Spirit Walker by Michelle Paver

and
132
flew off. Dusk came on--although as it was the middle of the Moon of No Dark, night would be merely a brief interval of deep blue twilight. Still Torak waited.
It was nearly dawn when he judged it safe to go out. Stiff from crouching so long, he made his way onto the rocks.
The dew had dampened his pack, but when he checked its contents, he found to his relief that nothing had been taken.
Hungry, he went to check the fishhooks. Stooping to draw in the line, he brushed away piles of seaweed that the wind had blown across it. Except--there had been no wind. So how had that seaweed got there?
He leaped back just as the rope snapped taut around his ankle and yanked him off his feet.
133
Chapter SIXTEEN
Torak fell, knocking his head on a rock. A tall figure blotted out the sun.
Against the glare, Torak glimpsed a dark face and a blaze of yellow hair; a knife in one hand and a rope in the other, pulled tight on the noose around his ankle. "I've got him," said his captor to someone Torak couldn't see. Then to Torak, "Come quietly or I'll hurt you." He spoke without malice, but clearly meant what he said. Torak, however, was not about to come quietly. He didn't know many fighting tricks, but he knew about
134
They'd blundered into the bog.
"Filthy Forest tricks!" yelled one.
"You're not getting away with this!" howled another.
But it sounded as if only two of them were down there. Where was the third one, the tall boy from the rocks?
No time to think about that. He reached the top of the slope--and would have tumbled off the cliff if he hadn't grabbed a sapling just in time. He stifled a cry of frustration. He hadn't come nearly as far as he'd thought.
    The bog wouldn't slow his pursuers for long; and even if he could scramble down the cliff, the river was too wide to swim, and in those canoes they'd easily catch him. He'd have to follow the Widewater upstream, and hope he could lose them in the Forest. Which would mean leaving his gear behind on the rocks; although at least he still had his knife. . . .
    His knife . . .
What he held in his hand was the knife Fin-Kedinn had made for him, but Fa's knife--his most precious possession--was in his pack.
Above him there was a tearing sound--and he glanced up to see a large branch rushing toward him. He leaped aside--but not far enough. The branch caught him painfully on the elbow, and he cried out.
    135
"Up there!" bayed his pursuers.
He heard a ripple of laughter--and looked up to see a face of leaves disappearing into the trees.
A stone struck him on the cheekbone, and he fell against the sapling.
"We've got him," said a voice close by.
Through a blur of pain, Torak saw the tall boy from the rocks moving calmly toward him through the pines. "Asrif," he said to his companion, "I've told you before, not the head. You could have killed him."
     
Asrif tucked his slingshot in his belt and grinned. "And then wouldn't I have been sorry."
    They were back on the rocks: Torak with his hands bound behind him, his captors prowling up and down. They no longer wore the strips of hide across their eyes, but it wasn't an improvement. He could see the violence in them; their fingers flexing on the hilts of their knives. Strange knives, with hilts made of something that was neither wood, antler nor bone.
The tall boy who'd caught him on the rocks came close. He had a clever, watchful face, and eyes as cold as blue flint. "You shouldn't have run," he said quietly. "That's what a coward does."
    "I'm not a coward," said Torak, meeting his gaze. His cheek was throbbing, his feet and shins burning with scratches.
136
They'd blundered into the bog.
"Filthy Forest tricks!" yelled one.
"You're not getting away with this!" howled another.
But it sounded as if only two of them were down there. Where was the third one, the tall boy from the rocks?
No time to think about that. He reached the top of the slope--and would have tumbled off the cliff if he hadn't grabbed a sapling just in time. He stifled a cry