Fire Bringer (40 page)

One such dream, which came as the dawn began to chase the stars from the sky, had a deep effect on him. In his dream Rannoch found himself on a barren moor and a wind was blowing around his head. There was a voice in the wind and Rannoch knew that it was Herne.

‘What is it you are seeking?’ whispered the wind. Rannoch stirred in his sleep.

‘To understand,’ Rannoch found himself saying, ‘to be free.’

‘To you is granted much understanding,’ came the voice, ‘but you are Lera too. You may not understand all things.’

‘Then how can I be free?’

‘What is freedom?’ laughed the wind.

‘Freedom is running with the Herla,’ murmured Rannoch. ’Freedom is living as an Outrider.’

‘Yes. But what of them?’ came the voice. ‘What of the

Herla you have abandoned in the Low Lands?’

The wind grew stronger and, mixed in its cries, Rannoch heard the anguished calls of stricken deer.

‘Oh, Herne,’ moaned Rannoch, as though in pain, ‘will you never leave me be? Will I never be free?’

‘Freedom is firstly within,’ boomed the howling voice.

‘But what must I do?’

‘Remember what I told you long ago. You must listen, Rannoch. Listen to what you are and never forget.’

In Rannoch’s dream the wind died to a faint echo and all that was left was a whispering sigh on the breeze.

‘You cannot escape your destiny,’ said the wind, and the voice and the dream were gone.

It was late morning and a summer mist hung lightly across the moor they were travelling over. The ground had begun to rise steeply and the deer felt strangely expectant. They were cresting a ridge when Bankfoot, who was a little way ahead, stopped suddenly.

‘L-l-look,’ he gasped.

Ahead of the deer, at the highest point of the moor, was a giant stone circle. The vast blocks of granite reared up in front of them through the mist that curled and wisped around their sides. Each block, hewn roughly by long-dead hands from some distant mountain, rose to the height of a young tree and they had been placed at regular intervals in a wide, closed arc. In the very centre of the circle was a stone altar.

‘The Standing Stones,’ whispered Rannoch.

‘But w-w-what made. . . ?’

‘Man.’

Rannoch was right, for the stone circle had been thrown up in Neolithic days by a tribe even older than the Picts who came to inhabit the northern lands of Scotia. They had already stood here, on this barren moor, for over two thousand years and their ancient purpose had long been lost to the wind and rain and the cycles of the moon. For the people who carved the rocks and dragged their massive forms across the High Land, this had once been a holy place; a place to worship not the images of man or even of animals, but the raw, unconscious power of life itself; a kind of anchor to the spinning stars.

Great injustices had been committed here and scenes of horror still echoed through the stirring energies of the place. The deer felt it now as Rannoch led them forwards. Their senses quivered with the touch of the unknown and the unknowable.

As Rannoch neared the circle he stopped again. The ground was badly scuffed. Rannoch scented the earth and nodded. The stags had passed by this way, and only very recently.

‘Stay c-c-close to me, Peppa,’ whispered Bankfoot.

‘Rannoch, come and look at this,’ called Tain suddenly. He was standing close to one of the stones. On the ground, in the space left between two of the blocks, Rannoch saw an antler. As he looked, he spied other antlers placed in each of the open doorways, following the full course of the circle.

‘What does it mean?’ whispered Tain.

Rannoch shook his head, but behind him he could sense that the others were dangerously nervous. Bracken was shaking almost uncontrollably.

‘Come on,’ he cried, ‘we should keep moving.’

As they followed the incline of the moor they saw further signs of Herne’s Herd. But the heather rustled in the breeze as they ran and the beauty of the day eased their sense of foreboding. Close to Larn they entered a wide valley with more tree cover than that had seen in a long while. The place was very pretty, thick with wild flowers, and there was a deep stillness about it.

They pressed on up the valley and were climbing the far hill when they heard a frantic fluttering and saw the bracken shiver in front of them. It was a grouse. She had been sleeping inside a knotted bowl of bracken which had tightened itself around her flapping feathers when she had suddenly been woken by the approaching stags.

Rannoch walked slowly up to her.

‘Don’t worry,’ he called, ‘we won’t harm you. We’re looking for the herd nearby.’

The bird flapped again and then settled back, stunned, on the earth. Her tiny, beady eyes looked dazed.

‘It’s true, then,’ said the grouse breathlessly. ‘There is a deer that talks, stalking the High Land.’

‘How did you hear of it?’ asked Rannoch.

‘All the birds are talking about it.’

‘Can you help us?’ said Rannoch. ‘Have you seen a herd nearby?’

‘Oh yes,’ said the grouse, ‘but you don’t want anything to do with them.’

‘Why not?’

‘All the Lera around here fear them,’ said the bird. ‘They have strange ways. Some say they kill their own. Others that they are ghosts of deer long dead.’

‘Where are they?’ asked Rannoch.

‘Just over this hill,’ answered the bird. ‘But I’m warning you.’

Rannoch thanked the poor, bemused grouse and they wandered on. They stopped again at a clump of stunted trees and were looking down into the next valley when Rannoch spotted them ahead. The scouts were spread out loosely across the higher ground, grazing in the evening. They were surprisingly large. The fawns were set apart from them, in a small group, surrounded by other stags. To the deer’s amazement, they realized there were no hinds at all. Herne’s Herd was completely male.

‘They look pretty ordinary to me,’ said Thistle.

‘What do we do now?’ asked Tain.

‘I don’t know yet,’ said Rannoch. ’Perhaps I should go in on my own and show myself. Then, if they’re hostile, you can get away.’

‘If you’re going in,’ said Willow, ‘we’ll all go in together.’ As she said it something extraordinary happened. One of the stags let out a great, shaking bellow. It was a call that Rannoch and the others were only used to at Anlach and they looked up in amazement. It was followed by another bellow and another as the stags answered. Their antlers began to rise up and down rhythmically and their calls took on a kind of swaying, lilting chant. Then the groups of stags came together in living circles, dipping their heads to each other and pawing the ground.

‘The marks we saw,’ whispered Tain.

‘Let’s get away from here,’ said Rannoch. ’I’ve got to think.’

But as they turned to retrace their steps they started in fright.

Fifteen stags had come up behind them and were racing straight towards them, bucking and bellowing as they came. Instinctively, the deer turned to flee along the ridge but now they were in full view of the herd. The air was suddenly rent with angry cries and stags were rushing towards them from all directions. If they had wondered whether the herd would be hostile, now they were left in little doubt.

‘Hurry,’ cried Rannoch, trying desperately to think of what to do. ‘Form a circle.’

The deer drew together in a circle and there they all stood, in the surrounding darkness, waiting for their fate.

The stags took no time at all to reach them and as they approached there was fury in their eyes. The groups came together and swept round and round the friends, stamping their hoofs as they went and rearing up to paw the air, letting out angry bellows like the calls they had heard on the hill.

Quite suddenly, they all came to a stop with the largest of the stags facing Rannoch.

‘Get ready,’ Rannoch whispered, as the friends stared back at the great antlers.

The lead stag stared angrily at Rannoch and then let out a single bellow that seemed to draw down the day. But instead of charging, the stag pawed the ground again and stepped forward. Then, quite suddenly, he let out a shout as he lowered his antlers. It was picked up by all the surrounding stags, and in turn they dipped their heads.

‘Hail,’ cried the leading stag. ‘Hail and blessings to Herne. Herne’s Hope is fulfilled. The legend has come to pass.’

‘I c-c-c-can’t get anywhere near him.’

Poor Bankfoot looked at his wits’ end. It was two suns after they had met Herne’s Herd and Bankfoot was talking nervously to the others.

On that strange evening which still filled them all with amazement, they had been separated immediately from Rannoch. Almost as soon as the stags had finished bowing to Rannoch, the lead stag, whose name was Kaal, had led him away on his own, to a nearby copse of birch trees on the higher slopes, where the friends could see him now, surrounded by a constant guard.

Bankfoot and the others, meanwhile, had been taken down to the bottom of the valley, to a small burn, and told that as long as they didn’t stray towards Rannoch or try to escape, they were free to roam at will. The stags had been civil enough, though in their eyes and the language of their antlers there had been a veiled threat.

‘They’re keeping him under g-g-guard,’ Bankfoot went on, ‘day and night. A guard of honour, they call it, but I’m not so sure. When Rannoch went with them he whispered to me that he’d try and send word, but I’ve heard nothing.’

‘At least he seems well enough,’ said Tain.

‘But can they really believe he is Herne?’ said Thistle, shaking his head.

‘Perhaps he is.’

As Tain said it the friends looked at each other with a mixture of wonder and fear.

‘That’s what the Prophecy says,’ Tain whispered.

‘No. I can’t believe it,’ muttered Bankfoot uncomfortably.

‘Not R-r-rannoch, who played with us as calves and used to like jumping l-l-logs. I’ve always known he was special, but Herne?’

‘And he said it himself,’ said Willow, ‘he’s no changeling.’ They looked at Bracken and she said nothing, but deep in her glassy eyes there was a flicker of terror. The others, though, seemed comforted by her presence. Rannoch’s mother was the living proof that the Prophecy could not be true.

‘Th-th-there’s another thing,’ said Bankfoot suddenly, dropping his voice.’That first night they took him off up the mountain somewhere.’

The deer looked at each other fearfully.

‘They frighten me,’ said Peppa.’They have such strange ways. Those circles they keep making.’

‘Yes, Peppa,’ agreed Tain, ‘I think they’re praying, in their own way.’

‘It’s not natural,’ said Peppa.’Remember those horrid stones? Who’s heard of deer collecting antlers?’

‘They’re all unnatural, if you ask m-m-me,’ said Bankfoot.

‘They f-f-frighten me far more than the deer in the park, though their eyes have a similar look. Have you seen how bloodshot they are? There’s something g-g-ghostly about them. . . and violent.’

But Willow was looking up the valley and she was no longer listening to her friends.

‘It can’t be,’ she gasped. ‘What’s he doing here?’

Coming towards them across the grass, at a steady trot, was a deer with a great, shaggy coat and high, hooping antlers. When he reached the startled deer the reindeer looked very grave.

‘I’m glad I’ve found you,’ said Birrmagnur, as he lumbered to a halt. ‘They’ve been holding me at the northern end of the valley. When I heard what had happened I realized instantly it was you, but it took all my powers of persuasion to get them to bring me here.’

‘But, Birrmagnur, what are you doing here?’ said Willow, though she was comforted by his looming presence. ‘We never expected to see you again.’

‘No, nor I you. But I was captured two suns after I left you with the Slave Herd. They brought me straight here.’

‘But why?’

‘They wanted to find out all I knew about Rannoch. They saw us coming off the Great Mountain.’

‘Saw us?’

‘Yes, and followed us for a full sun until they lost us in the snow. Then they picked me up on my way back, though they wouldn’t have found it nearly so easy if I’d been in antler,’ he added proudly.

‘They haven’t harmed you?’

‘No, though when they first saw us we were lucky they didn’t kill us all. It is sacrilege to visit the Great Mountain. But then, of course, they saw Rannoch’s fawn mark. They actually thought Hoern himself had come down from the mountain top. The Marked One they call him. For centuries they have prayed for his coming at the Hoern-Meet.’

‘The Herne-Meet?’ said Tain.

‘Yes, when they meet in their circles to pray.’

‘So they are praying?’ said Tain.

‘Their whole life is dedicated to Hoern, as far as I can see.’

‘And now that He has come at last,’ said Willow, ‘or so they think, what happens?’

‘I don’t really know. But I think they are waiting for something else, some happening.’

‘I w-w-wish we could just talk to Rannoch,’ said Bankfoot.

‘We’re going to,’ said Willow suddenly.

‘B-b-but how?’

Willow looked hard at her friends and the reindeer. Her eyes had a steely, determined look.

‘I don’t know about the Prophecy,’ she said slowly, ‘but I know about Rannoch. He won’t want anything to do with these Herla. Think of how he hated what they were doing in the Slave Herd. No. We’ve got to make a plan.’

‘A plan?’ said Tain.

‘To rescue him.’

All day they discussed how to get to Rannoch and by nightfall they had a fairly good idea of what they were going to do. But it was a dangerous plan and needed some preparation, so they decided to attempt it in three or four suns’ time when the moon was full.

The sun after next Tain was sitting down in the heat, chewing over his thoughts and a particularly rich ball of grass, when Bankfoot ran up to him.

‘Tain,’ he said under his breath, ‘before we try to rescue Rannoch, there’s s-s-something I’ve got to find out and I want you to come with me.’

‘I’ll help if I can, Bankfoot,’ said Tain, ‘but what is it?’

‘I w-w-want to know where they take Rannoch. We won’t involve the others. It might be dangerous.’

Bankfoot got his chance that same evening. As dusk came in and the friends were grazing on the hill, he spotted a group of stags setting off to the east. Rannoch was in the middle of them. Bankfoot hurried over to Tain and together they slipped after them.