Ghost Hunter Read Free Page B

what this meant--raced about, eager to get into harness. The Ravens were breaking camp.

    Renn found Fin-Kedinn dismantling his shelter. "Where to?" she said. "And why now?"

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    "East, to the hills. The clans will gather there. They'll be safer near the Deep Forest." He saw her expression and stopped. "You're going after him."

    "Yes." She expected him to try to stop her, but he went on with his work. His face was gray. She could see that he hadn't slept.

    "Why are you breaking camp now?" she said again.

    "I told you. They'll be safer near the Deep Forest."

    "They? But--aren't you going with them?"

    "No. Thull will lead them while I'm gone. Saeunn will counsel him when the clans gather."

    "What?" Renn stared at him. "But--they need you more than ever! You can't leave now!"

    Fin-Kedinn faced her. "Do you think I would leave my people if I wasn't convinced it was the only way? I've thought of little else for days. Now I'm sure."

    "Why? Where are you going?"

    He hesitated. "I need to find the one person who can help Torak. Who can help us all."

    "Who's that?"

    "I can't tell you, Renn." She flinched. "You can't? Or won't?" He didn't reply.

    With a cry, Renn turned her back on him. Everything was happening too fast. First Torak. Now Fin-Kedinn.

    She felt her uncle's hands on her shoulders, gently turning her around. She saw the snow sprinkling the

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    white fur of his parka; the silver hairs threading his dark-red beard.

    "Renn. Look at me. Look at me. I cannot tell you. Because I swore on my souls, I swore, that I would never tell."

    Ice flowers grew on the banks of the River Horseleap. The trees sparkled with frost. It was too cold for the Blackthorn Moon. It didn't feel right.

    Renn guessed that as Torak had decided it was too dangerous for her to go with him, he would also try to leave Wolf behind; which meant that he would go first to the resting place, to say good-bye. To save time, she crossed the river and headed up its gentler south bank. It didn't look as if Torak had done the same. At least, she didn't find any tracks.

    She was too worried to be angry with him. He had lived with the burden of his destiny for three winters, and over the last summer, she had watched the dread grow. He never spoke of it, but sometimes, when they were sitting by the fire or playing with the cubs, she saw a tightening around his eyes and mouth, and knew he was thinking of what lay ahead.

    If only he didn't feel that he had to do everything alone.

    She'd set out so late that she wasn't even near the

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    resting place when she had to start looking for a campsite. She ground her teeth in frustration. Torak had a day's lead on her, and he walked fast. A day's lead was all it would take.

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    FOUR

    Torak had wasted the whole morning seeking a place to cross the Horseleap. The north bank had gotten steeper and steeper as he'd headed upstream, so at last he'd been forced to double back.

    He was exasperated. He'd grown up in these valleys. How could he have forgotten them so quickly?

    And already, he was missing Wolf. They'd been apart before, but this felt different. He almost hoped that Wolf would seek him out, and he would see that gray shadow loping toward him through the trees.

    Overnight, the Forest had turned white. Torak saw drag marks where a badger had collected bracken for

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    winter bedding; and patches where reindeer had pawed away the snow to get at the lichen beneath.

    The mark on the yew tree shouted at him from ten paces away.

    He wasn't sure what it meant--maybe a mountain with a great bird swooping toward it--but he sensed its intention. I am here, said the Eagle Owl Mage. I am waiting.

    Torak bristled with outrage. The sign had been hacked through the bark and into the sapwood. It was as if Eostra were threatening the Forest itself.

    On impulse, he shook some earthblood from his mother's medicine horn into his palm, and patted it into the tree's wounds. There. The horn was special, made from