Fire Bringer (8 page)

‘Oh, it’s only Bankfoot,’ said Thistle. ‘They’re just teasing him.’

‘Hush,’ said Rannoch. ’Listen.’

The two youngsters facing Bankfoot were a year older and considerably bigger. They were pushing forward, nudging Bankfoot with their noses.

‘L-l-l-leave me alone,’ stammered the terrified little fawn, digging in with his feet and trying to stop them edging him into the water.

‘Don’t you want to go for a swim?’ sneered the oldest. His name was Braggle and he had a reputation for picking on the younger, weaker deer. His friend, whose name was Raggling, grinned stupidly at him.

‘N-n-n-no,’ said Bankfoot, ‘I don’t. Go away.’

‘N-n-n-no?’ mocked Braggle, imitating his stutter. ‘But we want to see you float.’

Braggle gave Bankfoot another shove.

‘Ow. Stop it, you bully.’

‘Bully, eh?’

Braggle pushed Bankfoot again. His hind hoofs were almost in the water now.

‘I’ll teach you to wander away from your mother,’ Braggle continued. ‘You’re lucky a Draila hasn’t caught you. But now I want to see a little ball of fur go bobbing down the stream.’

Braggle was about to bash Bankfoot again when he got the shock of his life. He felt the breath leave his lungs and he found himself sailing through the air. He landed with a great splash right in the middle of the stream and a draught of water went straight up his nose. The stream wasn’t deep so he could stand easily, but when Braggle picked himself up, coughing and spluttering, he was drenched and very startled. Raggling watched nervously from the bank. Without his friend he wasn’t very brave.

‘Pick on someone your own size,’ cried Rannoch furiously. Bankfoot was also startled but Rannoch’s eyes were blazing with anger. When Braggle saw the fawn who had just knocked him into the water, he was as furious as he was amazed. Rannoch was nearly half Braggle’s size, antlerless and considerably weaker. Braggle walked slowly towards him through the water, trying to look as menacing as possible. But although Rannoch hated fighting, he held his ground.

‘Very brave,’ said Braggle, ‘sneaking up behind me like that. Well, if you don’t like me picking on fatty here, perhaps you’d like to go for a swim instead?’

‘No, thank you,’ answered Rannoch coldly.

‘It’s Rannoch, isn’t it?’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Nothing. Just that I’d expect a selach to run with a weakling like Bankfoot.’

‘And I’d expect a bully like you to pick on a smaller fawn,’ said Rannoch, furious and deeply stung by the insult. Selach is the name deer give both to fawns who have no known father and to hinds with no living mate. Even though stags and hinds usually live apart and the hinds have the sole responsibility for rearing the calves, for a fawn not to have a father is a great misfortune and the other fawns were always joking about it. Tain and Thistle were in the same boat in this regard for their fathers had also died that night on the hills. Though Rannoch knew nothing of what had really befallen Brechin, he felt the lack of a father deeply.

‘Don’t worry,’ sneered Braggle, ‘I wouldn’t dream of bullying Bankfoot now you’re here.’

Rannoch gulped. Braggle really was much bigger than him. But suddenly Braggle hesitated. Then he snorted and turned away.

‘Oh come on, Raggling,’ he said, ‘let’s get back. I’m bored with all these selach. Let’s leave them to talk about their mothers.’

Rannoch looked round and was relieved to see that Tain and Thistle had come up behind him. Braggle and Raggling could probably have beaten all four of them in a fight but the new arrivals had tipped the odds uncomfortably. Besides, apart from being cold and wet, Braggle really was a coward at heart.

‘See you again,’ called Braggle in the distance. ‘Count on it.’

‘C-c-c-coward,’ piped Bankfoot after him, but the older deer were gone.

The four fawns stood on the bank for a while, deeply shaken. At last Bankfoot trotted up to Rannoch.

‘Th-th-thank you, Rannoch,’ he said.

‘It’s nothing,’ answered Rannoch a little coldly. ‘But you shouldn’t wander off on your own like that. Come on, you two.’

‘Rannoch, I don’t think we should,’ said Tain sheepishly.

‘Not today. It’s getting late and your mother will be angry. So will mine, for that matter.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Thistle, ‘I should get back too.’

‘Fine,’ said Rannoch angrily. ‘If you’re frightened I’ll go myself.’

Rannoch turned and trotted off in the direction of the wood.

‘I’ll g-g-g-go with you, Rannoch,’ called Bankfoot.

‘You? You should get back to your mother’s milk.’

As Rannoch ran he was sorry he had snapped at Bankfoot and he could have done with the company. But he was disappointed with Tain and Thistle, and the business of the berries and Braggle’s insult had suddenly made him smart with shame. He was an adventurous little deer but his instincts were always being held in check by Bracken.

At least now I can go exploring, Rannoch thought to himself, and his spirits perked up a little as he stopped by a big oak. The great twisted tree stood just in front of the main line of the forest and its bowl was heavily furred with moss. It branches stretched wide above him and were thickly decked with yellowing oak leaves with their distinctive florid shape. Rannoch looked about him. Behind him the meadow was emptying of deer as the animals returned to the home herd to feed again before Larn. The sunlight was just beginning to fade and Rannoch could smell the evening on the breeze. He looked back past the oak tree and gulped.

The line of the forest stretched right and left as far as Rannoch could see; a wall of mystery. But here the trees were set forward a little and, being mainly oak and elm, they were spaced wider than elsewhere, so that Rannoch could see quite a way back into the gloom. Through the dark webbing of wood and brier the great trunks glinted here and there in the streams of sunlight breaking through the canopy and the pools of colour on the forest floor made the darkness around seem all the more mysterious.

The forest is a place that all young fawns dream about, especially when their herd, like this one, is a not a woodland herd and is used to grazing in the open. Rannoch was powerfully drawn to it as a place of enchantment, of danger and of wonder. The forest is said to be Herne’s home. With small fawns like Rannoch the hinds are careful not to let them wander in the forest on their own, for they know the dangers to a very young fawn if he should get lost in the treacherous shadows of the trees.

But Rannoch was thinking of none of this now as he edged closer to a trail of trodden leaves that cut through a blackberry bush and swung into the wood. He had forgotten his mother’s strict prohibition and was thinking only of finding an owl’s nest. As his nose edged into shadow he paused again. His legs were trembling violently. Plucking up his courage, the little fawn disappeared into the gloom.

Rannoch would remember that moment for ever. He had been into the trees before, but that was with Bracken. Now, all alone, he felt like he was stepping to the edge of the adult world. Suddenly the air was thick around him and the great tree trunks reared up like giant antlers. The fawn’s senses came alive as he drank in the strange scents of decaying wood, leaves and moist earth. He felt the ground damp and springy under his hoofs and the air rich and warm around him.

He walked very slowly, knowing instinctively that he had to stay on the path and peering about him as his eyes adjusted to the dappled light. Around him he heard new and wonderful sounds and flinched nervously as a bird fluttered in its nest or a squirrel that had been watching him from under a branch shot round the top of it and darted up a trunk. It seemed as if the leaves on the forest floor were alive as the ground rustled and crackled with insects and animals.

Then Rannoch froze as he heard it for the first time. The hollow, melancholy hoot of an owl high up in the branches ahead. The other fawns would be green with envy, thought Rannoch eagerly to himself as he pressed on down the path. He kept looking down as he went, to make sure that he stayed on the trail. Luckily the owl’s call was taking the fawn in the right direction.

It got darker as he padded along, for the canopy was getting heavier now and the dying sunlight could no longer penetrate the tangle of leaves that festooned the boughs. Rannoch blinked in the gathering gloom but he was too caught up in his quest to notice that the ground under him was beginning to change as the trail veered away to the left. His eyes were locked on the tree trunks above as he was drawn on by the sound of the owl, hooting loudly to welcome in the evening.

Rannoch’s heart jumped as he spotted a shape on a branch above. It was a young tawny owl perched far out on the end of a branch, hallooing to himself as his huge, imperial eyes guarded his secret bower.’Hoo Hoo, what’s this?’ said the owl to himself as he spied Rannoch below. But even if the owl had been able to speak Rannoch’s language, the tawny was hungry and in no mood to talk, so instead he opened his wings and lifted himself off his branch. He swooped down right over Rannoch’s head and circled him three times before disappearing into the trees beyond.

‘Hello there,’ shouted Rannoch delightedly as he ducked and span round. ‘Come back.’

But the owl was gone. Rannoch shrugged. Although they’d probably never believe him, at least he’d be able to tell the others he had seen a real owl. And in the middle of the forest too. Rannoch suddenly realized that it must be close to Larn. He should have been home long ago. He turned to retrace his steps but when he looked down, the track had vanished. Instead he was surrounded by trees, tall and dark and all looking very much the same.

Rannoch was filled with the desire to run, run as fast as his legs could carry him, back to Bracken and the home herd. He felt fear bubbling up inside his stomach and his tail quivered as he peered around him.

‘I recognize that branch,’ said Rannoch out loud, and he started as his voice echoed round the trees. He looked around him and then, convincing himself that he did indeed recognize a tree, he set off in the wrong direction.

As Rannoch walked the trees seemed to get thicker. He was scratched by thorns and very soon he wanted to give up. But he kept going. At one point he came to a tiny clearing in the canopy above and his spirits fell even further as he looked up to see that the blue was turning inky and the stars were pricking through the sky. Later on he started and bolted when he stumbled on a grass snake uncurling its smooth body in the brown undergrowth.

Eventually Rannoch came to a second and larger clearing and here he paused to collect himself and beat down the fear that kept threatening to overwhelm him. The little calf sat down in the soft leaves and looked around him. In the sky above, the moon had come up and its ghostly light cast long, quivering shadows through the trees. Rannoch lowered his head dejectedly, laid his muzzle on the ground and closed his eyes. But as he did so he scented the earth and he was up again, wide awake, alert and quivering. Rannoch sniffed the earth again and then he was sure. The thick, cloying animal scent lay freshly on the ground, a mixture of deer and cat. Rannoch had scented a fox.

The fawn had never actually seen fox but he and Bracken had been coming back to the home valley one day, after a short excursion away from the herd, when his mother had picked up a scent at the bottom of the meadow. It was an old spore and faint but Bracken had made sure that Rannoch remembered it. Now, here in the wood, the odour was ten times more powerful. Rannoch looked around and he could see immediately that the leaves had been disturbed where the animal, only a little while before, had been scuffling for food. The fawn’s eyes cast fearfully around him.

He was trying to spy any movement in the trees, but he could see nothing beyond the pool of moonlight that encircled him. Yet, in his mind’s eye, he could already see the face of some terrible beast, snarling in the darkness, its teeth and red eyes glinting, as it advanced on him.

Rannoch froze as he heard it. Not five antlers away. A rustle from a clump of bushes right in front of him and the sound of an animal moving slowly towards him. Rannoch began to shake uncontrollably and his legs nearly gave way. He backed away in the clearing till his haunches where pressed against an old log, and there the fawn waited, his ears lowered helplessly, his body quaking. The fox was closing in.

Rannoch’s terrified eyes opened wide with horror as he saw the bush ahead of him quiver and part and then the animal step clean into the middle of the clearing.

‘Bankfoot!’ cried Rannoch joyfully, as the fat little fawn nearly tripped over a branch in front of him.

‘Bankfoot. What on earth are you doing here?’

Bankfoot stood blinking in the moonlight as Rannoch ran up to him. He was obviously just as terrified as Rannoch.

‘R-r-rannoch,’ he said, hardly able to contain his relief.

‘I’ve found you. I’ve been l-l-looking for ages and ages.’

‘Bankfoot. You gave me the fright of my life. I thought you were a fox.’

‘F-f-fox?’ stammered the petrified fawn, and he started trembling all over again. The sight of a fawn more frightened than himself made Rannoch feel stronger and he was mighty glad to see the little deer. But Rannoch realized they were still in danger.

‘A fox has been in this clearing,’ he said in a very grown-up voice, ‘so we’d better get moving.’

‘Y-y-yes,’ said Bankfoot, amazed at how Rannoch knew a fox had been by.

‘Well then, what are you waiting for?’

Rannoch led Bankfoot out of the moonlight back into the trees. If he had only known what was best he would have stayed in the clearing. They could see better there, there were lots of warm leaves to snuggle up in and the fox, who had indeed been rooting there for food, would not return that night. He had nosed a brailah and was now hunting it down a shallow gully nearly quarter of a mile away. Soon Rannoch and Bankfoot were completely bewildered again, lost in the wood as the night came in and the branches echoed with strange and threatening sounds.

The two fawns were quickly exhausted and at last, by the edge of an elm where the whispering breezes that made it this far into the forest to sift and stir the earth had heaped a pile of soft leaves against the bowl, Rannoch and Bankfoot stopped. They were too tired and frightened to go on but at least they had left the scent of the fox behind. So they lay down on the bed of leaves and curled up, their necks resting on each other’s warm sides. They closed their frightened eyes and drifted into a darkness that was hardly less menacing than the world around them.