Read Online Outcast by Michelle Paver - Free Book Online

him.
His grip tightened. To steal a man's axe is one of the worst things you can do. To steal Fin-Kedinn's ...
But he needed it.
Scarcely believing what he was doing, he stuck the axe in his belt and moved on, seeking the shelter where Renn slept. It was madness to stay any longer, but he couldn't leave till he'd found it.
     
He was astonished to discover that she was now sharing a shelter with Saeunn: he recognized it by its stale, old-woman smell. How Renn would hate that.
    It hurt to see her gear, piled untidily in the corner. Her beloved bow hung from a crossbeam. As he touched it, he seemed to hear her voice: mocking, kind. The first day they'd met, when the Ravens were enemies and he had to fight for his life, she had given him a beaker of elderberry juice. "It's only fair, " she'd said. On her willow-branch mat lay a new medicine pouch he hadn't seen before; she must have made it when she'd given him hers. He upended it, and among the dried mushrooms and tangles of hair, he was surprised to see the white pebble on which he'd daubed his clan-tattoo last summer. She had kept it all this time.
    His hand closed over it. This would tell her better than anything that he was never coming back. 92
***
He ran fast and low, heading upstream, keeping to the thickets by the river. He hadn't gone far when he heard slight, furtive sounds of pursuit. It couldn't be Aki--he would've made mote noise. And whoever it was, they were good, moving almost noiselessly and staying in the shadows. They were good, but he was better.
The river flowed deep and slow between half-drowned alders. Torak took off his boots and tied them around his neck. Then, balancing quiver, bow, and sleeping-sack roll on his head, he waded in. The cold took his breath away, but he gritted his teeth and kept going till he was up to his chest.
    Bracing his legs against the current, he waited. He heard the slap and suck of water around the trees. Then stealthy footsteps.
From the bank, someone softly called his name.
He tensed.
"Torak!" Renn whispered again. "Where are you?" He made no answer. Then another voice. "Kinsman, it's me!" Torak flinched.
"We're alone, I swear it!" Bale said in a hoarse whisper. "Come out! I mean you no harm! Renn's told me everything. I know you're outcast, but we're still kin! I want to help!"
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Torak clenched his jaw. Renn had already risked her life to help him, and it had come to nothing. He couldn't put her or Bale in any more danger. Like all hunters, Renn and Bale knew how to wait. So did Torak.
At last he heard Bale sigh. "Let's go," he told Renn.
"No!" she protested. Torak heard a stirring of branches as she moved closer--and suddenly there she was at the water's edge.
"Torak!" Her voice was recklessly loud. "I know you're there, I can feel you listening! Please. Please! You've got to let us help you!"
Not answering Bale had been hard, but ignoring Renn was one of the hardest things Torak had ever done. The urge to cry out--to give some sign that only she would understand--was almost overwhelming. Go back to camp, he begged her. I can't bear it.
    Bale put his hand on Renn's shoulder. "Come on. Either he's not here or he doesn't want to be found."
Angrily she shook him off. But when he started for camp, she followed.
Torak waited till he was sure they were gone, then waded back to dry ground. Frozen, numb, he pulled on his boots. The scab on his chest was open; he felt warmth seeping out. Good. Let it bleed.
    He followed the river upstream, running punishingly fast so that he wouldn't have to think, but
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at last he had to stop. He slumped against a whitebeam tree at the edge of a clearing. It would be dawn soon. Far in the distance, he heard dogs.
He found that he was still clutching the pebble he'd taken from Renn's medicine pouch. He stared at the dotted lines which he used to think were his clan-tattoo, but were now meaningless smudges.
     
That's the old Torak, he thought.
     
He realized that for the past half-moon, he'd