlan caught Torak staring at them. "Puffins," he said crossly. "They're puffins. Don't you have puffins in the Forest?"
Torak shook his head. "Are they hunter or prey?"

"Both," said Detlan. "But we never hunt them. Puffins are sacred to the Mages." He paused, reluctant to talk, but unable to tolerate Torak's ignorance. "They're not like other birds," he said at last. "They're the only creature that can fly through the air,

and
dive in the Sea,
and
burrow under the earth. That's why they're sacred. Because they can visit the spirits."
Asrif brought his skinboat alongside theirs. "I bet there's nothing like them in your Forest," he jeered.
There wasn't, but Torak was not about to admit it. He gave Asrif a hostile stare.
The evening wore on, and still the sun hung low in the sky. Soon it would be Midsummer, the time of the white nights, when the sun didn't sleep at all. Torak would have given a lot to go to sleep. His limbs were cramped, and he kept nodding off, then jolting awake again.
Then, from far beneath the waves, he heard singing.
Of one accord, all three Seals stopped paddling.
Bale whipped off his sun-visor and scanned the waves. Asrif bared his teeth in a grimace. Detlan muttered under his breath and clutched an amulet at his breast. 148
Torak leaned over the side, listening.

Such a remote, lonely song. Long, wavering cries that made ripples in his mind. Echoing groans as bottomless as the deeps. It was as if the Sea herself were singing a lament.

"The Hunters," breathed Detlan.
"There," Asrif said quietly, pointing to the northwest.
Bale turned his head, then nodded. "They're after capelin. We must be careful not to disturb them."

Torak squinted into the sun, but saw nothing. Then--ten paces away--he made out a large patch of calm water. It reminded him of the smoothness you see where a river flows over a rock just beneath the surface. "What is it?" he whispered.

 

"A shoal of capelin," murmured Detlan over his shoulder. "They hide far below, and the Hunters chase them to the surface. That's why the gulls are coming." As if from nowhere, seabirds appeared, mewing excitedly. But according to Detlan, it was below the surface that the Hunters would make their kill. Torak pictured the terror among the fishes as they crowded together, seeking safety, but unable to get away from the Hunters who came at them from the dark. . . .

But what
were
the Hunters?
"Watch the water," whispered Detlan.
Torak shaded his eyes with his palm.
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The Sea began to seethe. Bubbles broke the surface. The water turned pale green.
"That's the capelin rising," hissed Detlan. "The Hunters are beneath them, and all around. They've nowhere to go but up. . . ."

More gulls came, till the sky was a screaming tumult. And now Torak saw a dense mass of fish rising to the surface: slender, twisting bodies packed so tight that they turned the Sea to silver and made the water boil. In their panic, some leaped clear of the waves, desperate to escape. But the gulls were waiting for them. A fish broke the surface right beside Torak: a silver dart no longer than his hand. A huge bird with a wingspan wider than a skinboat swept down, speared it in one sharp talon, and bore it skyward. Craning his neck, Torak recognized the broad, flicked-up wing feathers of an eagle.

 

A gull flew after it, intent on stealing its prize. The sea-eagle gave a contemptuous twitch of its ash-colored tail and flew away.

 

Down among the gulls, the fight for fish was savage. Torak saw one gull struggling to fly away with a half-swallowed capelin jutting from its gullet, while two more chased it, tugging at the fish's tail.

Then he saw something that made him forget the seabirds.
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A black fin broke the surface.
He gasped.
The fin was as tall as a man, and moving faster than a skinboat.
"Ah," breathed Detlan. "The Hunters are come."
Torak glanced at the Seals. All three were watching with awe--and in Bale's case, admiration.

Another towering fin broke the surface. Then another--this one with a notch bitten out of it just below the tip. It was moving fast and with deadly purpose, circling the capelin.

 

So that's a Hunter, thought Torak. His father had drawn him pictures of whales in the dust, but until now Torak had never grasped how huge they were. With a shiver he realized how vulnerable he was, bobbing about in a skinboat as fragile as an eggshell. . . .

Suddenly he heard a splash--and turned to see a column of spray shooting high into the air. Then a great black tail lifted clear of the water and thrashed down again. More spray flew. The water became a chaos of flying foam and shattered sunlight. And this time when the Hunter with the notched fin turned to circle the capelin, it had a young one swimming beside it, its small fin just keeping up with the big one.

On and on the Hunters circled--dived--then surfaced again, taking their fill of the prey. Then-- suddenly--they vanished.
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Holding his breath, Torak scanned the Sea. They could be anywhere. They could be right beneath the skinboat. . . .
A throaty
kwssh!

behind him--and a jet of spray drenched the boat from prow to stern. And there was the one with the notched fin, so close that Torak could have reached out and touched the enormous blunt-nosed head--black on top and white underneath, with an oval patch of white behind the eye. For a moment the huge jaws gaped, and Torak saw sharp white teeth longer than his middle finger. For a moment a dark, shining eye met his. Then the Hunter arched its gleaming back and dived.

He braced himself, but it didn't come again. All that remained of the hunt were the gulls squabbling over scraps, and a glitter of silver fish scales drifting down through the green water.

Bale bowed to the Sea where the Hunters had been, then took up his paddle and moved off. The others followed in silence.
Only after they were well clear of the hunting ground did Detlan turn to Torak. "So now you've seen them," he said.
Torak was silent for a moment. "They hunt in a pack," he said. "Like wolves."
Detlan scowled. "The Hunters are like no Forest creature you've ever seen. They're the fastest creatures
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in the Sea. And the cleverest. And the deadliest." He swallowed. "A single Hunter can make a whirlpool that can sink the biggest skinboat. One flick of his tail can snap a man's backbone like a capelin's."