Outcast by Michelle Paver Page B

for the elk. Her mouth was a tense line as she watched it sweep the shadows with its antlers. Torak could see that she was reliving the attack.
By chance, the elk moved to the other side of the fire, and it was the midge who now targeted her. Distractedly she batted it away, but it came whining back, as midges do.
     
Leave her alone, urged Torak.
     
Just as the midge zoomed in for another attack, a young man rose, grasped the midge's beak lightly in one hand, and pretended to swat it with the other. He did it with such good humor that the Viper woman played along with him, buzzing away with an aggrieved
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whine that made everybody laugh.
Renn threw the young man a grateful glance, and he shrugged and sat down again. Then Torak noticed the wavy blue tattoos on his arms: the mark of the Seal Clan. He nearly cried out.
    It was Bale. His kinsman.
Bale had put on muscle since the previous summer, and firelight glinted in the beginnings of a beard, but apart from that he hadn't changed. The same long, fair hair beaded, with shells and capelin bones, the same intelligent face. The same blue eyes that seemed to hold the light of sun on Sea.
    The last time they'd seen each other, they'd talked about hunting together, and Torak had made a joke about a Seal in a Forest. It hurt to think of that now. Suddenly a horn boomed into the night.
Ravens exploded from the trees.
Dancers, watchers, all went still.
Leaning on her staff, Saeunn hobbled into the light. "A Soul-Eater!" she cried. "A Soul-Eater is come among us!"
Fear rippled through the throng.
"I read it in the bones," croaked the Raven Mage, circling the fire, searching their faces. "I see it in the smoke. A Soul-Eater is among us--a Soul-Eater to the marrow!" People clutched their children and gripped amulets
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and weapons. Fin-Kedinn's features never moved as he watched his Mage seek the evil one.
As Torak hid in the dark beneath the yews, the meaning of what Saeunn had sensed crashed upon him. A Soul-Eater to the marrow ... He had carried the mark on his chest for too long. It had gnawed its way into his bones, and he was one of them. He would never be free. The rite hadn't worked.
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TEN
    There was uproar around the long-fire. Dogs barking, a hornet buzz of voices. Mouths turned ugly with fear, eyes became shadowy hollows. Fin-Kedinn called for calm--and the uproar diminished. "But we've got to go after him now!" shouted Aki. "If we don't--"
"If you go now," said the Raven Leader, "you'll be setting off blind. Remember, it's not just an outcast out there. What about the Oak Mage? The Viper Mage. The Eagle Owl Mage. Three Soul-Eaters of enormous power--and they could be anywhere. Are you strong
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enough to fight them alone, Aki? Are any of you?"
Aki made to reply, but his father snarled at him, and Aki cringed as if to ward off a blow.
Torak had seen enough. He fled. What a fool he'd been to believe they would take him back. They would never take him back.
As he ran, the scab on his chest cracked open. He gasped in pain. One twitch, and it will draw you, hissed the Viper Mage.
Having retrieved his sleeping-sack, he took a different path to disperse his scent, and now through the trees he glimpsed the Ravens' shelters. They were deserted.
With every moment the danger grew--and yet he couldn't drag himself away. He was leaving them forever, he knew that now, but he had to be close to them one last time. He had to say good-bye.
     
He found the Raven Leader's shelter and peered in. There was Fin-Kedinn's axe propped against the doorpost; his bow, his fishing spear. But nothing of Renn's, which was odd.
     
His axe. It was beautiful, a blade of polished greenstone mounted on a sturdy ash handle. It fitted Torak's grip perfectly. As his fingers closed around it, he felt the Raven Leader's strength, his force of will. Torak had lost his own axe in the Far North; Fin-Kedinn had been
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going to help him make a new one. There was much that Fin-Kedinn had been going to teach