Fire Bringer (25 page)

Bracken still didn’t understand, but as the friends turned and vanished into the trees, the hind followed dutifully after them.

On the ridge above them the Sgorrla had caught up with the other hinds. They were surrounded and now they no longer made any attempt to run.

‘What do you think you were doing?’ cried Sgorr furiously when he reached them.

‘Nothing,’ answered Alyth coldly.’Just enjoying the evening.’

There was something in her tone that made Sgorr start.

‘Quick!’ he shouted to some of the Sgorrla.’Go back and check on the others.’

When the stags returned just a short while later with the news that the youngsters had vanished, Sgorr nodded his head and almost smiled.

‘So,’ he said.’Still playing games. Very well then.’ He rounded on the Sgorrla.

‘Follow them,’ he cried furiously. ‘Hunt them down. Don’t rest until you’ve found them.’

The stags nodded gravely.

‘But first,’ he said, turning back to Alyth, ‘we will deal with you.’

Sgorr smiled coldly at Narl.

‘Kill them,’ he whispered. ‘Kill them all.’

Fern blinked in terror as Narl stepped forward.

‘But Lord Sgorr,’ he said quietly, ‘what about Eloin?’ Sgorr was silent for a while.

‘Very well,’ he said finally. ‘But they must be punished. I tell you what, Narl, we’ll keep two of them alive, just for Eloin’s benefit. And Narl, I’ll give you the choice of which.’

As Eloin stood by the Home Oak in the calm evening, waiting for news of the deer who had fled with Rannoch two years before, she was surprised to see Sgorr returning with just four Sgorrla and two hinds at his side. Her gaze followed them all the way into the home valley and at last she recognized who they were. It was Shira and Canisp. Eloin suddenly remembered the two little fawns who had been Rannoch’s dearest friends; Tain and fat little Bankfoot.

10 The Boy

‘O joy! that in our embers Is something that doth live. That nature yet remembers What was so fugitive!’ William Wordsworth, ‘Intimations of Immortality’

Now we must go back in time, nearly a year and a half before Drail met his fate in the ravine, to that terrible day above the loch. The day that the men and the dogs had come and Rannoch had risked his life to save his friend.

When Rannoch opened his eyes the little deer had no idea what had happened to him. He was dimly aware of running, of a desperate and all-consuming desire to escape. But beyond that, he knew nothing. Not where he was, not what he had been doing, not even his own name. His head ached and he felt dizzy and a little sick. He remembered from somewhere that he had been on a hill and something about a river and a dead hind, but everything else was dark, as dark as the air around him.

‘That’s it,’ he suddenly said to himself.’I’m dead. I must be dead.’

Rannoch half expected Starbuck or Herne himself to step out of the shadows to greet him. But now the deer tried to move and as he did so he realized that he couldn’t be dead after all, for pain suddenly seared through his back leg with all the unmistakable force of life. The little deer barked in agony and swung his head up. Above him, through a kind of tunnel and suspended high above in the inky night, Rannoch saw the brilliant wash of the Milky Way glittering in the faraway heavens. He breathed in deeply and the dusty air made him choke. The scent was a mixture of dry earth and dying bracken, leaf mould and moss and, moving through this complex web of smells, Rannoch recognized the muddied, slightly salty odour of worms.

Well, if I’m not dead I must be dreaming, thought Rannoch to himself.

The deer’s eyes were growing accustomed to the blackness and as they did so he began to see earth walls rising around him. Dimly, Rannoch began to understand that he must be below ground, though he had no idea how he had got there. He struggled again but he was unable to get up and laid his head back down on the earth. When he opened his eyes once more it was still dark above, but the sky was paling and the stars were beginning to go out. Rannoch shivered and looked about him.

What’s happened to me? he thought bitterly, and as he did so he felt a strange tingling in his body. He didn’t know what had brought it on, but as he lay there the weird, unnerving sensation grew stronger and stronger. Then Rannoch’s heart began to beat violently. The deer had heard something. The sound was a kind of scratching, or a shuffling, and it was coming from the earth wall next to him.

Rannoch, his eyes getting bigger and bigger, tried to move away from the sound. But, wherever he was, there was little room to manoeuvre and the pain in his leg was almost too much to bear. Rannoch was trapped. As the light grew around him, to his horror, Rannoch saw the earth next to his head begin to crumble. It was very slow at first. Little showers of earth shook from the wall. Rannoch was transfixed and as he watched with an impotent, petrified fascination he realized something was coming through the ground itself and that it was coming straight towards him.

‘Oh, Herne,’ he gasped.

Suddenly the earth began to crack. A large chunk of soil dropped away and something extraordinary happened. A little pinkish nose popped out through the earth and with it two small clawed feet. The nose seemed to hang in the air, sniffing and probing, and then the feet started to scramble once again and a small, furry head appeared through the side of the wall, followed by a tiny black body.

It was a mole. The animal dropped to the floor and its little beady eyes blinked warily in the gloom.

‘Who are you?’ said Rannoch nervously.

The creature froze at the sound and began to sniff the air, probing it with his subterranean senses.

‘What? Who’s there?’ he said looking around him and blinking again.

‘Me,’ said Rannoch.

‘Who’s you?’ answered the startled creature. ‘Are you a mole?’

‘No,’ said Rannoch.’I’m. . . I’m a deer, a Herla.’

The mole blinked back stupidly as his weak eyes, grown lazy with so much time spent underground, began to make out the form of the deer.

‘A deer?’ said the mole. ’A talking deer? A talking deer that burrows. It’s. . . It’s impossible. How do you do it?’

‘I. . . I don’t quite know,’ answered Rannoch weakly, still desperately trying to understand what had happened to him.

‘I think I’ve always been able to.’

‘What’s your name?’ said the mole. Rannoch paused. His head ached violently.

‘I. . . I don’t know that either, I’m afraid. I. . . I can’t remember. I was running from a dog, I think, and then I woke up here and I’m hurt. My leg hurts me, anyway.’

‘You must have fallen,’ said the mole, sniffing the air above him and vaguely making out the distant sky, ‘from up there.’

‘I suppose I must,’ said Rannoch.

‘And you can’t remember anything else?’

‘I . . . I remember a fawn, I think. And a loch. But that’s about it.’

‘How strange,’ said the mole, just beginning to make out the details of Rannoch’s face. ‘In all my days I’ve never come across anything like it. And underground I’ve seen – or rather smelt – a lot, I can tell you.’

‘Can you help me?’ said Rannoch feebly, beginning to feel a little sick again.

‘Well, I don’t see how,’ said the mole. ‘You’re far too big to get through one of my burrows. I suppose I could burrow upwards myself to see what I can see but, to tell you the truth, I’m a little reluctant to do that. You see,’ the mole went on, his voice filling with fear, ‘up there I think men have been about. I felt their horses yesterday.’

‘Men?’ whispered Rannoch. ‘What are men?’

‘You know,’ said the mole. ‘People. Humans.’

Rannoch felt dizzy. From somewhere, the image of a bridge flashed into his mind. But try as he might to remember, a dark wall seemed to have come between him and his thoughts.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Rannoch.

‘You must know about men,’ said the mole. ‘All Lera fear them. They are the bringers of violence.’

But as the mole said it he suddenly began to shake. From above, the two animals heard the whinny of a horse and then the sound of voices. Human voices.

‘Herne help us,’ cried the mole. ‘I must get out of here.’

‘Wait, please,’ begged Rannoch. ‘Please. You can’t just leave me.’

But the mole was already scrambling back through the hole.

As Rannoch lay there, the voices drew nearer and nearer. Rannoch felt an unbearable fear bubbling up inside his stomach and he began to shake violently. But although he had understood the mole – and he didn’t know why – now he could understand nothing of what the voices were saying. They came to him like the sound of water and they made him tremble.

‘It’s over here,’ said the first voice. ‘I saw it drop just before the dog pounced. It must have been one of the old hunting pits Father dug last summer.’

‘Aye,’ said a second voice.

‘It came out of the bracken, Liam.’

‘Look, over there,’ shouted the second voice suddenly.

As Rannoch looked up helplessly, he saw two figures appear at the edge of the pit above him. He did not know it, but they were boys. One was tall, with jet black hair, while the other, the one called Liam, cannot have been any more than twelve years old and was small for his age. Liam was wearing a pair of deerskin breeches and a rough woollen jerkin, and his legs were strapped with woollen bindings. His long locks fell well over his shoulders and were a very dark red. He had a high forehead and his eyes were a pure emerald green. That was normal for his people but there was something in the boy’s look, the brightness of his eyes perhaps or the way they seemed to be listening, that spoke of an unusual sensitivity.

The little deer waited nervously at the bottom of the pit, hardly daring to breathe or stir as the boys peered down at him. Then, suddenly, the one with red hair jumped down beside him. Rannoch felt as though his nerve endings were on fire and, as he scented the boy, the sickness in his stomach became almost overwhelming.

‘It’s a fawn,’ said the boy.

‘Is it dead?’ said the voice from above.

‘Nay,’ answered Liam. ‘I don’t think so.’

Now Rannoch shuddered as he felt a hand on his fur. The boy was stroking him.

‘He’s very pretty,’ said the boy beside him. ‘He’s got a birthmark on its forehead. It looks a bit like a leaf. But I think the poor bairn’s leg is broke.’

Rannoch winced in pain as the boy touched his back leg.

‘Aye, it’s broke all right.’

‘Then there’s only one thing to do,’ said the voice from above.’I’ll get my knife.’

‘What do you mean?’ cried Liam, standing up.

Rannoch opened one of his eyes now and saw that the boy was above him.

‘We’ll have to kill it.’

‘Why?’

‘To put it out of its pain.’

‘Nay,’ said Liam sternly, kneeling down again by the deer.

‘Then what do you want to do with it? You can’t take it home with you.’

‘Why not?’

‘But it’ll never live. It’s wild and my father says wild things can’t live with us.’

‘Mother will know what to do,’ said Liam gravely.

‘But Liam, how will we get it back?’

‘I’ll strap him to my horse.’

‘Hey!’ shouted the boy suddenly from above.

‘What is it?’ said Liam, but for a while no answer came from his friend.

‘Nay, it’s gone now,’ called his friend at last, reappearing above. ‘There was another calf. I think it was watching me. But it ran off into the undergrowth.’

Rannoch had understood none of this, but now he suddenly felt a pair of human arms enfolding him. The pain in his leg came again and he found himself being lifted from the ground.

Herne, oh Herne, he thought to himself as his senses began to swim, and the young deer blacked out.

When Rannoch opened his eyes again the confusion hit him even more powerfully and with it came fear. Rannoch could see nothing of the stars or the sky. Beside him glowed an orange light that warmed his side and around him he saw strange shapes that he didn’t understand.

He was lying on something soft that felt like fur and smelt comforting and familiar. Next to him was a large object made of wood with four long, straight-sided branches that rose from the ground to another piece of wood that seemed to have been stretched flat and was lying on its side on top of the branches.

There were other wooden things around it and by Rannoch’s head, hanging over the fire, was something that looked like a giant puffball with its top cut off. But its surface wasn’t dull like a puffball. Instead, it reflected the orange light and from out of it a steam was rising. Rannoch scented the air and suddenly recognized the smell of wild mushrooms. It made his stomach lurch, for the little deer was desperately hungry.

Suddenly the boy was standing over him again. Rannoch peered into the pure green eyes and as they looked back at him, they seemed to bore into him. Rannoch felt his mind reel and he looked away. Then the voices came again. They seemed to be all around him now. First there was one, then two, then three, and the texture of each sounded different to the deer. One – the boy’s – was like a spring. Another, like a deep pool. The third was like a waterfall.

‘Liam, get some of the leaves from the table and I’ll crush them up with a little milk,’ said the waterfall.

‘Yes, Mother, but why?’

‘I’m going to make a poultice to help the leg mend.’

‘How does it do that?’

‘Nature will do it, for there is strength in the leaves.’

‘What’s it called?’ asked Liam.

‘This is dock leaf and that’s called dittany,’ said Liam’s mother. ‘It’s a special herb. There’s even a legend that links it to deer. It’s said that when a stag is shot with an arrow it goes into the forest to find the wild dittany and when it eats it, it is cured.’

Rannoch listened to the music of these strange sounds and he felt himself growing drowsy.

‘Is it true?’ said the boy.

‘Nay, Liam, no’ for an arrow,’ answered his mother.’But it has power to heal, as many herbs do.’

‘Oh,’ said Liam, a little disappointedly. ‘I like the legend.’

‘Well, there are plenty of legends surrounding deer,’ came another voice suddenly. It was the pool.