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stared at the slimy willow wands piled at his feet, wondering how he was ever going to turn them into a net.
    "Don't think about the net," Fin-Kedinn had told him. "Take a single willow wand and strip it. You can do that, can't you?"
"Of course." He'd learned how to strip a stick before he was old enough to hold a knife.
"Then do it," said the Raven Leader. "Step by step. One branch at a time. Don't think about the net."
Now, as Torak felt the rain soaking his buckskins, he nodded. Step by step. Food. Shelter. Yes. Leave the rest till tomorrow.
He found an elk trail that stayed concealed as it wound east along the valley flank. The rain stopped. The sun came out.
As he went, he became aware that although the
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Ravens were lost to him, the Forest was not. "Forest," he said softly, "I've always honored you. Help me survive."
The Forest shook the raindrops from its boughs, and told him to look around.
By the trail he saw a sturdy birch tree with leaves still pleated from the bud. It would give him a quick, strengthening drink. Why hadn't he thought of that before?
Asking the tree's permission, he used his knife to cut a shallow hole in the bark at the base of the trunk. Tree-blood oozed. He stuck a hollow elder stem in the wound to funnel the drips, and tied on a birch-bark cone with honeysuckle to catch them.
     
While the cone was filling, he found a digging stick and dug up some crow garlic. Sticking one bulb in a fork of the birch for the clan guardian, he ate the rest. They made his eyes water, but they warmed him up a bit.
     
After that he found some comfrey roots--very acrid and sticky--and, in a boggy hollow, the best of all: a clump of spotted orchid. The roots were so starchy it was like eating glue, but they were the most nourishing food in the Forest, if you couldn't get meat.
     
By now, the cone was brimming. After thanking the tree's spirit and pressing the bark over the wound to heal it, he drained the cone. The birch-blood tasted cool and dizzyingly sweet. The strength of the Forest became his.
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Food made him feel a little better.
I can do this, he told himself. I can make dogwood arrows and harden the tips in a fire. I can make willowherb snares, and catch fish with brambie-thorn hooks. The Forest will help me.
     
Midafternoon was wearing on as he neared the valley bottom, where he had to wade through piles of last autumn's leaves. His confidence waned. His legs wouldn't carry him much farther.
    With no axe, building a shelter would be hard; but again, the Forest helped. He found a storm-toppled beech that had fallen onto a boulder. It gave him the perfect frame. All he had to do was pile branches on either side and leaf mold on top of that. It was well placed, too: on the edge of a willow thicket where he could hide if he had to.
The air was turning sharp, but he couldn't risk a fire, so for warmth, he stuffed grass down his jerkin, boots, and leggings. It was scratchy, and it tickled when beetles and spiders scuttled out, but it would stop him freezing.
     
Like a badger, he dragged armfuls of leaves into the shelter and snuggled under them, relishing the woody tang. After a prayer of thanks to the Forest, he shut his eyes. He was exhausted.
    He was also wide-awake.
Thoughts he'd been avoiding for a night and a day
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took hold. Like a burr in a wolf's fur, they wouldn't let go. Outcast. Clanless. How could he be clanless?
He thought of the garlic he'd put in the tree as an offering for the clan guardian. But if he had no clan, he had no guardian. No guardian. That made him feel breathless. How could anyone survive without a guardian?
    His fingers touched the scar that cut through his "clan-tattoo." He couldn't remember getting it--scars weren't something you bothered about; everyone had them. He had one on his forearm from the night the bear had attacked, and another on his calf from the boar's tusk. Renn had one on her hand from a tokoroth bite, and on her foot from stamping on a flint shard when she