Fire Bringer (53 page)

‘We’ll wait here, Bankfoot,’ she panted as they came to a halt.’I hope to Herne she got away.’

They weren’t long in waiting. They soon heard a deer coming towards them through the darkness. It was Peppa and she was alone.

‘Thank Herne,’ cried Willow delightedly.

‘I had the devil of a time getting rid of that soft-foot,’ said Peppa, smiling at Bankfoot.

The sisters stared at each other and suddenly they both burst out laughing.

‘If it’s that easy,’ said Peppa, beaming, ‘maybe there’s some hope after all.’

‘Come on, then,’ said Willow when they had calmed down a little.’We’d better get back to Thistle. They’ll be waiting and we’ve seen enough here. We’ve even got a little surprise for them,’ she added, smiling at Bankfoot.’I only wish we’d been able to find out about Fern.’

As she said it Peppa saw the look on Bankfoot’s face.

‘Bankfoot, what is it?’ she asked. ‘What’s wrong?’ Bankfoot dropped his eyes.

‘Bankfoot, you know something, don’t you?’

Bankfoot gazed helplessly at the twins.

‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, ‘but they died. Fern and Alyth together, on the v-v-very day of our escape.’

Willow and Peppa stood side by side and lowered their heads. Their joy and exhilaration at rescuing Bankfoot had turned to despair. When Willow raised her eyes to Bankfoot again, they were burning with anger.

‘Come then,’ she said. ‘The quicker we get back to the others, the quicker we’ll have our revenge.’

‘How far away are they?’ said Bankfoot quietly.

‘Not too far,’ answered Willow. ‘They’re waiting for us at the corrie.’

‘The corrie?’ cried Bankfoot in horror. ‘But that’s where the Sgorrla are going now.’

‘Then they know about the others?’ gasped Willow.

‘Yes, they saw us all on the hill. Before they captured me.’

‘How many are there?’

‘Over a hundred and fifty. Fallow deer too.’

‘Then we can still beat them there,’ cried Willow.’But there’s no time to lose.’

As Thistle looked out over the little lake in the sunlight, he pawed the earth restlessly. The night had been fitful and the day’s wait even worse, for as Thistle examined the terrain he had grown more and more unhappy with the meeting place. He was frantically worried about Willow too and kept scolding himself for ever having let the twins go.

Thistle suddenly started. Bits of slate and rock were skittering down the side of the mountain. As Thistle and the others looked up they could see nothing above them. But now Tain cried out. Stags were coming straight towards them through the pass.

‘Quick,’ cried Thistle, but as he said it one of the Outriders bellowed. He was looking up at the mountain again. On the slopes above them antlers were appearing everywhere. Hundreds of them.

‘Hurry,’ shouted Thistle, his voice reverberating through the corrie. ‘Form up.’

They didn’t need to be told twice. The eighty stags came together in the stone hollow, their backs to the lake, one group turned to the walls of the mountain, and the other, led by Thistle, facing towards the pass.

‘What do we do?’ cried Tain frantically.

‘Fight,’ answered Thistle.’But let them come to us. If they charge, you and Braan take a corps of Outriders right and left of them. Hit them from the sides.’

Braan and Tain nodded and turned their antlers to face the oncoming stags. They noticed for the first time now that the fifty deer coming towards them were fallow, and the sight of them, so much smaller than themselves, raised their spirits a little. But instead of charging, the fallow deer stopped just beyond the entrance to the corrie. They seemed to be waiting.

A silence had descended and suddenly a stag was calling out from the mountain above them.

‘Outriders,’ cried the lone Sgorrla, gazing down coldly, ‘you are surrounded. There’s no escape.’

‘What do you want with us?’ shouted Thistle angrily.

‘Nothing but your servitude,’ cried the stag, ‘or your lives. But first I want to know if He is among you. The one with the mark.’

‘Rannoch,’ whispered Tain.

‘Who dares ask?’ cried Thistle, stamping the ground and bucking his head.

‘My name is Narl. But I demand to know in the name of Lord Sgorr.’

‘You can tell your master,’ cried Thistle contemptuously, ‘that He is not with us, but that the Outriders have returned to the Low Lands to free the Herla from Sgorr’s tyranny. To restore Herne’s law.’

‘Herne’s law,’ snorted Narl. ’There is no Herne. There is only Sgorr.’

Narl suddenly stopped. He had spied something below him.

‘So,’ he called down the mountainside, ‘Braan, you are here too? With some of your traitors, I see. Aren’t you a little too old for such foolishness?’

Braan snorted and stamped.

‘Come down here, Narl,’ he shouted angrily, ‘and I will show you how I can fight.’

Narl smiled. He wouldn’t have dreamed of doing anything of the kind.

‘Braan,’ he answered, ‘the privilege of age and power is that others can do the fighting for you, if you know how to rule. Tharn never understood that. Outriders never could. Colquhar had more chance of doing so but he chose to follow the dumb instincts of the Herla. Which is why he lives, reviled by the Great Herd and as blind as his own beliefs.’

Braan looked up in amazement and his eyes flashed with anger.

‘Lives?’ he gasped.

‘But enough,’ Narl went on. ‘It is time.’

Narl suddenly bellowed and dropped his antlers, and on cue some of the Sgorrla on the slopes around him began to descend towards the Outriders. Several of the Outriders ran up to meet them but now there came a bark from the pass. Part of the group of fallow deer were charging towards them too.

Seeing them, Thistle cried, ‘Come on.’

Thistle, Tain, Braan and about twenty other Outriders raced forward to meet them. Braan and Tain split left and right as they went and suddenly the corrie was filled with the clatter of antlers and the bark of fighting stags. But the fight stopped again almost as soon at it had started. Tain was rushing into the fray and he had just gouged one deer with his bez tine when he suddenly realized that the fallow deer were fleeing from them, back to the pass.

‘After them,’ he cried delightedly to the others, and was about to rush after them when Thistle called him back.

‘Tain, Captain Tain, come back,’ he ordered. ‘That’s just what they want you to do.’

Tain pulled up and Thistle led them back to the lake where the Outriders were holding off the stags. They were surprised to see how few of the Sgorrla had ventured down the mountain. But it was soon clear why, for now the fallow deer were attacking again. The Sgorrla on the mountainside had no intention of engaging properly but instead were pressurizing the Outriders’ flanks, drawing off as many stags as they could from the main body of Outriders, while the fallow deer charged in.

But each time the fallow charged they would fight only briefly and then turn and run back towards the pass. Tain and Braan led Outriders to meet each sally and soon their antlers were red with blood and several of the fallow deer lay dead on the edge of the pass.

‘This isn’t hard,’ cried Tain as he returned from yet another engagement. His leg was bleeding where a palm antler had caught him unawares, but none of the other Outriders were seriously hurt and Tain was delighted that his first real test as an Outrider was proving him worthy. But Thistle looked back at him gravely, for it was the fifth time the fallow deer had struck and Thistle suddenly realized what Narl was doing. He was slowly sapping the Outriders’ strength.

Again the fallow deer came on. They seemed to have no thought for their own welfare and soon more and soon more of them lay dying in the grass. Braan had noticed how terrified their eyes looked. But Thistle could see that the Outriders were tiring. Braan and Tain looked quite exhausted with their efforts. It was growing dark in the corrie too, the evening draining the colour from the lake and turning the Outriders to shadows among the broken stones. But still they fought on as the stars pricked through the sky.

‘Do you think we can hold them?’ cried Braan as he and Thistle met once again by the water.

Thistle pawed the earth.

‘The fallow deer are easy enough,’ answered Thistle, ‘though they’ve tired us out. That’s what Narl wants. When he sends in the Sgorrla, who knows what will happen. Our best bet is to make a run for it. We wouldn’t have a chance on the mountain but if we could break through the pass there’s a chance for us.’

But as he said it there was a bellow from above them. They looked round and realized that the Sgorrla on the mountainside were disengaging.

There was still enough light to see to the pass and Braan shuddered as he realized that the fallow deer too were drawing back. Then, through the middle of the pass and the bleeding ranks of fallow deer, pushing and shoving them as they came, they saw the Sgorrla. A hundred of them. Advancing in lines and swaying their antlers. They looked strong and fresh. The Outriders tilted their antlers nervously.

‘Come on,’ cried a stag suddenly. ‘Which of the Outriders will be first into battle?’

It was Tain.

‘I fight with Captain Tain,’ cried Braan, running up to him.

Thistle was with them in an instant.

‘We must try and break through the middle,’ cried Thistle desperately.

Thistle could see that the Sgorrla had stopped now and were waiting in their neat lines. Forty of them had come ahead of the others and were stamping the ground.

‘It looks like they’re going to attack in groups, like the fallow,’ said Thistle. ‘Well, first we must test their strength. We’ll split into two. Braan and I will lead one party and Tain another. It doesn’t matter which attacks first.’

‘I’ll go,’ said Tain immediately.

‘Very well. Test them as the fallow tested us,’ said Thistle.

‘And Tain. When I call, pull out immediately.’

Tain nodded gravely and with forty Outriders at his back he led them forward. Thistle and Braan watched as their friend approached the pass. When they were a tree’s length away the front Sgorrla suddenly leapt towards them and the Outriders charged. Their bucking antlers locked and their bodies crashed together. The two groups became one.

Thistle’s heart beat furiously as he caught sight of Tain and then lost sight of him once again in the meˆ le´ e. But as he looked on, it was clear that the Sgorrla were far too strong for the exhausted Outriders.

‘No,’ he cried as he saw an Outrider fall. Then another and another.

‘Call them back,’ cried Braan.

Thistle rushed forward. The stag began to bellow furiously but if he had even heard him there was little Tain could do, for the Sgorrla were clearly overpowering them.

‘We’ve got to help them,’ cried Braan.

‘Come on then,’ shouted Thistle.

The second group of Outriders rushed forward, but as they did so they heard a great bellow from among the fighting stags and one of them rose up furiously on his back legs.

‘Pull out,’ cried the deer. It was Tain.

The others had heard him and the Outriders were disengaging, kicking furiously with their hind legs to get away. The Sgorrla seemed to have no desire to follow and suddenly Tain was running back towards the lake, followed by the Outriders – those that had survived, for only twenty of them returned from the fight.

‘It’s hopeless,’ cried Tain as he ran up. His neck was badly bloodied. ‘They’re far too strong for us.’

Thistle nodded.

‘And they’ve sharpened their antlers,’ panted Tain. ’I’ve never known anything like it. Did you see the marks on their heads?’

‘We’d never make it through the pass,’ said Braan. ’What can we do?’

Thistle shook his head.

‘We can’t make it back up the mountain, that’s for sure,’ he said quietly.

‘Then we’re lost,’ whispered Tain.

The deer were silent as they stood in the corrie. Their hearts as tired as their poor bodies.

‘Very well then,’ said Thistle after a while. ‘We shall just have to try to make it through the pass. If even one of us survives, perhaps he can still get to Sgorr.’

With that there was a great shudder of barking across the grass. The Sgorrla – all of them now – were advancing, lined again in rows. The Outriders turned to face them, their legs trembling with fear and exhaustion.

But when they were still quite a way away, to the Outriders’ surprise, the Sgorrla suddenly stopped.

‘What is it?’ whispered Braan.

‘Listen,’ said Tain.

Above them, from the slopes of the corrie, the Outriders now heard the bark of angry deer and the clatter of sparring antlers. They could not see what was happening in the darkness but they suddenly realized that somewhere above them stags were fighting.

‘Who?’ cried Thistle.

From all sides, rocks and boulders were showering down the slopes of the corrie, a waterfall of stone splashing into the still pool. Then, to the friends’ utter amazement, stags began to emerge from the shadows, leaping onto the grass and rushing towards them.

‘Narl,’ cried Tain furiously.

‘No,’ shouted Braan, ‘look.’

‘Willow,’ cried Thistle delightedly.’It’s Willow and Peppa.’

‘And look who’s with them,’ said Tain.

The friends’ amazement could hardly have been greater, for at the twins’ side now came not only Bankfoot but Haarg too. The fear that had gripped the Outriders was instantly transformed as the incoming stags greeted them.

‘I don’t know how you worked this magic,’ cried Thistle as Willow ran up to him, ‘but I’m glad—’

‘Don’t say it,’ said Willow.’We rescued Bankfoot, as you can see, but then we heard you were in danger and were rushing back to warn you when we met Haarg here. You’d better listen to what he has to say.’

‘Herne be with you,’ panted Haarg.’I’m sorry we couldn’t get through sooner. We weren’t sure how many Sgorrla were on the mountain.’

‘But I thought. . .’ Tain started to say.

‘We’ve been following you for days,’ Haarg went on, ‘and by the looks of it we’ve arrived just in time.’

‘Yes,’ said Thistle.’How many of you are there?’

‘A hundred Outriders.’

‘With us that makes about a hundred and sixty. Narl can’t have more than that. So maybe we’ve got a chance. If we can survive the night.’