Spirit Walker

Infobox Book |
name = Spirit Walker
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Spirit Walker cover
author = Michelle Paver
illustrator = Geoff Taylor
cover artist = John Fordham
country = Great Britain
language = English
series = Chronicles of Ancient Darkness
genre = Fantasy novel
publisher = Orion
release_date = 30 September 2005
english_release_date =
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages = 224 pp (first edition, hardback)
isbn = ISBN 978-1842551714 (first edition, hardback)
preceded_by = Wolf Brother
followed_by = Soul Eater

"Spirit Walker" is the second book in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness by Michelle Paver. The first is "Wolf Brother". There are to be six titles in the series. Spirit Walker is followed by Soul Eater. Spirit Walker illustrations are by Geoff Taylor.

Plot summary

Wolf is now living far away with a pack in the distant mountains, and Torak feels alone even in his friend Renn's company. In the camp of the Raven Clan things are back to normal, but when Torak leaves the clan to hunt he meets a diseased man from the Boar Clan. The man warns him about his strange illness. Torak immediately returns to the Ravens, where the man Oslak (one of those who initially captured Torak in "Wolf Brother") is discovered to have the sickness. The Raven Clan leader Fin-Kedinn locks Oslak away, with another sick clan member, for fear of other clan members catching the sickness.

Torak, however, suspects that the Soul Eaters may be behind the sickness. They are a group of former clan mages who have turned to evil in their determination to rule the forest. Fin-Kedinn warns Torak that it may be a trap. Not wanting Renn to follow him, Torak leaves Renn a message that he has gone, and departs in search of a cure for the sickness. Meanwhile, Renn is bitten by a feral child when hunting. The Raven mage Saeunn tells her about the "tokoroth", demon children who do the bidding of their captors, and who may now be following Torak. Renn sets out after Torak to warn him.

In the Deep Forest Torak encounters a tokoroth. It fells a tree that narrowly misses Torak while he is asleep, and then maddens a wild boar: Torak only escapes the boar by killing it. Torak is accosted members of the Forest Horse clan, who initially think Torak killed the boar intentionally. When he explains, they tell him the name "tokoroth", and send him back towards the sea. When he reaches the shore, he sets up fishing lines, but is captured by three boys Detlan, Bale and Asrif. They take him to their Seal Clan island so that he can be punished for the crime of mixing Forest and Sea. The Seal Clan Mage, Tenris, takes a great interest in Torak, and argues against Torak's expected punishment.

Meanwhile Wolf has left his mountain pack and returned to the Forest to search for Torak, since wolves never abandon a pack brother. He meets Renn, and together they track Torak, and follow him by boat out to the islands.

Tenris agrees to help Torak find the cure for the sickness: to do this, Torak must climb to gather a plant that only grows on a high cliff on the island. Torak meets Renn when she and Wolf unexpectedly rescue him from an underwater net set for him by the tokoroth. In the net, Torak becomes able to see the world through the eyes of a seal, and he and Renn realise that he is a "Spirit Walker", whose souls can enter the bodies of animals: there has not been a Spirit Walker for many years. Renn warns Torak that Tenris is a Soul Eater, who has killed a Killer Whale against clan law. But Torak feels he nevertheless needs to save the Forest by finding the cure for the sickness.

When Torak returns with the ingredient for the cure, Tenris reveals he is Torak's paternal uncle. He captures Renn and imprisons her, after convincing the others that she has the sickness. When Tenris finds that Torak is a Spirit Walker, he resolves to eat Torak's heart and thus take the power for himself. Torak leaps into the sea from the high cliff where Tenris is preparing his ceremony. Tenris follows, but is eaten by the orca, Notched Fin.

Torak and Renn realise that the "sickness" was caused by Tenris making the tokoroth poison the juniper berries in the forest. Messages are sent to the clans. Torak, Renn and Wolf return to the Raven Clan. Torak realises that his father, Tenris's brother, was also once one of the Soul Eaters.