Fire Bringer (21 page)

‘Yes, well enough,’ said Drail. ’You’ve trained them well.’

‘The scouts have returned from the north once more,’ said Sgorr.

‘What news?’

‘All the Low Land herds now pay you homage.’

‘All except Tharn,’ said Drail angrily. ‘Why does he still resist me?’

‘He’s proud,’ answered Sgorr, ‘and he’s too fond of his

Outriders to give them up without a fight.’

‘Outriders,’ snorted Drail. ’Will I never be rid of them?’

‘They are loyal to him, Lord. I even believe they love him.’

‘One day they will be loyal to me,’ said Drail bitterly.

‘And love you too,’ Sgorr added quickly. His tone was simpering and sarcastic.

‘No, Sgorr, not even I am vain enough to believe that. But there are two ways to command loyalty. Love and fear.’

‘Indeed,’ said Sgorr, ‘and Tharn is a fool. His rule carries the seeds of its own destruction. By maintaining Anlach he ensures that one day soon he will be overthrown.’

‘True. But how do we know that the Outriders will come over even then? They’re woodlanders and nothing we have tried has enabled us to infiltrate his herd.’

‘That is not quite true,’ answered Sgorr quietly, gazing out into the day. ‘There’s one who might yet be persuaded.’

‘Then we shall have to bide our time,’ said Drail, ‘before all the Low Lands are mine.’

Sgorr cast Drail a sly and contemptuous look.

‘There is still no sign of the runaways,’ he said, and he was gratified to see fear flicker across Drail’s face. Drail pulled up in the grass and shook his head.

‘I don’t understand it,’ he muttered to himself. ‘Where can they be hiding?’

Yes, you old fool, thought Sgorr, chuckling inwardly. You’re still terrified of the Prophecy.

‘Who knows?’ he said out loud. ‘When the Draila arrived at the loch, Tharn had seen nothing of them. They were certain he wasn’t lying to them. Yet Tharn’s is the only herd that would shield them. It’s a mystery.’

‘We must find them, Sgorr,’ said Drail, and then he added, ‘Not because of that calf, you understand. As you said, he is no changeling.’

Sgorr smiled to himself again.

‘But because all the Herla must know that none can escape me,’ Drail went on. ‘They must be made to suffer. All of them.’

‘And they will,’ agreed Sgorr, ‘when we find them.’

‘So,’ said Drail with sudden irritation, ‘instead of talking to me all day, why don’t you send out some more of the Draila? Right away. Now I’m tired and I want to see Eloin.’ Drail suddenly ran forward in the grass, leaving Sgorr and the younger stag alone together on the hill.

‘Well?’ said the second stag quietly, when Drail was out of earshot.

‘Soon, Narl,’ muttered Sgorr, ‘very soon.’

The two of them walked on and Sgorr was smiling again as he watched Drail limping back to the Home Oak. When they had reached the bottom of the hill Sgorr pulled up once more.

‘Narl,’ he said quietly, ‘what news from the inner spies? Anything suspicious? We must have absolute control when the time comes. They must report to me if they notice anything. Anything at all. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes,’ said Narl. He paused and a thoughtful look entered his face. Sgorr saw it.

‘What is it?’

‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Narl, shaking his head. ‘It’s just that Reen was coming home the other day when he saw Blindweed by the stream.’

‘The storyteller?’ said Sgorr with surprise. ‘I didn’t think he was still alive.’

‘Yes, although they say he’s gone a little mad. When Reen approached him he didn’t see him for a while. He’s practically blind now.’

‘And?’

‘And he was talking to himself. Mumbling something about the Prophecy.’

‘The Prophecy?’ said Sgorr with sudden interest. ‘What was he saying?’

‘First, Reen says, he recited part of it. Then he started chuckling to himself.’

‘Go on,’ said Sgorr, who was listening closely now.

‘Well, this is the really odd part,’ said Narl. ’He suddenly said, ‘‘If they only knew about Bracken’s dead fawn, poor little thing,’’ and then he started chuckling again.’

Sgorr stopped in his tracks. He was thinking back. He was summoning back that night by the stream. He could see Eloin in his mind now, standing in front of him, moving slowly aside to reveal the dead fawn. Sgorr had always thought there had been something slightly strange about that. About the triumph in her eyes. Something subtly wrong. Then her sudden, passionate desire to protect Bracken and the calf by the trees.

‘Quickly,’ cried Sgorr, his mind flaming. ‘Bring Blindweed to me and fetch some of the Draila. I’ll meet you by the rock. And tell the Draila to sharpen their antlers.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘Question Blindweed, of course,’ cried Sgorr, as he set off at a run, ‘and find out what he means about the dead fawn.’

But as Sgorr ran he had already guessed.

As Larn came in over the home herd a calf with his first head was walking by the river towards the big rock where he so liked to go and play when he could escape the all-consuming duties of the Drailing. He knew he should never have been out so late and the thought of one of the Drailing’s endless punishments made him especially wary. He was just nearing the rock when he stopped and looked ahead of him in horror.

He saw a group of stags in front of him, surrounding an old deer. The deer was on the ground and one of his antlers was snapped off. His muzzle was covered in blood and his eyes were so swollen he could hardly see the Draila around him. As the terrified fawn looked on, one of the stags turned again and kicked him straight in the face.

‘Why don’t you just tell us, Blindweed?’ whispered Sgorr coldly in the darkness, turning his back on the stag on the ground. ‘And we’ll make it an easy death.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ answered Blindweed bitterly. He tried to lift his head from the grass but sank back helplessly.

‘Of course you do.’ Sgorr smiled. ‘I already know anyway. I just wanted you to confirm it.’

‘Never,’ spat Blindweed.

Sgorr walked straight up to the injured stag and stood over him.

‘Let’s go through it one more time,’ he said angrily. ‘That night, by the stream. When Eloin showed me her dead fawn. It wasn’t her fawn, was it? It was Bracken’s. So that makes the fawn with the mark Eloin’s fawn, and consequently Brechin’s. Not only does the blood of a most hated Outrider flow in his veins but he is what you might call. . . a changeling.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ mumbled Blindweed, trying to choke back the blood in his mouth.

‘Yes you do,’ sneered Sgorr. ’That prophecy of yours. It talks of a fawn mark and a changeling.’

Blindweed was silent now and Sgorr threw Narl a glance. The stag kicked Blindweed again.

‘Don’t think I care,’ Sgorr went on casually, as Blindweed bellowed in pain. ’I’m not foolish enough to believe it. But I’ve devoted my life to knowing everything I can in the home herd. It’s more a matter of pride.’

‘And pride will destroy you,’ cried Blindweed suddenly, spitting blood from his swollen lips, ‘when He comes.’

‘Ah, so now we come to it. So it’s true about Eloin?’

‘Yes, it’s true. And you’ll rue the day you let him escape.’ Some of the surrounding Draila looked at each other nervously for, though it was forbidden to talk of Herne and the Prophecy, rumours and murmurings still survived in the herd.

‘Dear, dear,’ said Sgorr, ‘we are getting carried away. I shall do nothing of the sort. I’m not a stupid, superstitious Herla to believe some made-up legend about Herne. Look at me, Blindweed, if you still can. I am Sgorr and I fear nothing.’

‘Until Rannoch returns,’ said the storyteller, blinking up at his torturers.

‘So,’ cried Sgorr, swinging round. ‘Thank you, Blindweed. His name is Rannoch.’

‘It does not matter what he is called,’ sobbed Blindweed, racked with anguish that he had betrayed the fawn.

‘Rannoch. Herne. He is the one.’

‘Really!’ snorted Sgorr suddenly. ‘I’m weary of this. Goodbye, Blindweed. Be assured that with you shall die the last of the old tales and the lies of Herne and the Herla.’

Sgorr turned away with distaste and, with Narl following him, he ran back towards the Home Oak. As they went there was a final, exhausted bark of pain from the old storyteller.

‘I don’t understand it,’ said Narl as the stags ran up the valley in the darkness. ‘If the Marked One is a changeling then maybe there is some truth—’

‘Narl,’ snapped Sgorr, ‘if you wish to serve me then try and hide your stupidity. There’s no truth in it.’

‘Then why were you so keen to know about the calf?’ said Narl.

‘Simple,’ answered Sgorr. ’Because it serves our purpose. When Drail hears of it he will be even more terrified than he already is. And his fear makes him weak.’

‘Besides,’ said Sgorr to himself with pleasure as they ran through the night, ‘when Drail learns of Eloin’s part in this, it will drive them even further apart.’

Sgorr waited a full ten suns to tell Drail what he had discovered. He was looking for the moment the news would have the most startling effect. It came by the Home Oak where Sgorr had gone as usual to report on the activities of the herd. When he approached in the bright sunlight he smiled as he found Eloin and Drail arguing, as they so often did.

‘Can’t you forget him?’ Drail was saying to the hind.

‘Never.’

‘I thought with time you would grow to care for me,’ said Drail quietly. ‘Is it not fine to be favoured by the Lord of Herds?’

Eloin looked coldly at Drail. For two seasons she had been held in Drail’s harem by force, but they had still not mated, for Eloin had used every wile to reject him and keep her oath. The autumn before last she had managed this by stirring up jealousies among his other hinds and making them fight for Drail’s favours. The previous Anlach it was only by pretending to be sick that she had kept him away. But Eloin knew it could not be long before she would have to give in, and she hated him now more than ever.

Drail was very old to mate, for as a stag loses his strength and can no longer fight for hinds he will rarely mate after the age of eleven in the normal life of a herd. But two of Drail’s hinds had born calves last summer, though they were both weaklings. Drail was displeased with them and it was Eloin’s calves that he really longed for.

‘When summer comes,’ said Drail, ‘you will bear me a fine stag to further my bloodline.’

As Sgorr stood behind them he winced. None of his own hinds had ever calved.

‘No, Drail,’ answered Eloin coldly, ‘I will never give you a calf, stag or hind.’

There was something in the way she said it that made Drail pause. The stag turned his head and looked at her closely.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ll never give you calves because, my dear, you have wasted much time on the wrong hind,’ Eloin lied. ‘All my fawns will be stillborn. That is Herne’s curse to me.’

‘No,’ came a voice suddenly from behind them, and Drail swung round furiously to see Sgorr standing there watching them.

‘Sgorr,’ he snorted, ‘how dare you interrupt us?’

‘Forgive me, Lord,’ answered the stag, bowing his head, ‘but I thought it right to speak. Especially since Eloin is lying.’

‘What do you mean, lying?’

There was something in Sgorr’s voice, something threatening and knowing, that suddenly chilled Eloin’s blood. The hind glared at him.

‘Because she has already given birth to a fawn that lived. Brechin’s fawn.’

‘Brechin’s fawn?’ said Drail in amazement. ‘But it died. You saw the body.’

Eloin was silent, staring at Sgorr. She was trembling.

‘I saw a body,’ said Sgorr slowly. ‘But it wasn’t Eloin’s fawn. It belonged to a hind called Bracken.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘The storyteller told me,’ answered Sgorr, smiling at Eloin, ‘before he died.’

‘Blindweed!’ cried Eloin. ’What have you done?’

‘Silence!’ shouted Drail and the hind dropped her head. Drail paused. He was trying to remember where he had heard the name before.

‘Bracken?’ he said at last. ‘But isn’t that one of the hinds that we are looking for?’

‘Yes,’ answered Sgorr, ‘and she is looking after the fawn with the oaken mark. Eloin’s fawn. His name is Rannoch.’

‘Eloin’s?’

‘They were changed,’ said Sgorr portentously, leading Drail carefully towards the point. ’Eloin swapped Bracken’s dead fawn for her own at birth. Changed them.’

Drail was staring at both of them now, reaching for Sgorr’s meaning. Suddenly terror awoke in his eyes.

‘So the one with the oak mark is Brechin’s fawn?’ he whispered, almost choking. ‘And. . .’

Sgorr let him get there on his own.

‘. . . And a changeling,’ gasped Drail. ’The Prophecy. It’s true.’

The lord staggered forward in the grass. He lurched to the side and Sgorr made no effort to help him. He was smiling at Eloin triumphantly.

Over the coming months the news of Rannoch and the Prophecy wrought a dramatic change in Drail. He seemed to age visibly, to sag inwardly. He began to spend all his time by the Home Oak, always surrounded by Draila, muttering to himself and asking any deer he could what they knew of the Prophecy.

Sgorr did nothing to discourage this. Indeed he positively fed Drail’s terror. He himself would visit Drail and recite it, nodding gravely and pretending to interpret its meaning. Every day Drail ordered Sgorr to send out more and more Draila scouting parties, though of course Sgorr did nothing of the kind.

There was one aspect of Sgorr’s plan though that misfired: the desired rift between Drail and Eloin. For rather than estranging her from Drail, now the aged stag seemed to want her with him all the time. Drail seemed strangely comforted by her presence, as though the mother of ‘the One’ would afford him some protection. He would even ask her about the Prophecy and if she believed in it. Eloin neither confirmed nor denied anything. She wanted to feed Drail’s terror but at the same time knew that it was dangerous for her calf. She was silent and fearful and Blindweed’s murder had reopened the bitter wound in her slowly healing heart.

So the year grew. With the spring showers the herd’s antlers began to fall. First a right or left antler would drop, so for three or four suns a stag would be left with just a single branch on his head. Then the second antler dropped too and the stag walked bareheaded through the home valley. It was always at this time of year that Sgorr felt most powerful and became more vicious among the stags.