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delusion it was. Torak was long gone.
"Water," she said out loud, trying to banish her fears. The river
was too far, so she'd have to melt snow. Yanking her parka and
jerkin over her head, she used the jerkin's lacings to tie its neck
and sleeves shut, to form a makeshift bag. Then she pulled her
parka back on and crawled out into the jaws of the storm.
The wind pelted her with flying branches and stung her face with
ice needles. Quickly, she crammed snow into the jerkin, and
crawled back inside. With her spare bowstring, she hung the
snow sack from a support sapling, and placed a swiftly made
birch-bark pail underneath to catch the drips.
The wind screamed. The shelter shuddered. Suddenly, the World
Spirit speared the clouds and sent the hail hammering down.
Renn hugged her knees and prayed for Torak and Wolf.
A thud shook the shelter.
She gave a start. That wasn't a branch.
Pulling up her hood, she shifted the door and peered out.
Hail struck her face.
Only it isn't hail, she thought, it's rain --and it's turning to ice on
everything it strikes.
Screwing up her face against the onslaught, she saw the freezing
rain hitting twigs, branches, trees--imprisoning
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all it struck in a heavy mantle of ice. Boughs bent beneath the
weight. Already ice was forming on her clothes.
She groped to find whatever had fallen against the shelter. Her
mitten struck a lump which didn't feel like a branch. She
squeezed.
The lump squawked.
Rek's wings were clogged with ice, but once Renn got the raven
inside and brushed her off, she began steaming gently in the
warmth.
Shivering with terror, she cowered on Renn's lap. As Renn gazed
into those deep raven eyes, she sensed in them more than terror
of the storm. Where had Rek come from? Where was Torak?
A thunderclap split the sky. The Forest roared as Renn had never
heard it roar before. She heard deafening cracks and
tremendous, splintering crashes.
And then, quite distinctly, she heard a voice in the storm. She
strained to listen. Was that--could it be Torak, calling her name?
It would be madness to go out again.
And yet--if there was a chance that Torak needed help ...
She grabbed a brand from the fire.
The fury of the storm beat upon her. The Forest was under attack.
She saw trees flailing wildly, desperate to break free of their
burden of ice. Branches crashed. A
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pine snapped like kindling. Even the boughs of the great holly
bowed so low, they threatened to split the tree in half.
"Torak!" yelled Renn. The ice storm ripped away his name like a
leaf. "Torak!" It was hopeless.
A flash of lightning, and from the holly, a face peered down at her.
Icicle hair. Eyes glittering with malice.
Renn screamed.
Thunder boomed.
The tokoroth leaped into the dark.
The holly gave a groan--and tore itself apart.
Renn threw herself out of the way a heartbeat too late. One of the
holly's limbs crashed across her calf, pinning her to the ground.
Wildly, she struggled, but the tree held her fast. She'd left her axe
in the shelter. With her knife, she hacked at the branch. The wood
was like granite; the blade bounced off. Frantically, she dug at the
earth beneath her leg. Frozen hard.
Already, ice was weighing her down, sucking the life from her
marrow.
"Torak!" she screamed. "Wolf!"
The wind whipped her voice away into the night.
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[Image: Flood-tossed logs.]
NINE
The hill below Torak was a precarious jumble of flood-tossed logs.
He'd spent ages searching in vain for some trace of his pack-
brother. And now he couldn't even get down. He guessed that
Wolf had run lightly over the logs; but if he tried, he'd start a log
slide.
"Fool," he muttered. A while ago, he'd passed a good campsite on
some level ground near a big holly tree, but he'd been so intent
on finding Wolf that he'd ignored it. The strange thing was, he'd
known at the time he was making a mistake, but he'd done it
anyway.
The wind tore at his hood and pelted him with
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branches. The trees roared a warning: Get under cover, fast!
Rip thudded onto his shoulder, making him stagger. Quork!
cawed the raven. He looked bedraggled. Torak wondered how far
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