Renn

Renn is the deuteragonist of Michelle Paver's Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, which is set 6,000 years ago in stone-age Europe. She is an adolescent niece of Fin-Kedinn, the chieftain of the Raven Clan. She has a gift in Magecraft, but she has no willingness to become a mage because her mother was Seshru the Viper Mage, one of the villainous Soul Eaters. She becomes an inseparable ally of Torak and Wolf in their quest to vanquish the Soul Eaters.
==Biography==
===Background===
Renn is about the same age as Torak. She was born as the second child of Fin-Kedinn's brother and a woman who would be known as Seshru the Viper Mage. Seshru left her mate to join a group of mages called the Healers before they would be known as the Soul Eaters. At some point, Seshru returned to Renn's father in secret. She wanted to create her own tokoroth out of her child, but since Renn's older brother Hord was too old for that purpose, she had Renn's father impregnate her. She then broke his heart by leaving him again and birthed their daughter in secret. Before she could conjure an elemental (the strongest type of demons) and bind it in the newborn's body with the Fire Opal, Saeunn the Raven Mage sought her out and saved the child. Seshru disappeared again while Saeunn told the Raven Clan that the child's mother was a now deceased woman from the Deep Forest. The girl was named Renn and raised by her father.
When Renn was seven years old, her father traveled to the ice river east of Lake Axehead in search of Seshru because he could not forget about her. He was killed when half an ice cliff came down on him, and when his body was found five months later, Saeunn had to do a special rite to bring his scattered souls together. Renn was devastated to lose her father, but her uncle Fin-Kedinn started looking after her and her brother Hord. He also told her about her mother, saying that the secret would be hers to share with whoever she chose to. She inherited from Seshru a gift in Magecraft that manifested itself as dreams that came true. Though Saeunn attempted to teach her, Renn refused to learn Magecraft because of her mother's legacy. She preferred instead to learn hunting and archery. Fin-Kedinn made her an yew bow and taught her so well that she became one of the best archers in the Forest. However, most of the Raven Clan were wary of her due to her dreams and dark-brown eyes that were almost black. She had no true friends before meeting Torak and Wolf. At the age of nine, she was fostered by the Whale Clan to learn the ways of the Sea.
===Wolf Brother===
The twelve-year-old Renn first meets Torak and Wolf on hostile terms. She, Hord and Oslak capture the duo because Torak hunted a roe buck on the Raven Clan's lands. Accusing him of theft, they take him and Wolf to the Ravens' camp where Torak is allowed to duel Hord so that he and Wolf will be allowed to live. After the boy wins by using broth steam to blind Hord and is revealed to have made a soundless whistle to call Wolf, Renn is the first to think that he might be the Listener who is prophesied vanquish the demon-possessed bear that has been terrorizing the Forest after Hord was tricked to aid in its creation by one of the Soul Eaters. The prophecy states that the Listener who "fights with air and speaks with silence" will end the demon bear's threat over the Forest by "offering his heart's blood to the World Spirit".
Torak is imprisoned by the Raven Clan as they discuss with the other clans what to do with him. Renn, believing that Torak must go to the Mountain of the World Spirit himself, helps him and Wolf escape from the camp. However, she forces them to take her with them because she thinks the boy might try to run away and wants to make sure that he will go to the Mountain. As they travel together for the next month, they slowly start to trust each other. Renn shares with Torak the knowledge she has about the prophecy as they search for the three strongest pieces of the Nanuak — a flowing life-force that every living creature has — which must be offered to the World Spirit before it agrees to destroy the demon bear. As Torak looks for the second Nanuak piece in a cave, Renn is confronted by the bear at the cave's entrance. When it looks like the bear will catch her from her hiding place, she decides to die like a warrior. Luckily, she does not need to because Wolf lures the bear away by using the first Nanuak piece as the bait. The search for the third Nanuak piece takes them on an ice river, a fact that upsets Renn because her father died on an ice river. She nearly dies herself before Torak and Wolf rescue her.
After Torak, Renn and Wolf have found all the three Nanuak pieces, they are captured by Hord and the Raven Clan. When Renn speaks against her brother, he slaps her and disowns her, calling her a traitor who disgraced him by helping Torak escape. At the Ravens' new camp, Renn helps Torak in convincing Fin-Kedinn that only Torak can find the Mountain of the World Spirit with Wolf's help. When Torak and Wolf set out for the Mountain with Fin-Kedinn's blessing, Renn stays behind with her clan. Torak succeeds in his quest and the World Spirit destroys the bear, though Hord ends up being killed as well and Wolf remains on the Mountain while Torak returns to live with the Raven Clan.
===Spirit Walker===
A half-year following the demon bear's demise, the clans are plagued by an unnatural sickness. Renn assists Saeunn in a failed rite to cure Oslak and Bera, the first infected members of the Raven Clan. Torak believes that the Soul Eaters are responsible and sets out alone to find a cure, leaving for Renn a message in the form of a white pebble on which he has drawn his clan-tattoo in great detail. She is greatly angry with him for leaving like that. After her hand is bitten by a tokoroth, she learns from Saeunn about what tokoroths are and how they are created. She sets out to find Torak and tell him what she has learned. She meets Wolf who has grown into an adult and left the Mountain of the World Spirit to reunite with Torak. Though she is unable to communicate with him like Torak can, they manage to travel together to the seashore. Renn meets some members of the Sea-eagle clan who tell her that Torak was taken by three young hunters from the Seal Clan to their home in the western Seal Islands. She convinces them to take her there, but she succeeds in convincing Wolf to get in a boat only after she uses the soundless whistle Torak gave her.
Renn and Wolf hide in the Seal Clan's island and reunite with Torak when Wolf saves him from the seal net the tokoroths set for him. Torak chooses to continue working with the Seals in making a cure and tells his friends to remain hidden. Renn is mistrusts the Seals, especially after she witnesses someone paddling through the island's lake in the dark of the night. While Torak, Bale, Asrif and Detlan try to fetch a selik root from the Eagle Heights, Renn discovers the rotting corpse of a young orca whale which the mysterious paddler caught and killed. She tells Torak about her discoveries, but Torak rejects her suspicion that the Seals have something to do with the sickness. She later eavesdrops on Torak and Tenris the Seal Mage when the latter realizes that Torak is a spirit walker and tells the boy what it means.
Following a storm, Renn makes it to the Seal Clan's camp that is empty because the Seals have left to celebrate Midsummer night in the island of the Cormorant Clan. She encounters Bale and Tenris who have been separated from Torak. Renn realizes that Tenris is the mysterious paddler she saw, but he notices the bite in her hand and convinces Bale that she has been infected by the sickness. They imprison her in a cave, and after Torak is found, he comes to see her. She is unable to convince him she is not infected, so he goes with Tenris to the sacred promontory called the Crag to make the cure, only to be ambushed by Tenris who is the creator of the sickness and plans to steal Torak's spirit walker power by eating his heart. As Bale guards Renn who is unable to talk sense to him, he brings her some soup. Before she can eat it, however, Wolf burst in and knocks the bowl over. Seizing her chance to escape, she gets Bale to see Tenris for the villain he is when they see that he has sealed the Crag off the island with a fire barricade. They paddle to the Sea from where Renn shoots an arrow in Tenris' palm, giving Torak a chance to jump into the Sea. Tenris follows him and ends up being killed by the kin of the orca whale he killed.
When Wolf takes his friends to the bodies of Tenris' dying tokoroths after he has driven the demons away, Renn draws the Death Marks on the two children, allowing them to die free. She also realizes that the soup which Wolf prevented her from eating had poisoned juniper berries in it, meaning that Tenris spread the sickness by poisoning the Forest's juniper berries. When she and Torak bring these news back to the Forest, the poisoned juniper berries are disposed of, and the sickness passes.
==Personality==
Renn is a short-tempered yet rational and tough-minded girl with a strong sense of justice. Because of her nearly black eyes and dreams that often come to pass, almost all her clanmates are wary of her and tolerate her only because she is the niece of their respected chieftain Fin-Kedinn. Torak and Wolf are her first real friends, and she cares for them and her uncle very dearly. She shows great courage and loyalty with the way she goes against the clans' laws by helping Torak during his time as an outcast who is forbidden to be helped by anyone. She hates her talent in Magecraft due to her mother's evil legacy and does not want to be taught in it, even though she is forced to use it more than once.
==Powers and Abilities==
Renn's best known ability is her skill in archery. She is likely the best archer in the Forest. She is also well-versed in survival skills. She has a powerful talent for Magecraft which she inherited from her mother, the Soul Eater Seshru who is one of the most powerful mages to have existed. It mostly manifests itself in the form of visions and dreams. As Saeunn the Raven Mage puts it, Renn's talent lies in linking signs to make a pattern, and her dreams have done this for her.
==External Links==
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