Read Online Outcast by Michelle Paver - Free Book Online Page A

merely been playing at being outcast, finding any excuse to stay near the Ravens. He'd been like that young elk, bleating for its mother. If it didn't learn to survive on its own, it would get killed. He wasn't going to make the same mistake.
    His fist closed over the pebble. Leave it. Leave it all behind.
He tucked the pebble into a cleft of the whitebeam tree and ran.
Mist beaded the bracken and lent the leaves of the whitebeam a frosty glitter. Torak's pebble nestled safe in its smooth brown arms.
A roe buck entered the clearing and began to browse. A robin started to sing. A blackbird awoke. The rising sun burned off the mist.
Suddenly the buck jerked up its head and fled.
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Robin and blackbird flew off with shrill calls of alarm. A shadow fell across the whitebeam. The Forest held its breath.
A green hand reached out and took the pebble from the tree.
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ELEVEN
    He's here," said Aki. "I can feel it." "Well, I can't," panted the Willow girl, battling the current to keep abreast of him. "Won't he have headed south instead of east? That's where he came from." "Which is why the others have gone south to cut him off," growled Aki.
"We're too far upstream," Raut said uneasily. "We should go back."
"No," snapped Aki.
"Then let's put in for a rest," protested another boy. "If I paddle much longer, my arms will fall off!"
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"Me too," puffed the girl. "There was an inlet back there. Let's go."
A murmur of assent--to which Aki grudgingly agreed--and they brought their dugouts about.
Perched in a willow, Torak breathed out. When he was sure it wasn't a bluff, he slipped into the water and waded for the bank.
Wolf was waiting. He watched with interest as Torak stuffed his boots with grass to warm up his feet; then they headed upstream.
All day the hunters had tracked them: east of Twin Rivers and up the Axehandle. Whenever Torak tried heading south, the second group of hunters drove him back. It was only by staying in the thickets near the river that he'd kept them off the scent.
     
He was cold, wet, and he hadn't slept since the night before last. He was beginning to miss things. A while back he'd almost tripped over a boar enjoying a wallow. Why hadn't he seen its tracks? A child of five summers would have spotted them.
     
Because of Aki, he'd given up all-thought of going south. His only hope was to cross the Axehandle and make for the gullies leading off it to the north. It was rough country without much prey, and few people ventured in except for the odd lonely wanderer. That was the point.
    The river turned angrier, and he caught the distant
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roar of rapids. Around midmorning, Wolf tensed. Then Torak heard it too: paddles slicing the water; dogs panting, keeping level with the dugouts. Aki and his friends hadn't rested for long.
     
Torak made his way across the willow bog, squelching through haregrass, avoiding the pale-green moss, which was so delicate that a footprint would remain stamped on it for days. Wolf managed better, his big, slightly webbed paws letting him run lightly over the surface.
     
To his dismay, Torak saw that his pursuers weren't continuing upriver, but crossing it, as if they'd guessed his plan. In their dugouts they made it with ease. He watched them hoist the boats on their shoulders and climb the bank. They meant to carry them around the rapids and lie in wait for him above.
     
He had no choice but to go on.
    The river turned rougher, crashing over rocks and soaking him in spray. As he clambered past the rapids, he watched for his pursuers on the other side. From memory, he guessed he was nearing the place where-- on the opposite bank--two gullies led off from the Axehandle valley. The autumn before last, he and Renn had found a fallen oak and used it to get across. Maybe ...
    The oak was gone, washed away by floods.
For a moment Torak didn't know what to do. His
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head felt tight. A buzzing in his ears made it hard to think. There had to be some way of crossing.
There was. Ahead, the valley