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was three. Fin-Kedinn had lots from hunting accidents and fights when he was young, and the big, puckered scar on his thigh from the bear.
Scowling, Torak burrowed deeper into the leaves. Don't think about the Ravens. Think about Fa, and why he never told you. Think about your mother, and why she declared you clanless.
     
A gust of wind stirred the willows, and they moaned. Torak heard the tuneless bellowing of an abandoned elk in the distance. In early summer, the Forest rang with their miserable cries. Their mothers, unable to look after last summer's young as well as a newborn calf,
     
53 abruptly rejected the older ones, driving them away with savage kicks. For a moon or so, the young elk blundered about, seeking comfort from any large creature they met, until they were killed by hunters, or learned to fend for themselves.
    I want my mother, bellowed the elk.
Torak squeezed his eyes shut.
He knew so little about his mother, and yet the thought of her had always been with him: a kernel of warmth, even through the bleakest times. He had loved her almost without thinking. He had believed that she had loved him. But to have declared him clanless ...
    It felt as if she'd abandoned him.
Where do I go now? he thought. Where do I belong?
Another gust, and the willows replied. You belong here. In the Forest.
Listening to them, he fell into sleep.
With a jolt, he fell out of it.
Voices. Above him on the slope. He lay rigid, heart pounding.
Then he thought, if they were hunting, they wouldn't be talking.
Crawling out as quietly as he could, he shouldered his quiver and bow and dismantled his shelter, sweeping the area around it with crushed garlic leaves to mask his scent. He crept into the willows. Shadows
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were lengthening, but the first stars weren't yet out. He hadn't slept long.
The voices came nearer, then stopped fifty paces above him. Through the branches, he spotted a Viper hunting party on the elk trail he'd used earlier. No dogs. That was something. And he'd swept the trail clear of tracks. Hadn't he?
    It wasn't only Viper Clan. A party of Ravens seemed to have met them on the trail. He saw Thull, Sialot, Fin-Kedinn. Renn.
It gave him a sick feeling to be peering at them like a stranger; to be unable to go to them.
He watched the younger Viper men wait respectfully for Fin-Kedinn to speak, then preen themselves as he admired their roe buck kill. He saw two Viper children shyly eyeing Renn, who pretended not to notice as she polished her bow with a handful of crushed hazelnuts.
    Their voices reached him. They were talking about Aki.
"His wretched dogs nearly ruined our hunt!" complained a Viper man. "If this goes on ..."
"It won't," said Fin-Kedinn. "Aki won't catch Torak."
"Still," said the Viper. "Those dogs are frightening the prey. The sooner the outcast is out of our range, the better."
"Oh, he'll be long gone by now," said Fin-Kedinn,
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his voice carrying in the still evening air. "He wouldn't be such a fool as to stay around here, not with the clan meet coming up."
The clan meet. Torak had forgotten all about the great gathering of the clans, which took place every three summers, and which this summer would be held at the mouth of the Whitewater, not two daywalks from where he hid.
     
The hunters said their farewells and parted, the Vipers heading south for their camp on the Widewater, the Ravens west.
     
Don't go, Torak silently begged Fin-Kedinn. He felt hollow as he watched the broad-shouldered figure moving off into the trees with Renn. He watched till his eyes ached.
    Long after they'd gone, he remained in the willows, while night deepened around him. A twig cracked. He froze.
Another twig. Loud. Deliberate.
"It's me!" whispered Renn. "Where are you?"
Torak shut his eyes. He couldn't answer her. He'd only put her in danger.
"Torak!" Now she sounded angry as well as scared. "I know you've in there! You left a scrap of chewed bast on the trail. It was all I could do to pick it up before the others spotted