Although not particularly tall, Onrack nevertheless seemed huge. Ropy muscles bound to thick bone, the arms elongated, the hands wide but the fingers stubby. The legs were disproportionately short, bowed so that the knees were almost as far out to the sides as his hips. Yet Onrack moved with lithe stealth, furtive as prey, eyes flicking in every direction, head tilting, nostrils flaring as he picked up scents on the wind. Prey, yet now he needed to satisfy a prodigious appetite, and when Onrack hunted, it was with discipline, a single-mindedness that was fierce to witness.
This world was his, in every way. A blend of tundra to the north and a treeline in the south that reached up every now and then to the very shadow of the huge glaciers stretching down the valleys. The forest was a confused mix of deciduous and coniferous trees, broken with ravines and tumbled rocks, springs of clean water and boggy sinkholes. The branches swarmed with birds, their incessant chatter at times overwhelming all else.
Along the edges there were trails. Caribou moved haphazardly between forest and tundra in their grazing. Closer to the ice, on higher ground where bedrock was exposed, there were goat-like creatures, scampering up ledges to look back down on the two-legged strangers passing through their domain.
Onrack had disappeared into the forest again and again in the first week of their wandering. Each time he reappeared his toolkit had expanded. A wooden shaft, the point of which he hardened in the fire of their camp; vines and reeds from which he fashioned snares, and nets that he then attached to the other end of the spear, displaying impressive skill at trapping birds on the wing.
From the small mammals caught in his nightly snares he assembled skins and gut. With the stomachs and intestines of hares he made floats for the weighted nets he strung across streams, and from the grayling and sturgeon harvested he gathered numerous spines which he then used to sew together the hides, fashioning a bag. He collected charcoal and tree sap, lichens, mosses, tubers, feathers and small pouches of animal fat, all of which went into the hide bag.
But all of these things were as nothing when compared with the burgeoning of the man himself. A face Trull had known only as dried skin taut over shattered bone was now animate with expression, and it was as if Trull had been blind to his friend in the time before, when even vocal inflection had been flat and lifeless.
Onrack now smiled. A sudden lighting of genuine pleasure that not only took Trull’s breath away-and, he admitted, often filled his eyes with tears-but could silence Quick Ben as well, the wizard’s dark face suddenly evincing ineffable wonder, an expression that a well-meaning adult might have upon seeing a child at play.
Everything about this Imass invited friendship, as if his smile alone cast some sorcery, a geas of charm, to which unquestioning loyalty was the only possible response. This glamour Trull Sengar had no interest in resisting. Onrack, after all, is the one brother I chose. But the Tiste Edur could see, on occasion, the gleam of suspicion in the Malazan wizard, as if Quick Ben was catching himself at the edge of some inner precipice, some slide into a place Ben could not, by his very nature, wholly trust.
Trull felt no worry; he could see that Onrack was not interested in manipulating his companions. His was a spirit contained within itself, a spirit that had emerged from a haunted place and was haunted no longer. Dead in a demonic nightmare. Reborn into a paradise. Onrack, my friend, you are redeemed, and you know it, with every sense-with your touch, your vision, with the scents of the land and the songs in the trees.
The previous evening he had returned from a trip into the forest with a sheath of bark in his hands. On it were nuggets of crumbly yellow ochre. Later, beside the fire, while Quick Ben cooked the remaining meat from a small deer Onrack had killed in the forest two days previously, the Imass ground the nuggets into powder. Then, using spit and grease, he made a yellow paste. As he worked these preparations, he hummed a song, a droning, vibrating cadence that was as much nasal as vocal. The range, like his speaking voice, was unearthly. It seemed capable of carrying two distinct tones, one high and the other deep. The song ended when the task was done. There was a long pause; then, as Onrack began applying the paint to his face, neck and arms, a different song emerged, this one with a rapid beat, fast as the heart of a fleeing beast.
When the last daub of paint marked his amber skin, the song stopped.
‘Gods below!’ Quick Ben had gasped, one hand on his chest. ‘My heart’s about to pound right through my cage of bones, Onrack!’
The Imass, settling back in his cross-legged position, regarded the wizard with calm, dark eyes. ‘You have been pursued often. In your life.’
A grimace from Quick Ben, then he nodded. ‘Feels like years and years of that.’
‘There are two names to the song. Agkor Raella and Allish Raella. The wolf song, and the caribou song.’
‘Ah, so my cud-chewing ways are exposed at last.’
Onrack smiled. ‘One day, you must become the wolf.’
‘Might be I already am,’ Quick Ben said after a long moment. ‘I’ve seen wolves-plenty of them around here, after all. Those long-legged ones with the smallish heads-’
Ay.’
Ay, right. And they’re damned shy. I’d wager they don’t go for the kill until the odds are well in their favour. The worst kind of gamblers, in fact. But very good at survival.’
‘Shy,’ Onrack said, nodding. ‘Yet curious. The same pack follows us now for three days.’
‘They enjoy scavenging your kills-let you take all the risks. Makes for a sweet deal.’
‘Thus far,’ Onrack said, ‘there have been few risks.’
Quick Ben glanced over at Trull, then shook his head and said, ‘That mountain sheep or whatever you call it not only charged you, Onrack, but it sent you flying. We thought it’d broken every bone in your body, and you just two days into your new one at that.’
‘The bigger the prey, the more you must pay,’ Onrack said, smiling again. ‘In the way of gambling, yes?’
Absolutely,’ the wizard said, prodding at the meat on the spit. ‘My point was, the wolf is the caribou until necessity forces otherwise. If the odds are too bad, the wolf runs. It’s a matter of timing, of choosing the right moment to turn round and hold your ground. As for those wolves tracking us, well, I’d guess they’ve never seen our kind before-’ ‘No, Quick Ben,’ Onrack said. ‘The very opposite is true.’
Trull studied his friend for a moment, then asked, ‘We’re not alone here?’
‘The ay knew to follow us. Yes, they are curious, but they are also clever, and they remember. They have followed Imass before.’ He lifted his head and sniffed loudly. ‘They are close tonight, those ay. Drawn to my song, which they have heard before. The ay know, you see, that tomorrow 1 will hunt dangerous prey. And when the moment of the kill comes, well, we shall see.’
‘Just how dangerous?’ Trull asked, suddenly uneasy.
‘There is a hunting cat, an emlava-we entered its territory today, for I found the scrapes of its claim, on stone and on wood. A male by the flavour of its piss. Today, the ay were more nervous than usual, for the cat will kill them at every opportunity, and it is a creature of ambush. But I have assured them with my song. I found Tog’tol-yellow ochre-after all.’
‘So,’ Quick Ben said, his eyes on the dripping meat above the flames, ‘if your wolves know we are here, how about the cat?’
‘He knows.’
‘Well, that’s just terrific, Onrack. I’m going to need some warrens close to hand all damned day, then. That happens to be exhausting, you know.’
‘You need not worry with the sun overhead, wizard,’ Onrack said. ‘The cat hunts at night.’
‘Hood’s breath! Let’s hope those wolves smell it before we do!’