Fire Bringer (56 page)

Sgorr stood stock-still as Eloin backed away into the darkness. He was too startled to do anything at all.

‘But first there is someone else who would talk with you,’ called Eloin, and then she was gone, running after her friends.

Sgorr paused. His senses were tingling. And then he heard it, a twig breaking behind him. He swung round to see a stag stepping from the trees. It was still dark, but light was coming now, slowly, filtering through the strangely warm air. His eyes opened wide as he looked at the strong antlers, at the white mark in the centre of the deer’s head.

But Sgorr did nothing.

‘So,’ he said quietly, ‘you have come at last?’

‘Yes, Sgorr,’ answered Rannoch, ‘I have come.’

Sgorr nodded. He was thinking hard, but he realized that with the Sgorrla so far away he was desperately vulnerable.

‘And you are here to kill me?’

‘It is you, Sgorr, who sends assassins,’ answered Rannoch coldly.

‘Ah yes,’ said Sgorr, ‘and I should have trained him better. So you’re still alive, Rannoch? Well, well, quite the survivor, aren’t you? Then let me tell you something. I am pleased to meet you at last.’

‘Pleased?’ said Rannoch.

‘Oh yes,’ said Sgorr, ‘for I have heard what you have done in the High Land. I have spent a life trying to achieve such a thing. To destroy Herne.’

‘You’re wrong, Sgorr,’ said Rannoch quietly.’I was born to fulfil Herne’s law.’

‘Ah,’ said Sgorr, ‘that mark. Then tell me, why did you overthrow Herne’s Herd?’

‘Because they did not really believe in Herne,’ answered Rannoch.’They believed only in violence. As you do.’

‘You have your mother’s eyes,’ said Sgorr suddenly.’She’s a fine hind, Rannoch, and clever too. When I think of how she tricked me just now!’

‘Then you know she’s my mother?’

‘I have known for years.’

‘So you know it means that I am a changeling.’

‘Still the Prophecy,’ said Sgorr. ’Do you think you can frighten me with it?’

‘Why won’t you believe it, Sgorr?’

‘Why?’ said Sgorr angrily. ‘Because it is lies. Like the lies Herne’s Herd tried to fool me with.’

‘You spread a different kind of lie,’ said Rannoch.

‘No, I bring the Herla reason and power. I bring them freedom.’

‘You bring them violence and death. But I will show you another way, when the Prophecy comes to pass.’

‘What?’ said Sgorr contemptuously. ‘When you blot out the sun and summon our enemies to aid you? When you summon man? You’re a fool, Rannoch. No Herla can summon man.’

‘They’re all around us,’ answered Rannoch quietly. ‘They are here to restore the Island Chain.’

Sgorr paused. Something in the way Rannoch had said it made him tremble. It was another link in the Prophecy. But Sgorr shook off the feeling.

‘Dreams and nightmares!’ he spat. ‘Man will never come to your aid.’

‘He already has once,’ said Rannoch, ‘and I have knowledge of man, Sgorr. The Prophecy talks of that too.’

‘Knowledge of man?’ scoffed Sgorr. ‘What knowledge can there be that is greater than mine? All my life I have tried to study man, not as Herne’s Herd learnt from him, turning his power to superstition, but learning from the power that is greater than the Lera’s. Learning to think.’

‘Is that what you learnt on the island?’ said Rannoch coldly.

Sgorr swung his head up suddenly.

‘So you know?’ he gasped.

‘Yes, Sgorr, I know.’

Sgorr suddenly felt a terrible weakness enter him.

‘How much do you know?’ he said.

‘I know that you swam to the island as a young deer,’ whispered Rannoch.’I know that you stole a human fawn, Sgorr.’

Rannoch’s voice was trembling as he spoke.

‘And I know that you killed it,’ he said sadly, his voice echoing round the trees.

Sgorr’s eye peered back at Rannoch in the coming twilight. He suddenly felt afraid.

‘But I do not know why,’ whispered Rannoch.

‘And you would never understand,’ said Sgorr quietly.

‘Tell me,’ said the stag.

Sgorr peered back at Rannoch and there was fury in his look.

‘Very well. I went there to study man and learn from him. For suns I watched the humans in their dwelling. I learnt many things. That’s where I got the idea of sharpening the Herla’s antlers, from watching them grinding their shining sticks. Many other things too. But then the human hind had a fawn.’

‘And you stole it and killed it. Why?’

‘Why?’ cried Sgorr. ’Because I wanted to be stronger than them. Stronger than Herne. I made a sacrifice to myself. So I should never be afraid of anything again. I wanted the strength of his spirit to enter me and make me invincible.’

Rannoch looked back at the burning fury in Sgorr’s eye and he trembled as he realized that the thing he and Rurl had only guessed at on the island was true. They had hardly dared believe it as they had looked down at the little skeleton buried there in the sand, at the gaping skull and the ribs around the upper chest, broken and torn away.

‘So you. . .’

‘Yes,’ spat Sgorr, on the edge of frenzy, ‘so I ate its heart.’ Rannoch looked at Sgorr now and he felt almost sorry for him.

‘And when the leaders of Herne’s Herd discovered it, even they drove you out?’

‘I had transgressed the oldest law for they worshipped man as much as Herne. But though I admire man, I will worship nothing. Nothing.’

Sgorr was trembling with rage.

‘So that’s why you sealed the High Land?’

‘Until I could be sure that Herne’s Herd was destroyed and my secret safe. The Herla would never understand,’ said Sgorr almost sadly, ‘why it was. . . why it was necessary.’

‘You are evil, Sgorr,’ said Rannoch quietly.

‘There is no evil,’ answered Sgorr furiously.

‘You must be destroyed,’ said Rannoch, but there was little anger in his voice.

‘And you will destroy me?’ snorted Sgorr.’I am old, Rannoch, and you could kill me here and now. But there are those who will step into my place. Narl, and others. The Herla are strong now and the Great Herd is invincible.’

‘You’re wrong. For the Herla are coming from the north. The Outriders will fight you’

‘Outriders? They can do nothing. By tomorrow your friends will have been destroyed. They are trapped now, at the corrie. If you kill me they will still be destroyed and how then will you have served your god? You have failed, Rannoch, failed.’

‘Not yet,’ said Rannoch, ‘and that is what I have come to tell you. I thought perhaps I could reason with you, but now I see that is impossible. Well, Sgorr, know this. I will be there tomorrow and Herne will be at my back.’

Sgorr looked at the stag standing there so defiantly and he suddenly felt a strange admiration for him.

‘Then come on,’ he said quietly, ‘to fulfil your prophecy. For not even you know the end of it. You know what it says, Rannoch? If it is true, then you are the sacrifice. If you come tomorrow, you will die, Rannoch.’

Rannoch stared back at the hornless deer and inside he trembled also, but he snorted and turned away. Light was cracking all around them now.

‘Mark me,’ he whispered, ‘tomorrow I will come again. So look for me, Sgorr, and fear me.’

With that Rannoch was gone.

Sgorr stood there shaking in the grass.

‘Very well,’ he hissed, ‘then, if I have to, I will fight Herne himself.’

Rannoch ran as swiftly as he could away from the herd, towards the corrie. He was thinking now of his friends and of Willow. He would be with them soon. To fight and die with them if necessary. But first he had one more thing to do. He was looking for one of the human stands and for an antler to take with him to the fray, an antler of wood and sap, that burnt with the humans’ orange light.

24 The Stand

‘Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’ Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Ode to the West Wind’

‘We must rush them now, break through the pass,’ said Thistle gravely.

The sun was high in the corrie and the clouds had cleared. The light was glittering off the lake now as the Outriders faced the day. The night had been nerve-racking for them all, but the Sgorrla had not attacked and at least they were rested. All morning they had been discussing what to do and now, as the day wore on, the urgency of their situation was crowding in on them again. They had noticed, though, that the Sgorrla seemed a little distracted and fewer than ever were in the neck of the pass.

‘It shouldn’t be impossible to get through,’ said Tain, ‘if we stay close together and run fast. The fighting will be worst in the centre of the pass, though. It’s very narrow and the Sgorrla will hit us from the slopes.’

‘Willow,’ said Thistle, ‘I want you and Peppa in the centre of the Outriders.’

‘No,’ said Willow immediately, ‘I can kick and—’

‘Please, Willow, you’ve done enough already. Do as I say.’ The hind looked steadily back at Thistle and then she nodded.

‘Well then,’ said Thistle quietly, ‘let’s get on with it.’

He turned to the Outriders. There were over a hundred and sixty of them, standing by the water with their antlers tilting expectantly. Thistle felt that they could face anything.

‘Come on,’ he cried suddenly, ‘let’s show the Sgorrla what we’re made of.’

Thistle began to run and Tain and Bankfoot leapt after him. Then the Outriders were all running, through the corrie, towards the pass.

‘Willow,’ cried Thistle as they ran. He was just in front of her.

‘What is it?’

‘When you were in the herd, did you hear anything of Alyth?’

Bankfoot overheard the question and he looked painfully at Willow.

‘No,’ called the hind sadly, ‘nothing.’

The Sgorrla in the pass saw them coming but many among their number had wandered away to graze and others were still high on the mountainside. They hadn’t expected the Outriders to try and break out quite so suddenly and anyway they were waiting for reinforcements. They began to rally, their commanders bellowing orders, but when the Outriders hit them they had, if not quite the element of surprise, then the force of an attack on their side.

Soon the narrow pass was alive with fighting deer, as the Outriders began to battle their way through. They were making headway already, cutting and jabbing and rising on their haunches. The Sgorrla came down on them from the slopes, but the Outriders fought them off as every effort was turned to breaking through the pass.

Willow and Peppa stayed in the middle of the Outriders and they both wished they had antlers. But the hinds were not completely protected from the fighting. At one point a Sgorrla overreached himself on a charge and, pushing past an Outrider, came within an antler’s length of Peppa. The hind saw him and lashed out with her back hoof, catching him in the face just as he lowered his head.

‘We’re going to make it, Willow,’ cried Peppa amid the throng, ‘we’re going to make it.’

Ahead of them the hind could already see the end of the pass. But a wall of deer rose up in front of them and again the way was barred.

‘One last push,’ cried Thistle, lunging forwards. He met a large Sgorrla head-on and their antlers locked. Tain and Bankfoot dropped their antlers too and suddenly the way was clear again.

‘That’s it,’ shouted Thistle, but as he did so Willow gasped.

A single Sgorrla was coming at him full tilt, hurtling down the side of the mountain. The stag dipped his head as he ran and literally sprung from the slope, hurling himself at Thistle. Willow ran forward to try and get between them, but the cups of the stag’s antlers caught Thistle in the side and the deer stumbled and fell, somersaulting over as he did so. Willow pulled up as soon she saw him fall, as did Bankfoot and Haarg. Around them the Outriders swept on through the pass as Bankfoot fought off the lone Sgorrla. They had already put some distance between themselves and the rest of the pursuing Sgorrla so Willow rushed to Thistle’s side.

He lay there motionless on the earth.

‘Thistle,’ cried Willow, ‘Thistle.’ Thistle didn’t move.

‘Quickly, Thistle, before they’re on us again.’

Willow had seen the Sgorrla’s antlers strike and she knew that they couldn’t have gone in deep enough to do any real harm. But as she looked down at Thistle, she realized with horror what had happened. It wasn’t the antler that had done for Thistle, it was the fall. The deer had broken his neck.

‘No, Thistle, it can’t be,’ she gasped.

But the deer didn’t stir. Bankfoot came to Willow’s side and stared down in amazement at his dead friend.

‘I didn’t even have time to tell him about Alyth,’ whispered Willow bitterly.

‘That was one mercy, at least,’ said Bankfoot quietly. But there was no time to mourn.

‘Quickly,’ cried Haarg behind them. ‘They’re coming on again.’

Blind with rage, Willow and Bankfoot began to run after Haarg towards the head of the pass, where they could see Tain leading the Outriders out into the plain beyond. Tain had no idea of what had happened and now the captain’s heart was thrilling with courage and pride as he raced away. They had made it through.

But as the Outriders cleared the far end of the pass and swept into the plain, the forest curving to their left and a river swerving away to the right with more mountains beyond, the deer were met with a sight that threw them into confusion and despair. Tain pulled up in horror and the band of Outriders did the same. They all came to a halt.

There in front of them, as far as the eye could see, the Outriders were confronted with Sgorrla. Fallow and roe deer too. There must have been a thousand stags, stretching from the forest to the river. An army of antlers. The Great Herd was before them, waiting silently in the day.

Willow, Bankfoot and Haarg reached them too and though their thoughts had been on Thistle, lying dead in the pass, the sight of the Great Herd swept everything else from their minds. The friends and the Outriders looked at each other in despair.

‘We could turn back,’ cried Braan.

‘No, they’re coming through the pass,’ panted Bankfoot.

‘Quickly, make for the trees,’ shouted Tain, but as he did so and some of the Outriders swung to the left they saw more antlers emerging into the daylight at every passable point of the forest.