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Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Mar 2006, 368 pages
Paperback:
Feb 2007, 384 pages
Book Reviewed by:
BookBrowse Review Team
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When a horrifying sickness threatens all the forest clans, 12-year-old orphan Torak must embark on a hero's mission to save them. This stand-alone sequel to Wolf Brother pits a vulnerable boy with special powers against an unseen menace.
A cry echoed through the Forest.
He froze.
It was not the yowl of a vixen, or
a lynx seeking a mate. It was a man.
Or something that had once been a man.
With a creeping sense of dread,
Torak watched the light between the
trees begin to fail. . . .
Torak is a boy apart. A boy who can talk to wolves. A boy who must vanquish the Soul-Eaters . . . or die trying.
As the Moon of No Dark waxes large, the clans fall prey to a horrifying sickness. Fear stalks the Forest. The very breath of spring seems poisoned. No one knows the cause -- and only Torak can find the cure.
His quest takes him across the sea to the mysterious islands of the Seal Clan. Here Torak battles an unseen menace and uncovers a betrayal that will change his life -- forever.
Spirit Walker is a spellbinding story of fellowship, treachery, and self-sacrifice that takes the reader further on the journey that began in Wolf Brother.
One
The auroch appeared quite suddenly from the trees on the other side of the
stream.
One moment Torak was gazing at sun-dappled willows - the next, there she was. She
stood taller than the tallest man, and her great curving horns could have
skewered a bear. If she charged, he was in trouble.
By bad luck, he was upwind of her. He held his breath as he watched her twitch
her blunt black muzzle to taste his scent. She snorted. Pawed the earth with one
massive hoof.
Then he saw the calf peering from the bracken, and his belly turned over.
Aurochs are gentle creatures - except when they have calves.
Without a sound, Torak drew back into the shade. If he didn't startle her, maybe
she wouldn't charge.
Again the auroch snorted, and raked the ferns with her horns. At last she seemed
to decide that he wasn't hunting her after all, and slumped down in the mud to
have a wallow.
Torak blew out a long breath.
The calf wobbled toward its mother, slipped, bleated, and ...
Spirit Walker is the second in a planned six part series set 6,000 years ago in the forests of Northern Europe. It's a fantastic adventure set in a meticulously researched world of hunter-gatherers, which, as Paver comments, is a misleading term that conjures up a picture of someone casually spotting a clump of berries and saying, 'Oh, good, I think I'll gather some of those'...continued
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(Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
To research The Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, Paver spent time with a guide in the forests of Finland (some Finnish forests are still much as they would have been 6,000 years ago). She learned how the people lived by studying archaeology; and to understand what they might have thought she studied many groups including:
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