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."
    Fin-Kedinn sighed.
"Who else could you send?" said Torak. "You're needed here. Saeunn's too old for the journey. Everyone else has to guard the sick, or hunt, or catch salmon."
Fin-Kedinn chose a thumb-length antler shaper, and sharpened a flint flake with delicate grinding motions. "The people of the Deep Forest rarely concern themselves with us. Why do you think they'd help?"
     
"That's why it should be me!" insisted Torak. "My mother was Red Deer Clan! I'm their bone kin, they'd have to listen to me!" But he'd never known his mother, who had died when he was born, and he spoke with more assurance than he felt.
     
A muscle worked in Fin-Kedinn's jaw as he took up the haft of the knife: a length of reindeer shinbone with a groove in it to take the flint. Dipping a sharpened flake in pine-blood, he slotted it into the bone. "Has it not occurred to you," he said, "that this might be
     
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exactly what the Soul-Eaters want?" He raised his head, and his blue eyes burned with such intensity that Torak dropped his gaze. "Last winter after you fought the bear, I forbade anyone to speak of it outside the clan. You know this."
    Torak nodded.
"Because of that, the only thing the Soul-Eaters know is that someone in the Forest has power.
They do not know who."
He paused. "They don't know who, Torak. Nor do they know the nature of that power. None of us does."
Torak caught his breath. Fin-Kedinn's words echoed what Fa had said as he lay dying.
All my life I've kept you apart. . . . Stay away from men! If they find out
-
what you can do . . .
But
what
could he do? For a time he'd thought Fa had meant his ability to speak wolf; but from what Fin-Kedinn had said, there had to be more. "This sickness," said the Raven Leader, "it could be a trick: the Soul-Eaters' way of forcing you into the open."
"But even if it is, I can't just do nothing. I have to help Oslak. I can't stand seeing him like this!"
The hard face softened. "I know. Neither can I."
There was silence while Fin-Kedinn slotted in more flint, and Torak stared across the river. The sun had risen above the trees, and the water was dazzling. 43
Squinting, he made out a heron on the far bank; a raven wading after scraps of salmon.
The blade was complete: about a hand long, and as jagged and sharp as a wolverine's jaw. To finish it, Fin-Kedinn wound finely split pine root around the haft to make a warm, sure grip. "Now," he said. "Show me your knife."
    Torak frowned. "What?"
"You heard. Show it to me."
Puzzled, Torak unsheathed the knife that had been his father's, and handed it over.
    It had a beautiful leaf-shaped blade of blue slate, and an antler haft bound with elk sinew. Fa had told him that the blade was of Seal Clan making. Fa's mother had been a Seal, and she'd given it to him when he'd reached manhood; he'd fitted the hilt himself. As he lay dying, he had given the knife to Torak. Torak was very proud of it.
But as the Raven Leader handled it, he shook his head. "Too heavy for a boy. A Mage's knife, made for ceremony." He handed it back. "He was always too casual about such things."
    Torak longed for him to say more, but he didn't. Instead he set the new knife across his forefinger, appraising it with a critical eye. It lay level, perfectly balanced. Beautiful, thought Torak.
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The Raven Leader flipped it around, caught it by the blade, and held it out. "Take it. I made it for you."
After a moment's astonishment, Torak took it.
Fin-Kedinn cut short his thanks. "From now on," he said, rising to his feet with the aid of his staff, "keep your father's knife hidden. Your mother's medicine horn, too. If anyone asks about your parents, don't speak of them."
    "I don't understand," said Torak.
But Fin-Kedinn wasn't listening. He'd gone still, staring at the river.
Torak shaded his eyes with his hand, but couldn't see much for the glare. Only the heron on the far bank, and a log in midstream, sliding downriver. In the camp, a woman began to keen: a tearing sound that rose