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Renn is gone. He is alone.
He walks, but he can't feel the ground beneath his feet. He is
cold, but he can't feel the wind in his face, or hear the creak of the
trees. It is so dark that he can't see his hand when he holds it
before him.
This is not spirit walking: he feels no wrenching pain. This is
worse. He is still himself, Torak, but something is missing. Inside
him there is a terrible, yawning emptiness.
"Renn? Wolf?" he calls, but his voice stays trapped inside his
head. There is nowhere for it to go. He is alone in nothingness.
"Renn!" he screams as he spins in endless dark. "Wolf!"
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***
Wolf woke with a start.
He heard the growls of the Bright Beast-that-Bites-Hot, and the
pack-sister whiffling in her sleep. Tall Tailless was gone.
Worry gripped Wolf from nose to tail. Tall Tailless was clever, but
he could hardly smell or hear, and in the Dark he was as helpless
as a cub.
Swiveling his ears, Wolf caught sounds outside the Den. He
heard trees shivering beneath the Bright Hard Cold, and voles
scrabbling to break out of their burrows. He couldn't hear his
pack-brother, but he sensed that Tall Tailless needed him.
Stepping silently over the pack-sister, Wolf left the Den. Hunger
made him weak, but his senses prickled.
Lifting his muzzle, he snuffed the scents. His hackles rose as he
caught the smell of demon.
Placing each paw with stalking care, Wolf moved noiselessly over
the brittle ground.
Tall Tailless stood a few lopes away, beneath a spruce tree. He
was swaying. His eyes were open, but he did not see, and Wolf
knew that he slept.
In the tree above Tall Tailless's head, a shadow moved.
In a snap, Wolf took in everything. He saw the tailless cub-demon
crouched on the branch above his pack-brother. He sensed its
hunger and hatred, he saw the
75
great stone claw in its forepaw, ready to strike.
With a snarl, Wolf sped across the Bright Hard Cold.
Something smashed into Torak and felled him.
He caught the glitter of demon eyes, the glint of a knife--then
Wolf-- Wolf- --was leaping at the tokoroth, and it was scrambling
up a tree and into the dark.
"Are you all right?" cried Renn, running toward him.
Dazed, he struggled to his feet. Branches cracked as the tokoroth
escaped from tree to tree, and Wolf--a silver arrow in the
moonlight--raced after it.
Torak tried to go after him, but his knees buckled.
"Come back inside," urged Renn.
"I've got to help Wolf."
"You're not wearing your parka. Inside before you freeze!"
Once they were in the shelter, Torak found that he was shaking,
but not with cold. "Wh-at happened to me?"
"You were sleepwalking." In the firelight, Renn's face was ashen.
"I woke up, you were gone. I went out, saw you standing beyond
the lines of power. You looked right through me. It was horrible. I
saw the tokoroth in the tree--it was aiming at your head. Then
Wolf came out of nowhere. He saved you."
Torak thought of Wolf chasing the demon.
"I think Eostra made you sleepwalk," said Renn, wrenching him
back.
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"How?"
"I don't know. But I think she tried it once before, in the Deep
Forest. Remember?"
Torak shut his eyes. That brought the blackness back, so he
opened them again. "Why would she?" he mumbled.
"I think," said Renn, "she wanted to make you go beyond the
earthblood I'd laid down, so that her tokoroth could get you. But
why?" she said to herself. "It wouldn't make sense to kill you, then
your power would be lost. It doesn't fit. None of it fits."
Torak rested his forehead on his knees. Renn touched his cheek
with the back of her hand and asked how he was feeling, and he
said all right. She asked how he'd felt when he was sleepwalking,
and he said, "Empty. I was in nothingness. I was lost."
Renn sucked in her breath. Torak asked her what it meant, but
she wouldn't say. He knew she was keeping things from him. He
didn't care. Wolf had saved him, and now he was out there alone.
Against the tokoroth.
The demon disappeared into a thicket, and Wolf lost the scent.
Shaking himself in disgust, he turned and trotted back to the Den.
The Bright Hard Cold bit his pads, and he was extremely hungry
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