Oath Breaker Read Online Free

can't," he said without turning around.
"You must."
"I can't! I have to go after Thiazzi."
"Torak, it's dark," said Renn at her uncle's side, "and there's no moon, you can't leave now. We'll set off first thing in the morning."
"You must honor your kinsman," Fin-Kedinn said severely.
Torak turned on him. "My kinsman? That's what we've got to call him, isn't it? My kinsman. The Seal Clan boy. For five whole summers, till we've forgotten his name." "We'll never forget," said Fin-Kedinn. "But it's better this way. You know that."
"Bale," said Torak, very distinctly. "His name. Was Bale."
Renn gasped.
Fin-Kedinn watched him narrowly.
"Bale," said Torak again. "Bale. Bale. Bale!"
Shouldering past them, he ran the length of the bay,
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only stopping when he reached the smoldering ruins of Bale's shelter.
"Bale!" he shouted at the cold Sea. And if that summoned Bale's vengeful spirit to haunt him, then let it. It was his fault that Bale lay at the bottom of the Sea. If he hadn't quarreled, Bale would not have been alone on the Crag. They would have faced the Oak Mage together, and Bale would still be alive.
    His fault. "Torak!" Renn stood on the other side of the fire, her pale face shimmering in the heat. "Stop naming him! You'll draw his spirit!" "Let it come!" he flung back. "It's only what I deserve!" "You didn't kill him, Torak."
"But it was my fault! How do I bear it?"
To that she had no answer.
"Fin-Kedinn's right!" he cried. "The Seals can't avenge Bale; that's for me to do!"
"Don't keep naming him--"
"Vengeance is mine!" he shouted. Drawing his knife and taking his medicine horn from its pouch, he raised them to the sky. "I swear to you, Bale. I swear to you on this knife and this horn and on my three souls--I will hunt the Oak Mage and I will kill him. I will avenge you!"
     
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FOUR
Wolf stands in the Bright Soft Cold at the foot of the Mountain, gazing up at Darkfur. She is many lopes above him, gazing down. He catches her scent, he hears the wind whispering through her beautiful black fur. He lashes his tail and whines.
     
Darkfur wags her tail and whines back. But this is the Thunderer's Mountain. Wolf can't go up, and she can't come down.
     
All through the Long Cold he has missed her, even when he was hunting with Tall Tailless and the pack-sister, or playing hunt-the-lemming; especially then, because Darkfur is so good at it. Of all the wolves in the
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Mountain pack, Wolf misses her the most. They are one breath, one bone. He feels this in his fur.
Darkfur goes down on her forepaws and barks. Come! The hunt is good, the pack is strong!
Wolf's tail droops.
Her bark becomes impatient.
I cannot! he tells her.
     
With a leap, she is bounding down the Mountain. The Bright Soft Cold flies from her paws as she races toward him, and Wolf's heart flies with it. Joyfully he lopes toward her, running so fast that he ...
     
Wolf woke up.
     
He was out of the Now that he went to in his sleeps, and back in the other now, lying at the edge of the Great Wet. Alone. He missed Darkfur. He missed Tall Tailless and the pack-sister. He even missed the ravens, a bit. Why did Tall Tailless leave him and go off in the floating hides?
     
Wolf hated it here. The sharp earth bit his pads, and the fish-birds attacked if he got too close to their nests. For a while, he'd explored the Dens of the taillesses along the Great Wet, and the Fast Wet that ran into it, but now he was bored.
     
The taillesses didn't hunt, they just stood around yipping and yowling and staring at stones. They seemed to think that some stones mattered more than others, although they all smelled the same to Wolf; and when the
     
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taillesses gave each other stones, they quarreled. When a normal wolf gives a present--a bone or an interesting stick--he does it because he likes the other wolf, not because he's cross.
    The Dark came, and the taillesses settled down for their endless sleep. Wolf heaved himself up and went to nose around the Dens. Scornfully