Outcast by Michelle Paver Read Free Book Online Page B

pawed the burdock.
It's an elk, she told herself. Nothing to do with Torak.
And yet, she knew--with the certainty that came to her at times and which Saeunn called her inner eye-- she knew that Torak's souls were in that elk. He was spirit walking. He was attacking her.
    "This can't be," she whispered again. "Why would he attack me?"
Feeling dizzy and sick, she gripped the handle of her axe. There was no way out. Whatever happened next, one of them would die.
Wolf stood guard while Tall Tailless huddled in the reindeer pelt, twitching and moaning in his sleep.
The scent of the Otherness that Wolf had caught in the Dark was gone, but he sensed that it hadn't gone far. It was a new smell, but it reminded him of something. Something bad.
     
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Ordinarily he would have raced off to find it, but Tall Tailless had said never to leave him. This puzzled Wolf a lot. He left Tall Tailless all the time. To hunt, to roll in scat, to gobble up delicious rotten carcasses which his pack-brother unaccountably disliked. But it didn't matter how long Wolf was away, because he always came back. Wolf hated not understanding. But he couldn't get his jaws around the answer. Then he heard howling.
    Wolves. Many lopes off, although he couldn't tell exactly where, because they were howling with their muzzles all pointing different ways. Wolf understood this. It was the time when the Lights get longer, eating up the Darks: the time when wolf cubs are born. This pack had cubs. It didn't want others to find its Den. The pack that Wolf had run with on the Mountain had used the same trick.
Wait! He sprang to his feet. This was the Mountain pack! He knew the leader's howl!
     
Lashing his tail, he howled an answer. I'm here! Here! In his head he saw the pack standing close together, muzzles lifted to the Up, eyes slitted in the joy of the howl. He was seized with longing to go to them.
    The pack fell silent.
Wolf's tail stilled.
He wished Tall Tailless would wake up. But he went
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on twitching and moaning in his sleep.
A little later, Wolf heard a frantic yip-and-yowling in tailless talk. It was the pack-sister. He didn't understand what she was saying, but he could hear that she was in trouble.
    Wolf pawed Tall Tailless to wake him. His pack-brother didn't stir.
Wolf snapped at his over-pelt and tugged at the long dark fur on his head. When that didn't work, he barked in his ears. That never failed. It did now.
Wolf's pelt tightened as he realized that what lay here, curled in the reindeer hide, was only the meat of Tall Tailless. The bit inside--the breath that walked-- was gone.
Wolf knew because it had happened before. Sometimes he would see the walking breath leave his pack-brother's body. It was the same size and shape and smell as Tall Tailless, but Wolf knew not to get too close.
     
Wolf ran in circles. The scent trail told him that the walking breath of Tall Tailless had gone to find the pack-sister. That was what Wolf must do too. He flew through the Forest. He startled a mare and her foals, and nearly trod on a sleeping piglet, annoying its mother, but he was gone before she'd lumbered to her feet. Weaving between the alders at the edge of the
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Fast Wet, he loped toward the pack-sister's howls. He smelled her fierce resolve. He smelled fresh blood and angry elk.
In mid yowl, the pack-sister's voice broke off. Wolf quickened his pace.
Suddenly the wind swung around, carrying a new scent to his nose: the scent of Otherness.
Wolf slewed to a halt. The Otherness was heading for Tall Tailless's defenseless body.
Wolf hesitated.
What should he do?
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NINE
    Torak woke with a struggle, as if fighting his way up from the bottom of a lake. Something had happened in the night--something terrible--but he couldn't remember what. He was lying in his sleeping-sack with the early sun in his eyes. His mouth tasted as if he'd been eating ash, and the wound in his chest hurt savagely.
Then he saw the strand of dark-red hair in his hand, and everything