The Chronicles Of Ancient Darkness
In WOLF BROTHER, Austin learns of the destiny he can never escape, and the adventure begins. Auslly-ness galore! I promise, cross my heart hope to die! Strong T!
Disclaimer: I own absolutely nothing and do not profit from anyone/anything you may recognise in this fic! This includes not only Austin and Ally but Michelle Pavers fabulous 'The Chronicles Of Ancient Darkness.' This is simply to satisfy our Auslly obsessed minds!
Please also bare in mind that this is NOT my original work. This is the original copy of 'The Chronicles Of Ancient Darkness,' only Torak and Renns characters have been converted to suit the characters: Austin and Ally. I will change the occasional scene to create more romance as the original focused more on the friendship and hinted romance much later on. I am a sucker for the Auslly romance so I'm afraid it had to be done. :D If you haven't read 'The Chronicles Of Ancient Darkness' I'd recommend you do so as it is absolutely amazing. Seriously.
Before I continue onto the story I just want to reveal a bit on the historical background of this story. So, it's based after the Ice Age but before agriculture had spread to north-west Europe (think Norway) where this is based. So, civilisation is thought to have consisted of Tribes/Clans and they believed very similarly to Native Americans and Inuits. Their belief was that spirits existed in everything, the sun, forest, sea, trees, mountains, birds... you get the picture. With this in mind, the use of some words are maybe more traditional to the said time. I will place the word/term we are more familiar with in brackets alongside though. However there are very little and the vocabulary is relatively simple as the story's aimed at teenagers. The beginning may confuse you, as when I first read it, it confused me but give it a chance and if you are confused tell me and I'll explain the best I can. The stories view point consists of three different characters (Austin (originally Torak), Ally (originally Renn) and Wolf) and it will state which viewpoint it is alongside the chapter number.
Wolf Brother
Chapter 1: Austin
Austin woke with a jolt from a sleep he'd never meant to have.
The fire had burned low. He crouched in the fragile shell of light and peered into the looming blackness of the Forest. He couldn't see anything. Couldn't hear anything. Had it come back? Was it out there now, watching him with its hot, murderous eyes?
He felt hollow and cold. He knew that he badly needed food, and that his arm hurt, and his eyes were scratchy with tiredness, but he couldn't really feel it. All night he'd guarded the wreck of the spruce bough shelter, and matched his father bleed. How could this be happening?
Only yesterday - yesterday - they'd pitched camp in the blue autumn dusk. Austin had made a joke, and his father was laughing. Then the Forest exploded. Ravens screamed. Pines cracked. And out of the dark beneath the trees surged a deeper darkness: a huge damaging menace in bear form.
Suddenly death was upon them. A frenzy of claws. A welter of sound to make the ears bleed. In a heartbeat, the creature had smashed their shelter to splinters. In a heartbeat, it had ripped a ragged wound in his father's side. Then it was gone, melting into the Forest as silently as mist.
But what kind of bear stalks men - then vanishes without making the kill? What kind of bear plays with it's prey?
And where was it now?
Austin couldn't see beyond the firelight, but he knew that the clearing, too, was a wreck of snapped saplings and trampled bracken. He smelt pine-blood and clawed earth. He heard the soft, sad bubbling of the stream thirty paces away. The bear could be anywhere.
Beside him his father moaned. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked at his son without recognition.
Austin's heart clenched. "It - It's me," he stammered. "How do you feel?"
Pain convulsed his father's lean brown face. His cheeks were tinged with grey, making his clan-tattoos stand out lividly. Sweat matted his long dark hair.
His wound was so deep that as Austin clumsily stanched it with beard-moss, he saw his father's guts glistening in the firelight. He had to grit his teeth to keep from retching. He hoped Fa (father) didn't notice - but of course he did. Fe was a hunter. He noticed everything.
"Austin . . . " he breathed. His hand reached out, his hot fingers clinging to Austin's as eagerly as a child. Austin swallowed. Sons clutch their fathers' hands; not the other way around.
He tried to be practical: to be a man instead of a boy. "I've still got some yarrow leaves," he said, fumbling for his medicine poach with his free hand. "Maybe that'll stop the - "
"Keep it. You're bleeding too."
"Doesn't hurt," lied Austin. The bee had thrown him against against a birch tree, bruising his ribs and hashing his left forearm.
"Austin - leave. Now. Before it comes back."
Austin stared at him. He opened his mouth but no sound came.
"You must," said his father.
"No. No. I can't - "
"Austin - I'm dying. I'll be dead by sunrise."
Austin gripped the medicine pouch. There was a roaring in his ears. "Fa - "
"Give me - what I need for the Death Journey. Then get your things."
The Death Journey. No. No.
But his father's face was stern. "My bow," he said. "Three arrows. You - keep the rest. Where I'm going - hunting's easy."
There was a tear in the knee of Austin's buckskin leggings. He dug his thumbnail into the flesh. It hurt. He forced himself to concentrate in that.
"Food," gasped his father. "The dried meat. You - take it all."
Austin's knee had started to bleed. He kept digging. He tried not to picture his father on the Death Journey. He tried not to picture himself alone in the Forest. He was only fifteen summers old (15 years old). He couldn't survive on his own. He didn't know how.
"Austin! Move!"
Blinking furiously, Austin reached for his father's weapons and laid them by his side. He divided up the arrows, pricking his fingers on the sharp flint points. Then he shouldered his quiver and bow, scrabbled in the wreckage for his small black basalt axe. His hazelwood pack had been smashed in the attack; he'd have to cram everything else into his jerkin (a sleeveless jacket), or tie it to his belt.
He reached for his reindeer-hide sleeping-sack.
"Take mine," murmured his father. "You never did - repair yours. And - swap knives."
Austin was aghast. "Not your knife! You'll need it!"
"You'll need it more. And - it'll be good to have something of yours on the Death Journey."
"Fa, please. Don't - "
In the Forest, a twig snapped.
Austin spun round.
The darkness was absolute. Everywhere he looked the shadows were bear-shaped.
No wind.
No birdsong.
Just the crackle of the fire and the thud of his heart. The Forest itself was holding it's breath.
His father licked the sweat from his lips. "It's not here yet," he said. "Soon. It will come for me soon . . . Quick. The knives."
Austin didn't want to swap knives. That would make it final. But his father was watching him with an intensity that allowed no refusal.
Clenching his jaw so hard that it hurt, Austin took his own knife and put it into Fa's hand. Then he untied the buckskin sheath from his father's belt. Fa's knife was beautiful and deadly, with a blade of banded blue slate shaped like a willow leaf, and a haft (handle) of red deer antler that was bound with elk sinew for a better grip. As Austin looked down at it, the truth hit him. He was getting ready for a life without Fa. "I'm not leaving you!" he cried. "I'll fight it, I - "
"No! No-one can fight this bear!"
Ravens flew up from the trees.
Austin forgot to breathe.
"Listen to me," hissed his father. "A bear - any bear - is the strongest hunter in the Forest. You know that. But this bear - much stronger."
Austin felt the hairs on his arms rise. Looking down into his father's eyes, he saw the tiny scarlet veins, and at the centres, the fathomless dark. "What do you mean?" he whispered. "What - "
"It is - possessed." His father's face was grim; he didn't seem like Fa any more. "Some - demon - from the Otherworld (similar to our idea of Hell) - has entered it and made it evil."
An ember spat. The dark trees leaned closer to listen.
"A demon?" said Austin.
His father shut his eyes, mustering his strength. "It lives only to kill," he said at last. "With each kill - it's power will grow. It will slaughter - everything. The prey. The clans. All will die. The Forest will die . . . " he broke off. "In one moon (a month) - it will be to late. The demon - too strong."
"One moon? But what - "
"Think, Austin! When the red eye* is highest in the night sky, that's when demons are strongest. You know this. That's when the bear will be - invincible." He fought for breathe. In the firelight, Austin saw the pulse beating in his throat. So faint: as if it might stop at any moment. "I need you - to swear something," said Fa.
"Anything."
Fa swallowed. "Head north. Many daywalks. Find - the Mountain - of the World Spirit."
Austin stared at him. What?
His father's eyes opened, and he gazed into the branches overhead, as if he saw things there that no-one else could. "Find it," he said again. "It's the only hope. It's the only hope of destroying the bear."
"But - no-one's ever found it. No-one can."
"You can."
"How? I don't - "
"Your guide - will find you."
Austin was bewildered. Never before had his father talked like this. He was a practical man; a hunter. "I don't understand any of this!" he cried. "Why guide? Why must I find the Mountain? Will if be safe there? Is that it? Safe from the bear?"
Slowly, Fa's gaze left the sky and came to rest on his son's face. He looked as if he was wondering how much more Austin could take. "Ah, you're too young," he said. "I thought I had more time. So much I haven't told you. Don't - don't hate me for that later."
Austin looked at him in horror. Then he leapt to his feet. "I can't do this on my own. Shouldn't I try to find - "
"No!" said his father with startling force. "All your life I've kept you apart. Even - from my own Wolf clan. Stay away from men! If they find out - what you can do . . . "
"What do you mean? I don't - "
"No time," his father cut in. "Now swear. On my knife. Swear that you will find the Mountain, or die trying."
Austin but his lip hard. East through the trees, a grey light was growing. Not yet, he thought in panic. Please not yet.
"Swear," hissed his father.
Austin knelt and picked up the knife. If was heavy: a man's knife, too big for him. Awkwardly he touched it to the wound on his forearm. Then he put it to his shoulder, where the strip of wolf fur, his calm creature, was sewn to his jerkin. In an unsteady voice he took his oath. "I swear, by my blood on this blade, and by each of my three souls - that I will find the Mountain of the World Spirit. Or die trying."
His father breathed out. "Good. Good. Now. Put the Death Marks on me. Hurry. The bear - not far off."
Austin felt the salty sting of tears. Angrily he brushed them away. "I haven't got any ochre (earthy pigment)," he mumbled.
"Take - mine."
In a blur, Austin found the little antler-tine medicine horn that had been his mother's. In a blur, he yanked out the black oak stopper, and shook some of the red ochre into his palm.
Suddenly he stopped. "I can't."
"You can. For me."
Austin spat into his palm and made a sticky paste of the ochre, the dark-red of the earth, then he drew the small circles on his father's skin that would help the souls recognise each other and stay together after death.
First, as gently as he could, he removed his father's beaver-hide boots, and drew a circle on each heel to mark the name-soul. Then he drew another circle over the heart, to mark the clan-soul. This wasn't easy, as his father's chest was scarred from an old wound , so Austin only managed a lopsided oval. He hoped that would be good enough.
Last, he made the most important circle of all: a circle on the forehead to mark the Nanuak, the world-soul. By the time he'd finished he was swallowing tears.
"Better," murmured his father. But Austin saw with a clutch of terror that the pulse in his throat was fainter.
"You can't die!" Austin burst out.
His father gazed at him with pain and longing.
"Fa, I'm not leaving you, I - "
"Austin. You swore an oath." Again he closed his eyes. "Now. You - keep the medicine horn. I don't need it anymore. Take your things. Fetch me water from the river. Then - go."
I will not cry, Austin told himself as he rolled up his father's sleeping-sack and tied it across his back; jammed his axe into his belt; stuffed his medicine pouch into his jerkin.
He got to his feet and sat about the waterskin. It was ripped to shreds. He'd have to bring water in a dock leaf. He was about to go when his father murmured his name.
Austin turned. "Yes, Fa?"
"Remember. When you're hunting, look behind you. I - always tell you." He forced a smile. "You always - forget. Look behind you. Yes?"
Austin nodded. He tried to smile back. Then he blundered through the wet bracken towards the stream.
The light was growing, and the air smelt fresh and sweet. Around him the trees were bleeding: oozing golden pine-blood from slashes the bear had inflicted. Some of the tree spirits were moaning quietly in the dawn breeze.
Austin reached the stream, where mist floated above the bracken, and willows trailed their fingers in the cold water. Glancing quickly around, he snatched a dock leaf and moved forwards, his boots sinking into the soft red mud.
He froze.
Beside his right boot was the track of a bear. A front paw: twice the size of his own head, and so fresh that he could see the points where the long, vicious claws had bitten deep into the mud.
Look behind you, Austin.
He spun round.
Willows. Alder. Fir.
No bear.
A raven flew down onto the nearby bough, making him jump. The bird folded its stiff black wings and fixed him with a beady eye. Then it jerked its head, croaked once, and flew away.
Austin stared in the direction it had seemed to indicate.
Dark yew. Dripping spruce. Dense. Impenetrable.
But deep within - no more than ten paces away - a stir of branches. Something was in there. Something huge.
He tried to keep his panicky thoughts from skittering away, but his mind had gone white.
The thing about the bear, his father always said, is that it can move as silently as breath. It could be watching you from ten paces away, and you'd never know. Against a bee you have no defences. You can't run faster. You can't climb higher. You can't fight it on your own. All you can do it learn its ways, and try to persuade it that you're neither threat nor prey.
Austin forced himself to stay still. Don't run. Don't run. Maybe it doesn't know you're here.
A low hiss. Again the branches stirred.
He heard the stealthy rustle as the creature moved towards the shelter: towards his father. He waited in rigid silence as it passed. Coward! he shouted inside his head. You let it go without even trying to save Fa!
But what could he do? said the small part of his mind that could still think straight. Fa knew this would happen. That's why he sent you for water. He knew it was coming for him . . .
"Austin!" came his father's wild cry. "Run!"
Crow's burst from the trees. A roar shook the Forest - on and on till Austin's head was splitting.
"Fa!" he screamed.
"Run!"
Again the Forest shook. Again came his father's cry. Then suddenly it broke off.
Austin jammed his fist in his mouth.
Through the trees, he glimpsed a great dark shadow in the wreck of the shelter.
He turned and ran.
Okay, so, what did you think? Are you interested? I'm afraid we don't meet Ally until a little later on, we have to meet Wolf first.
*red eye - Don't worry too much about this for now. It has another name which we find out later. It is also explained later in the story and it has a link with the Underworld. Imagine it to look like a red star. If these people really did believe in this red eye in actual fact it was probably a planet.
Please, please, please, leave a review. Let me know what you think. Thank you so much.
Love you guys xxxx