Oath Breaker
baked in the embers. The snails were particularly delicious, as they'd been feeding on crow garlic.
    While they ate, Rip and Rek took their morning bath in the shallows, flicking water over themselves with their wings, and splashing Wolf, who'd returned from hunting 82 and lay on the bank, pretending not to notice. Renn gave Rek a peeled egg and whispered her thanks. Then to Torak, "Who were those people?"
"Aurochs, I think. Green headbands, and one had a horn amulet." He asked her about the spear in the trail, and she told him it was a curse stick. "If you pass it without the proper charm, you fall sick and die. You can't see the curse, but it's there. It draws fever demons like moths to a flame."
     
He thought about that. "Can you get us past?" The knot in her belly tightened. "Maybe." In fact, she doubted it. The Deep Forest had the best Mages of all. She would be no match for them. "But they won't rely on curse sticks," she added. "They'll keep watch."
     
He didn't reply. Often, when he was working up to say something, he would run his thumb over the scar on his forearm. He was doing it now. "Renn ..."
    "Don't say it," she broke in. "What?" "He wasn't my kin, I don't have to go with you, it's too dangerous, I might get killed."
He set his jaw. "It is too dangerous. And it's not just them, it's me. Look what happened to Fin-Kedinn. Next time it could be you."
She began to protest, but he talked over her. "There's something else. We were watched in the night. I found a trail and a pile of ash."
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"Ash?" She tried to conceal her alarm. "Do you think it was Gaup?"
"I did at first. Now I'm not sure."
She realized what he was doing. "You're trying to put me off. Why must you always do this? Do you think it'll work? Do you think I'll say, Oh well, in that case I'm going back to my clan?"
    "That's what you should do. Yes."
"Well I won't!"
He glared at her. In the morning light his face looked older. Ruthless. "Renn. I warn you. I'll do whatever it takes to get Thiazzi."
"Fine," she retorted. "Let's get started. We'll need a disguise. We're on the Aurochs' side of the river, so we'd better try to look like them." He gave a curt nod. "Right," he said.
"There," said Renn. "I defy even an Auroch to spot you now." She was being very practical and brisk, but Torak wasn't fooled. She was as scared as he was.
Over the winter, Fin-Kedinn had taught them a few tricks about concealment. It had taken all afternoon to put them into practice. Renn turned out to be extremely good at it, which Torak found unnerving. She seemed to have a Mage's skill for making things appear other than what they were.
    First, she'd made a greenish brown stain of lichen and
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    river clay, taking the clay from below the waterline, so that no one would notice. She'd mixed it with wood ash and the marrowfat salve, to mask their scent and make it waterproof. Then she'd unpicked her clan-creature feathers and tucked them inside her jerkin, and they'd daubed the stain on each other's faces, throats, hands, and clothes, dappling it in blotches: some light, some darkened with charcoal.
    They knew from clan meets that Aurochs daubed their scalps with yellow clay to resemble bark, so they tucked their hair inside their parkas and did the same. They didn't have time to make nets for their faces, so they simply stained Torak's headband green and made one for Renn. Next, they padded their quivers with moss to prevent the arrows rattling and agreed upon a new warning signal. Finally, Torak cut them hogweed breathing tubes, in case they had to hide underwater.
    When it was done, Wolf approached Torak cautiously, gave a tentative sniff, and jerked back in alarm.
It's me, Torak told him in wolf talk.
Wolf flattened his ears and growled. It's me. Come here. Warily, Wolf moved closer. Torak breathed softly on his muzzle, talking in wolf talk and person talk. It took a while before Wolf was reassured.
"He didn't know you," Renn said in a strained voice.
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Torak tried to smile,

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