Fire Bringer (51 page)

‘Nothing,’ answered the hind that had been speaking, dropping her eyes guiltily.

‘Come, my dear,’ said Eloin, ‘I know you were saying something.’

The hinds looked uncertainly at one another.

‘Please don’t tell Sgorr,’ said the first hind.’If you do we wouldn’t. . .’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Eloin gently, ‘I will tell Sgorr nothing, nothing at all. I promise.’

The hind from the loch, who had first spoken of the Prophecy, looked into Eloin’s face. The fur round her muzzle was grey and she seemed terribly tired.

‘He’s coming,’ she said, ‘to free us all and fulfil the

Prophecy. Herne is coming.’

‘Ah,’ said Eloin sadly, ‘I thought that’s what you were saying.’

‘Have you heard of it too?’ said the hind.’Do you know of the Prophecy?’

‘Oh yes, I know of it.’ Eloin smiled.

‘But do you think it’s true?’

‘Go on believing it, my dear, if it gives you hope,’ said Eloin quietly, and she turned and walked slowly away.

As she went, Eloin shook her head. Poor things, she thought to herself sadly. If they only knew that Rannoch is dead. But they need something to believe in. It can do them no harm.

As Eloin thought now of Rannoch, she felt that familiar anguish in her heart. With the years, the pain of loss and grieving had hardly grown any fainter. She could still picture Rannoch in her mind’s eye. His little face blinking up at her in the night. It was too cruel. Her beautiful fawn, torn to shreds by dogs.

Rannoch was gone and Brechin was gone. Blindweed too.

Only Shira and Canisp remained as a fragile link to her past. She had told them both the truth about Rannoch and the night by the stream. Many times in the past suns she had asked them to recount the story of their journey to the loch and dwelt lovingly on their descriptions of Rannoch as he began to grow. But the stories had always ended in the same way. In the pained silence of the hinds as she asked them about that day in the gully.

Eloin looked out across the lake and spotted Sgorr with Narl. The hatred she felt for him swelled in her stomach as she watched ten Sgorrla rushing towards them. They were escorting a single stag.

‘Lord Sgorr,’ cried one of the Sgorrla, rushing ahead.

‘What is it now?’ snapped Sgorr, furious at being interrupted.

‘To the north,’ panted the stag, ‘a sun away. Herla stags.’ Narl looked at his master.

‘Well?’ said Sgorr.

‘They came off the Great Mountain,’ said the stag nervously.’They’re Outriders.’

‘Outriders? Are you certain?’

‘None of their heads were marked like the Sgorrla’s.’

‘None of them? Are you absolutely positive?’ said Sgorr quietly. The stag was surprised by the urgency of Sgorr’s question.

‘Yes, Lord.’

‘You didn’t see one among them,’ said Sgorr, ‘with a white mark on his head, like a leaf?’

‘No. I’m sure of it,’ said the Sgorrla.’We watched them for a sun. We’d been shadowing the humans as they travelled west.’

Sgorr nodded to himself. He was pleased.

‘How many of them are there?’ he asked.

‘Eighty and there are two hinds with them. They’re coming towards us.’

‘Well, well,’ said Sgorr, ‘eighty Outriders and a couple of hinds come to face a thousand stags. They’re certainly brave, I’ll give them that.’

‘Lord Sgorr,’ said the Sgorrla, looking back towards his companions, ‘we captured one of them.’

‘Bring him,’ said Narl immediately.

The Sgorrla called to the others and the stag they had been escorting was pushed forward. His face was badly bruised and there were cuts along his sides.

‘You,’ said the leader as soon as he saw Bankfoot. Bankfoot glared furiously at Sgorr as the leader eyed his antlers.

‘You’ve grown, I see.’ Bankfoot said nothing.

‘So tell me, what are you doing here? Why are there Outriders with you?’

Again Bankfoot was silent.

‘Come now, you must want something. Did Rannoch send you?’

Bankfoot’s eyes flickered, for he was amazed that Sgorr knew Rannoch was alive. But as soon as he had been captured by the Sgorrla, Bankfoot had determined that silence was his only course of action.

‘Still dumb,’ snorted Sgorr.’No matter. Your master is probably dead by now and the Sgorrla will soon loosen your tongue. Take him up to the big sycamore and guard him carefully until I have time to come.’

The Sgorrla moved in around Bankfoot.

‘And don’t think of trying to escape,’ said Sgorr. ’You may have succeeded once but to do so again would cost dearly, as it did those two hinds that day.’

Bankfoot swung his head up.

‘What do you mean?’ he whispered.

‘They paid with their lives,’ said Sgorr. ‘What were their names, Narl?’

‘Alyth. . . Alyth and Fern.’

‘Ah yes.’

‘You killed them?’ gasped Bankfoot, his legs beginning to shake.

‘No,’ said Sgorr, smiling, ‘you killed them. And if you try anything there are always the other two. Shira and Canisp.’

Bankfoot felt the shock of his mother’s name like a physical blow.

‘Take him away,’ cried Sgorr.

‘And what shall we do about the others, Lord Sgorr?’ said the lead Sgorrla.

‘Do?’ said Sgorr, as though surprised that he should have to do anything at all.

‘Yes, Lord.’

‘Let me face them,’ cried Narl suddenly stepping forward.

‘I’ll take some of the Sgorrla. If they’re coming from the north they’ll have to pass by the corrie to get to us. I can trap them there.’

Sgorr thought for a while.

‘Very good,’ he said at last. ‘Eighty shouldn’t be too difficult to handle. Take a hundred and fifty of the Sgorrla and a contingent of the fallow deer as well. It’s time they got their antlers wet and we can sacrifice a few of them to soften the Outriders up a bit before you move in for the kill.’

‘You heard the lord,’ said Narl immediately, addressing the Sgorrla. ’Get them ready and choose some of the fallow. Fifty should do it.’

The Sgorrla nodded and marched Bankfoot off through the grass.

‘Well, Narl,’ said Sgorr cheerfully when the Sgorrla had gone, ‘this is a surprise.’

‘Do you think He sent them?’ asked Narl.

‘While he hides himself up in the north?’ said Sgorr. ’It’s possible, but I prefer to think that our assassin wasn’t trained in vain. Well, we shall find out more when I’ve had time to question the prisoner. But just in case he tries anything, bring those two hinds to me and double the guard around them and Eloin.’

Narl dipped his antlers.

‘If anyone tries to get to them, Narl, to rescue them, you have your orders. Kill them all.’

‘Eloin too?’ said Narl.

‘All of them.’

Again Narl bowed.

‘When you have removed the Outriders,’ said Sgorr, ‘send word and then stay where you are. It’s time the Great Herd was on the move – this pasture is quite grazed out. I’ll meet you by the corrie. And Narl, be sure to keep one or two of them alive, won’t you? I want to question them too.’

‘Very good, Lord Sgorr,’ said Narl proudly, and he turned and ran to join the Sgorrla.

Sgorr stirred thoughtfully and looked out across the Great Herd. The rows and rows of antlers stood out like a winter wood. Sgorr’s heart swelled.

‘Herne,’ he whispered ‘if you weren’t just a fairy story I’d call you down from the skies to witness this. Those fools in the High Land worshipped you as the Lord of Violence. But you aren’t, are you, Herne? Not even man is the Lord of Violence. I, Sgorr, am the Lord of Violence.’

Again Sgorr’s eye ranged across the mighty herd and suddenly he began to laugh.

‘Eighty Outriders. Is that all you throw at me, Rannoch?’ He paused and sucked in the warm air. At that moment Sgorr felt quite invincible.

22 The Corrie

‘I know a trick worth two of that.’ William Shakespeare, ‘Henry IV, Part One’

The Outriders were moving swiftly now and Thistle kept scanning the terrain restlessly as they ran, looking for the spot Sek had told them about, the place where they had agreed to wait for Willow and Peppa. They were coming off a high mountain, close to late afternoon, and the weather was even warmer than it had been the sun before, so the deer’s spirits were cheered a little by thoughts of long, hot summers in the Low Lands.

‘It’s so hot,’ muttered Braan, ‘for this time of year.’

Tain, who was walking beside him, looked up at the sun before the glare made him turn away his eyes again.

The Herla had no words to understand what was happening to the sun now. Tain thought of Herne but his comprehension could not carry him to the truth of it. For, hundreds of thousands of miles above them, the sun, which at the dawn of the earth itself had stirred dead matter into life, was blistering and bubbling, spots of fire bursting at its edges, sending out swords of flame miles high to cut the natural rhythm of the seasons. As the deer looked up, it was almost as if the world itself was about to change.

The track the deer were following wound steeply down the mountainside, which was sparsely wooded with sudden outcrops of scrubby trees, interspersed with rocks and great boulders. Lips of stone and rock overhangs provided beetling vantage points over the land beneath. Below them, as they moved south, they could see a wide plain that stretched out from the base of the mountain they were on towards the undulating hills beyond. To the east was a forest and to the west another steep mountain, with a small river at the base of its foothills.

The path they were on tipped suddenly downwards and as the deer got closer to the mountain’s base they saw the small lake at its bottom, feeding a stream that snaked away into the distance towards the far river. The water was a deep blue-green and the banks of the lake were strewn with rocks and rubble that time had torn away from the hill and cast about its feet. The lake was set well back, in a kind of natural hollow, and the black mountain walls rose almost sheer around it. The sides of the mountain stretched far away beyond the lake on either side, forming a kind of pass straight ahead of them, no more than two trees across, opening out to the plain beyond.

‘The corrie,’ whispered Thistle.

As they came to the water, their hoofs skittered on the scree slopes, dislodging slate and rock, and the still air in the corrie began to echo with their sounds. Tain and Braan were the first to drink from the little lake, and they found the water sweet and refreshing. Soon the others were collecting around it too, stirring the surface with their thirsty lips.

But Thistle looked up all the while and shook his head as his eyes ranged nervously around the place.

‘Is anything wrong?’ asked Tain.

‘Yes, Captain,’ he answered gravely, ‘it gives plenty of cover and the water’s sweet, but if we were ever caught here we wouldn’t stand a chance.’

Tain looked keenly at Thistle.

‘Perhaps we should go back up the mountain. Height will give us an advantage and plenty of warning. Herne willing.’

‘No,’ said Thistle, ‘this is where we’ve agreed to meet Willow and this is where we must wait. I only hope they hurry.’

As Thistle was talking to Tain, Willow and Peppa were gazing down in horror at the Great Herd. They had followed the Sgorrla’s tracks right to the herd’s edge and now the twins paused by a large rock as they wondered what to do. Larn was approaching and Willow decided they should stay where they were until darkness, and then try and steal among the deer. So they both sat down to ruminate quietly, looking out nervously at the rows and rows of grazing stags.

It was well after Larn when they slipped off the hillside. They felt fear welling up in their stomachs as they approached and came among them, but the deer were too preoccupied with thoughts of the Great Trek, and they hardly noticed the twins in the darkness.

‘We should get among the hinds,’ whispered Willow as they went. ‘Try and find out more about Sgorr, if we can, and if any of them have seen Bankfoot.’

Peppa nodded to her sister.

On they went and as they passed the rows of red deer, and the fallow and roe deer too, they felt the unnatural quietness of the place. A group of Sgorrla passed close by, but the twins dropped their heads to graze, and because they had drifted close to a clutch of hinds, it looked as if they were part of the group and the Sgorrla moved off.

They pressed on, and at last, near the lake, they found themselves in the very centre of the Great Herd, with hinds all around them. Again they pretended to graze in the darkness, but as they did so, they came close to a small band of hinds talking urgently together.

‘Prophecy or no prophecy,’ one hind was whispering gravely, ‘that’s what I heard and I believe it.’

Willow began to move closer.

‘But he was from our herd,’ said another hind, ‘and he had an oak leaf on his head.’

‘Yes,’ said the first hind, ‘but he died. Years ago. They say he was torn apart by wolves.’

Willow’s ears came up and she looked over to Peppa.

‘Then there’s no hope,’ said another hind.

‘There’s always hope. Even some of the stags— Hey, you there. What are you doing?’

The hind that had done the most talking had spotted the twins. Willow realized there was nothing for it but to try and bluff it out. She lifted her head and trotted straight over to the hinds. Peppa took her lead and followed her sister as calmly as she could.

‘Well, what are you doing there?’ asked the hind again.

‘Nothing,’ answered Willow calmly. ‘We were just grazing.’

‘Why aren’t you with your own?’ said the hind.’You know it’s forbidden to wander after Larn.’

‘I know,’ lied Willow, and then she thought of what the hinds had being saying about hope and the Prophecy. Willow decided to take a risk.

‘But it’s good to break the Sgorrla’s rules now and then, isn’t it?’ she whispered.

The hind looked at Willow suspiciously.

‘Are you sure. . .’ she asked coldly, ‘that you’re not spies?’ Peppa winced but the hind never saw it.

‘Spies?’ answered Willow calmly. ‘If you think I’d spy for Sgorrla scum, then perhaps you and I should take a walk and discuss it properly.’

The hind looked hard at Willow and she didn’t like the fire that flickered in her eyes.