Fire Bringer (31 page)

‘If I’d wanted you to die,’ said Rannoch coldly, ‘I could have left you to die in your sleep in the rain.’

The wolf eyed Rannoch slyly but seemed a little reassured by this although, in truth, he was too dazed to believe what was happening to him.

‘If you’re hungry,’ said Rannoch, ‘I’ve brought you what I could. There, to your right. Try and eat something.’

The wolf turned his head and saw a small pile of berries and nuts on the rock. He sniffed them and turned away in disgust.

‘Squirrel food,’ he growled. ‘What do you take me for?’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Rannoch, not without amusement, ‘it was all I could find. But try and eat it all the same.’

‘Come down here and I’ll eat,’ snapped the wolf. ‘That’ll make me well.’

‘Is that a way to talk to a Lera that’s trying to help you?’

‘Is this a way for a Lera to behave?’ growled the wolf.

‘To tease me with nuts and berries? For a deer to help the hunter? It’s. . . it’s unnatural. It’s against the law.’

Rannoch said nothing up there on the rock.

‘Why do you do this?’ muttered the wolf angrily. ‘Leave me alone. I’d rather die than have this.’

‘What harm is there in one Lera helping another?’ said

Rannoch quietly.

‘Harm? What harm? All the harm in the world.’

The wolf began to snarl again and laid down his head sullenly on the rock.

‘The berries will help heal you,’ said Rannoch. ‘You must eat something or you’ll die.’

Again the wolf growled.

‘Please yourself,’ said Rannoch. ‘I’m hungry, even if you’re not, and I’m going to graze. I’ll come and see you at Larn. Perhaps by then you’ll have changed your mind.’

Still the wolf said nothing, so Rannoch turned and trotted away. The wolf lay still for a while, brooding on his strange fate. But as the day wore on he grew hungrier and hungrier. At last he peered about him and when he was certain that Rannoch was nowhere near, he turned to the berries and sniffed them again, curling his nose up distastefully.

Very reluctantly, he picked up a few of the berries on his long tongue and swallowed them. They tasted bitter but not too unpleasant and there was moisture in them. In truth, in the hard winters when game had failed or his pack had been lost in the forests without food, even the wolf had turned to such food to save him from death. Now the strange flavour on his tongue made him realize how famished he really was and suddenly he was gulping down the food beside him. When he had finished he looked around him again rather guiltily and laid down his head.

‘It’s good for me,’ he muttered. ‘It’ll make me strong again and then. . . then we’ll see.’

Rannoch got back to the rock before Larn. It had started to drizzle and the deer was in low spirits. But now he smiled to himself as he looked down on the wolf. He was stretched out asleep and beside his head the berries had gone.

Rannoch pressed his soft lips around the new berries he had just collected and began to make his way down the slope.

He approached the rock as cautiously as before, watching the steady rise and fall of the wolf’s sleek fur, making certain of the rhythms of sleep. But when he was sure, the deer stepped up beside him and dropped the berries on the ground. In an instant the wolf’s eyes were open and, with a snarl that shuddered through his whole body, he swung his muzzle to the right and snapped viciously at Rannoch’s leg. Rannoch jumped sideways and swung down with his antlers as the wolf’s muzzle closed on the cold air. He had missed.

Now the wolf was struggling on the rock, trying to get up, snapping at the deer, snarling and growling as his pink gums slavered furiously. Rannoch stood there shaking, staring in horror at the animal in front of him. Then, without a word, he turned and ran back up the slope. Above, he stopped and looked down at the creature, then he trotted away into the approaching dark.

But Rannoch didn’t go far. He wandered for a while through the gorse and bracken, his face raised to the cold wind, his muzzle spattered with rain. Above him an eagle was circling and he watched it until the faint, high speck vanished into the canopy of night. In the distance the snow-topped mountains were misty and bleak and as the deer listened to the howling echoes of the air he felt angry and alone.

For two suns Rannoch grazed the slopes of the mountain, lost in thought, turning his antlers again and again to the north but never stirring far from the waterfall. Then, at last, when he could think no more, he went back to the falls and looked down.

The wolf’s eyes were open and though he saw the deer above him, he hardly stirred. He was too weak. All the berries had gone. The animals said nothing for a while, watching each other warily until, finally, the wolf murmured in a faint, exhausted voice.

‘I’m hungry. I must eat or I shall die.’

‘And why should you live when you try to kill me?’ said Rannoch quietly and without anger.

‘It is my nature,’ answered the wolf sullenly. ‘I can do no more about it than the mountains about the sky. I no more choose to hunt you than the eagle chooses to fall on the vole or the fox to kill the hare. Why should I not, for I must live?’

Rannoch stared at the wolf and after a good while he nodded his antlers.

‘Yes, you must live,’ he whispered as he backed away. Rannoch was gone for a short while, but when he came again to the rock and laid the berries beside the wolf, he didn’t stir until the deer was clear of his teeth. He stretched out his tired muzzle gratefully and gobbled up the sparse food.

With the coming suns Rannoch brought the wolf more berries and watched him from a distance as he gradually began to recover his strength. At last he was just able to drag himself to the pool and drink long and deep from the icy water. It quenched the burning thirst which the wolf had only been able to hold at bay by lapping at the rainy puddles that had formed on the rock beside his sickbed.

On the next sun the wolf tried to stand up. He managed it for a while, but then his legs gave way and he collapsed again. That evening Rannoch was feeding on the mountain when he saw two hawks fighting high above him and something drop to earth. Rannoch ran up to see what it was and found a dead field mouse on the ground. He picked it up by the tail and carried it down to rock where he threw it to the wolf. Rannoch turned away with disgust as the wolf took the dead Lera in its mouth and bit in to it, tearing the flesh and gnawing on the small bones. But the meal restored him even more and that Larn he stood for longer on the rock.

As night came in and a few stars peeped through the swirling clouds, Rannoch came to see him again.

‘How are you feeling?’ he asked quietly from above. The wolf licked his paws and nodded.

‘You’ve saved my life,’ he said. ’I’ll be well soon.’

‘Then it is nearly time for me to be on my way,’ said Rannoch.

‘Yes, that is well,’ said the wolf in a strange voice. ‘But tell me. I do not understand. Why have you done this?’

‘Because you needed my help,’ said Rannoch quietly.

‘Because I can and. . . and because. . . because I want to know.’

‘Want to know what?’ said the wolf.

‘Many things. What I am. What you are. Why you hunt me.’

‘Why I hunt you?’ said the wolf, smiling. ‘Because I want to run with the wind and have a full belly. Because I want to win a mate with sleek, silver fur and listen to my brothers howling their song to the sky. Because I too want to know. . .’

‘Then tell me something about you,’ said Rannoch.

The wolf looked oddly at the deer and then he too nodded.

‘Very well.’

So Rannoch came further forward over the ledge and listened to the wolf below the rumbling waterfall. He heard of his brothers who ran in great packs across the high mountains, of their calls and their quarry. He learned of the hard, bitter winters that strangled the earth and made their coats grow thick and coarse. Of how the wolf had nearly died in the foothills to the north when he had been separated from the others and had wandered for days through the snow without scenting a single Lera.

Rannoch trembled as the wolf told him of the chase and what signs they looked for when they went out to feed. Of how the pack would worry their prey and bring it down, then fight and argue over the carcass. Of how, after days of fruitless hunting, to find and catch just one small hare could bring the greatest pleasure.

But Rannoch heard too of the she-wolf and her flashing eyes. Of the song of the storm on the mountain top and the joy of running free at mating time. He heard of the wolf’s love of his cubs and how the little ones would gambol and tumble in the snow, until their paws were tired with playing and they would run back home and bury their tiny silver muzzles in their mother’s fur. He heard too of the loneliness of the wolf and his bitter cries when the wind told him that he must fight or die.

As he told the deer this he began to growl and his fur bristled, for the wolf was remembering his home and the world that was his own. He grew silent and sullen after a while and eventually stopped talking. So the two Lera were left to listen to the sound of rushing water.

Rannoch set off early the next sun to collect berries for the wolf and when he returned and looked over the edge, he saw him lying with his head on his paws. The deer trotted down to the pool and was approaching the flat rock when the wolf began to growl. The hair was standing up on the back of his neck and suddenly he arched his spine and stood up. Rannoch froze.

‘Don’t run,’ whispered the wolf in a sleek, cold voice. ‘It would be more than your life’s worth.’

Rannoch dropped the berries and tilted his antlers forward.

‘You’re well again,’ he said.

The wolf nodded and looked at Rannoch slyly.

‘I’m glad,’ said Rannoch.

‘Damn you!’ cried the wolf suddenly. ‘Why are you glad? Don’t you know how dangerous it is for you?’

‘I’m glad all the same,’ said Rannoch calmly. ‘Besides, you won’t harm me.’

The wolf looked at him carefully.

‘No,’ he whispered bitterly, ‘I won’t harm you.’

‘Then perhaps we have learnt something,’ whispered

Rannoch. ‘Both of us.’

‘No,’ snapped the wolf, ‘we have learnt nothing. Except that the world is stranger than we think. Now go quickly, for I may not be able to help myself.’

The wolf was straining forward, the tendons in his legs quivering violently as he looked at the red deer. He was beginning to show his teeth.

Rannoch nodded.

‘Very well,’ he said softly, ‘but I will not forget this time we have spent together.’

‘Go now. Hurry!’ cried the wolf suddenly.

Rannoch turned and ran back up the hill and when he looked back from the ledge above, the wolf was standing gazing at his broken reflection in the pool.

‘Goodbye,’ called the deer.

The wolf didn’t answer at first but as Rannoch turned to leave, he swung round and called up to the deer.

‘Listen to me,’ he cried. ‘You have saved my life and for that I thank you. So go, and may you run free and may your antlers grow. I will not forget you. No, nor that strange mark on your forehead. But mark me too, do not fool yourself. For we are enemies, you and I. That is how it is and how it must be. Nothing may change that, for that is the law. So when I run with the pack again and my belly is empty, when my cubs growl for food and the she-wolf demands meat, I will hunt you. You and your kind. Then I will forget this strange meeting. Yes, and be glad to forget it too.’

The wolf was snarling now as he tried to master his feelings. Without another word Rannoch dropped away from the rock and set out across the mountainside. He trotted slowly at first across the steep slope, but then the deer began to run, his head up, his antlers swaying in the breeze. Soon he was hurtling across the heather as the wind scoured the scent of the wolf from his nostrils.

Only when the deer was a long way away did Rannoch stop and look back. The mountainside was empty but as he looked Rannoch heard the wolf’s call come to him across the wind. Where once it would have only made him start in fear and run for his life, now the deer heard something else in it. Some new complexity. Rannoch heard both hunger and need. But in this call, in this low angry note that rose to meet the air, Rannoch also heard pain.

The deer turned back and looked out toward the mountains rising above him. The clouds and the mist hung low over the day and their dark edges were heavy with rain. On the deer ran. But as he went something else came with the biting loneliness that descended to greet him. A terrible sadness.

13 Reunited

‘Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas— Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland.’ John Galt, ‘The Lone Shieling’

The weather was changing rapidly now and as Rannoch travelled further north towards the Great Mountain and Herne’s Herd, looking all the time for signs of Bracken and the others, great splinters of rock rose around him, stone screes scarred the green and the mountains loomed ever higher through the hanging mist.

Down their slopes ran seemingly endless streams and rivulets as their tops shed the weight of the autumn rains. They turned the valley bottoms into vast bogs that Rannoch slopped and waded through as he went. The rain seemed never to stop, so that when the skies did clear for a while, grumbling with thunder, Rannoch felt as though he had swum through a huge sea that had soaked into his bones. Rannoch swung west, following the contours of the mountain behind him, and after a while he began to catch a now familiar scent on the wind. Again he smelt the breath of the sea.

It was morning when the deer came to another sea loch. The sides of the mountain he was on plunged sheer to the water and all around they rose up again in walls of stone. The cold wind lashed the surface of the lake and through the mist Rannoch saw a strange sight. He knew instantly it was the work of man. It stood on a promontory, its squat granite walls black and forbidding – a castle. As he gazed at it Rannoch was reminded of the men in the gully with their swords and axes.

Rannoch followed the line of the loch now and after a while he saw tracks. He knew immediately they were the slots of red deer. In the soggy ground Rannoch made out the marks of at least five animals and as he examined their size and shape and the distance between the fore and back hoofs, his heart leapt, for he realized that they weren’t just stags that had been this way, there were hinds too. He began to scent the air but could smell nothing, so he pressed on excitedly. It wasn’t until he had travelled for a good while more that Rannoch saw them in the distance, through the mist. There were six of them, grazing together. Rannoch’s heart began to race.