Oath Breaker Read Free

him?"
Torak flinched. "No, I ... I should have been. I wasn't." If I'd been with him, he wouldn't have died. This is my fault. My fault.
Their eyes met, and in Fin-Kedinn's sharp blue gaze, Torak saw understanding and sorrow: sorrow for him.
The Raven Leader raised his head and studied the Crag. "Go up there," he said. "Find out who did this."
The morning sun glinted on the juniper thorns as Torak climbed the steep path toward the Crag. Bale's boot prints were unmistakable--Torak knew them as well as he knew Renn's or Fin-Kedinn's or his own--and they were the only ones on the trail. So whoever had killed him hadn't come this way--not from the Seal camp.
    Whoever had killed him. It still wasn't real. Only yesterday they'd been gutting cod together on the foreshore, Rip and Rek sidling closer to the steaming entrails, Bale tossing them scraps now and then. At last the final cod hung by its tail from the rack, and they were free to go skinboating. Asrif had lent Torak his boat, and Detlan and his little sister had come to see them off, Detlan on his crutches, waving so hard he nearly fell over.
    Only yesterday.
The neck of the Crag was shaggy with rowan and
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juniper, but from there it broadened into a huge, flat boat shape jutting over the Sea. Long ago, the surface had been hammer-etched with a silvery web of hunters and prey. In the middle squatted a gray granite altar shaped like a fish.
     
Torak swallowed. Two summers before, the Seal Mage had tied him to that altar and prepared to cut out his heart. He could still feel the granite digging into his shoulder blades, still hear the click of the tokoroths' claws.
    From far below came a cry like a creature being torn in two. Torak sucked in his breath. Bale's father had found his son. Don't think about that. Think about this. Do this for Bale.
The Crag glistened with dew. It was naked rock, except for the odd crust of lichen or stonecrop. Tracking would be hard, but if the killer had left any trace, Torak would find it.
     
From the neck, he scanned the Crag. Something wasn't right, but he couldn't work out what. Storing that for later, he moved forward. Fa used to say that to track your quarry, you must think yourself into its spirit. This took on a dreadful meaning now. Torak had to see Bale alive on the Crag. He had to see the faceless killer.
    The killer must have been strong to have overcome
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Bale, but that was all Torak knew. He had to make the Crag tell him the rest.
It wasn't long before he found the first sign. He crouched, squinting sideways in the low morning light. A boot print, very faint. And there: the suggestion of another. An older man walks on his heels, a young man on his toes. Bale had walked lightly onto the Crag.
    Step by step, Torak followed him. He forgot the voice of the Sea and the salt wind in his face. He lost himself in the search.
The sense of being watched brought him back. He stopped. His heart began to pound. What if Bale's killer were still hiding in the rowans? Whipping out his knife, he spun around.
"Torak, it's me!" cried Renn.
With a harsh exhalation, he lowered his knife. "Never do that again!"
"I thought you'd heard me!"
"What are you doing here?"
"Same as you!" She was angry because he'd frightened her, but she recovered fast. "He didn't fall. His fingernails ..." They stared at each other. Torak wondered if he, too, wore that bleak, stretched look.
    "How did it happen?" she said. "I thought you were with him."
"No."
She met his eyes. He glanced away. "You go first,"
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she said in an altered voice. "You're the best tracker."
With his head down, he resumed his search, and Renn followed. She rarely spoke when he was tracking; she said he went into a kind of trance which she didn't like to break. He was grateful for that now. Sometimes, she saw too much with those dark eyes; and he couldn't tell her about his quarrel with Bale. He was too ashamed.
    He hadn't gone far when he found more signs. A crumb of lichen scraped by a running