Oath Breaker by Michelle Paver, Geoff Taylor Read Free Book Online Page A

punished.
67

EIGHT
Torak woke before dawn. The fire had burned low. The others were still asleep. Renn lay on her side, one arm flung out. Fin-Kedinn was frowning, as if even sleeping hurt. Both looked disturbingly vulnerable.
     
Quietly, Torak wriggled out of his sleeping-sack and crawled from the shelter. Below him on the slope, a wolverine rose on its hind legs to snuff his scent, then bounded off. This told Torak that Wolf must have gone hunting. If he'd been near, the wolverine would have stayed away. With a twinge of apprehension, Torak wondered what else might have managed to creep close.
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Below him the valley of the Blackwater floated in mist. The Forest rang with birdsong, but the ravens were gone.
    On the hill, he could see nothing except naked rock. He climbed to the crown. Nothing. Only an ancient tree stump on the western slope, its roots still clinging to the demon-haunted cracks. He thought of his father, who had sparked the events that had brought him to this place. He was shocked to realize that he could scarcely remember Fa's face.
As light crept into the sky, he spotted a faint dew trail of booted feet. Drawing his knife, he followed it around to the overhang above the shelter. Near the edge, he found a small cone of fine gray ash. He frowned. Someone had poured it with care, like an offering. Someone who had watched them in the night.
    He caught a flicker of movement in the mist by the river. His heart contracted.
Someone stood on the bank, staring up at him. The face was indistinct; the hair long, pale. An arm rose. A finger pointed at him. Accusing.
Torak touched the medicine pouch at his hip and felt the shape of the horn within. Sheathing his knife, he started down the hill. He dreaded coming face to face with Bale's ghost. But maybe it would speak to him. Maybe he could say he was sorry.
    The birds had stopped singing. On either side of the
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trail, hemlock floated in vaporous white. Footsteps heading his way.
A wild-eyed man burst from the mist and blundered into him. "Help me!" he gasped, clutching Torak's parka and glancing back over his shoulder. Staggering under his weight, Torak breathed the stink of blood and terror.
    "Help me!" pleaded the man. "They--they--" "Who?" said Torak. "The Deep Forest!" Blood sprayed Torak's face as the man brandished his stump. "They cut off my hand!"
"You'd be mad to go in there," snarled the man as Renn finished binding his stump. He'd stopped shaking, but whenever an ember cracked, he cringed.
He said his name was Gaup of the Salmon Clan. His parka and leggings were muddy fish-skin lined with squirrel fur, and one cheek bore the sinuous tattoo of his clan. Around his neck he wore a band of sweat-blackened salmon-skin, and small fish bones were braided into his fair hair, reminding Torak of Bale.
    "And it was Deep Forest people who did this?" said Fin-Kedinn. He sat with his back against a rock, haggard, breathing through clenched teeth. "They swore that if they saw me again, it'd be my head."
"But they made sure you survived," said Renn. "They
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seared the wound with hot stone so that you wouldn't bleed to death."
"So I should thank them?" retorted Gaup.
"How about thanking Renn for sewing up your stump?" said Torak.
Gaup glared. He hadn't thanked Torak, either, for helping him to the shelter and giving him food and water. And Torak hadn't missed the smear of ash on the heel of his boot.
    Out loud, Torak said, "When you were in the Deep Forest, did you see a man in a dugout? A big man, very strong."
"What do I care about that?" snapped Gaup. "I was looking for my child! Four summers old, and they took her!"
Torak glanced at Renn. She'd had the same thought. Soul-Eaters took children as hosts for demons. To make tokoroths.
Fin-Kedinn shifted position. Torak could see that his thoughts were racing. "To cut off a hand," he said, "that's a punishment from the bad times after the Great Wave. The clans forbade it long ago. Who did this to you?"
    "The Auroch