Fire Bringer (30 page)

‘Remember those two deer that came from the north? They say that they’re under Eloin’s protection and as long as Sgorr wants Eloin, he won’t harm them.’

Rannoch stirred. The name had lit a distant light in his memory.

‘Then why does he care so much about getting these ones back? We’ve been searching for well over a year now.’

‘You know what Sgorr’s like. Hates to be beaten. Besides, they’re all still quite young. Not like the ones that came back. Those two were just ageing hinds. Probably too old for retraining anyway. But these.’‘Give me a Herla before their fourth growth and they’re mine for ever,’’ Sgorr always says.’

‘But they’re not all young ’uns,’ said another stag suddenly. ‘There’s that one with them, the hind. If it wasn’t for her being so slow they’d have been long gone seasons ago. I’m sure she’s wounded. What’s her name?’

‘Bracken.’

Rannoch felt a jolt. His mother, alive and obviously close at hand. And who were these youngsters the stags were talking about? Could it really be Willow and Bankfoot and the others? Rannoch suddenly felt hope swelling in his chest.

‘We’ll never get them if we stand around here all day, chattering like hinds,’ said the stag who had talked the most.

‘Come on, let’s get moving.’

With that the Sgorrla set off. Rannoch stood there above the burn, hardly able to believe what he had heard.

‘I must find them,’ said Rannoch to himself desperately, turning up the hill, ‘and quickly.’

But by the next sun Rannoch had seen no signs at all of other deer. He rested in the pale, cloudy day on the side of a mountain and slept amid the gorse. He had a dream that day like the dreams he remembered having as a fawn. He dreamt of Herne.

The great deer was standing alone in a clearing and the sunlight had turned his red coat to gold. Rannoch could not see his face in the dream and all he was aware of was the god’s mighty antlers with their twelve sharp points, fanning like the branches of the trees. In the dream the god began to stamp the ground and a wind started to blow. Darkness came down and as the wind howled it tore at the ground and the branches in the forest began to break and split.

Suddenly the air was filled with a terrible noise like thunder and the trees began to fall, wrenched from the ground so that their roots rose like human fingers, spiders and beetles and a thousand secret things in their clutches. Then the god stood alone on a barren moor. The air was cold and fresh and the landscape stretched as far as the eye could see. The god began to buck his head and run, swift and free, and a voice was saying, ‘The forest. The forest is always with you.’

Rannoch woke with a start and looked around. Though the sky was overcast he could sense that Larn was near and he got up and shook himself. The evening was cold and damp and the wind was moaning gently around the mountains.

Rannoch was about to set off again when he felt his legs shaking. He thought at first it was the dream, but then his whole body began to quiver. His nostrils were filled now with a powerful scent that made him sick with fear.

Rannoch twitched and peered about him. Then he heard it. It ran through his body, a noise that took him back to a place far away. A noise that deer know even in their dreams. The low, lonely howl of a wolf.

Rannoch saw them standing, sleek and powerful, on the foothills of the facing mountain. Their silver fur stood out clear against the brown earth. They were scenting the ground but one of them suddenly lifted its head and saw Rannoch. He began to howl and the others lifted their muzzles to his call. They too saw the deer and their howls rose above the wind, their voices filled with hunger. Then suddenly they began to move, down the slopes, across the valley, towards Rannoch. The deer turned and fled.

Though the wolves were far off and Rannoch was fast, fear had him by the throat and he ran blindly up the sides of the mountain, hardly looking where he was going. He could think of nothing but escape. His nostrils were full of the scent of the wolves and terror had come over him like a dark cloud. He could do nothing but give in to his instincts. As he ran he tried desperately to think, to plan, but nothing came except the beating of his heart. He was like the deer in the gully trying to clamber up the walls as the dogs snapped at their heels.

‘Think,’ he kept saying to himself, as the wolves called behind him and he caught their scent again on the breeze, but poor Rannoch could think of nothing but flight.

At last he began to tire and as he slowed he heard a strange sound above which distracted him and broke the spell. Rannoch had climbed quite high and reached a waterfall, tumbling down the rocks in front of him. The deer suddenly felt calmer and he stopped and looked up. The torrent of water that burst from the rocks above fell a good tree’s height down the side of the mountain into a small pool formed by a bowl of jutting rock. There it churned and frothed and sent up sparks of watery light and clouds of cool vapour.

This pool, in turn, spilt down the mountain below him into a larger pool, where it turned into a stream and disappeared off through the rocks. Rannoch was at the edge of the higher pool now and he suddenly realized that his way was barred. But the blinding fear that had gripped him had receded and he could think again.

He was shaking badly and he could feel panic rising in him again, but he fought the feeling. The thoughts came clearly. To turn back now and try and drop down to reach the lower pool might be fatal for he could hear the wolves in the distance, and above him the mountain became very steep and offered no way around the falls.

But ahead, on the far side of the pool, Rannoch noticed a ledge of rock that jutted out over the water. From the look of it, it was just wide enough to stand on. From there it was only a short jump to the other side. The ledge was a fair leap but not too hard for a deer, if he didn’t slip on the mossy stones.

Rannoch stepped forward and tried to measure the jump. The force of the draught created by the waterfall was very powerful and it made him shake. Rannoch was having second thoughts when he heard a low howl, dangerously close by, that left him no choice. He took a few steps back, ran forward and sprang.

Rannoch felt the wind and water around and below him. There was a rush of noise and he landed on the ledge. But the rock was wetter than he had thought and he missed his footing, slipping sideways, back towards the waterfall. He scrambled desperately as he was engulfed in water and darkness.

Then suddenly the torrent stopped and he was still standing up. Rannoch blinked and looked around amazed as he saw the sheet of water was now in front of him. The deer was behind the waterfall itself. As he had slipped sideways he had passed straight through it.

Rannoch now saw that the ledge he had jumped on was part of a wider outcrop of rock that led back to a small cave. He shook himself and his eyes became accustomed to the darkness. The air in the cave was cold and from the noise that thundered around him the deer felt that he was in the heart of the torrent itself. But as he looked he realized he could see out through the flashing film of water ahead into the fading daylight. He saw the outline of mountains and the distant trees. Then he began to tremble again as he saw the shape of a wolf. It was standing on the spot where Rannoch had jumped, sniffing the ground, slavering as it tried to pick up the scent it had just lost.

Rannoch hardly dared breathe as he watched the animal through the glassy curtain. He could see its sharp, yellow- green eyes and its white teeth. Its ears were pressed forward and its long muzzle was craning across the pool. It lifted its neck so that Rannoch could see the fur bristling along its throat, and let out a cry that shook through the cave.

As he stood, only a few antlers away from his most dreaded enemy, Rannoch remembered the stories he had heard as a fawn and the silence that always descended on the Herla when the name of the wolf was spoken. Terror seized him once more. Yet from somewhere inside him a voice was telling him that he had to resist this terrible feeling. That now the feeling itself was his enemy as much as the wolf outside the cave.

The deer hovered between these dim, half-formed thoughts and his instinct to flee, to hurl himself out through the water itself. But he didn’t move. The other wolves were at the pool now, sniffing and nosing the ground and growling angrily. He strained to listen through the water but he could only hear their snarls of hunger.

He must have stood there listening and watching for a good while as the wolves ran back and forth trying to find their quarry. But they could see no sign of the deer and at last they turned away, back in the direction they had come. They were hungry and irritable, keen to pick up some other prey to feed their bellies.

At last Rannoch stepped towards the water and began to press his antlers through the curtain. But suddenly he froze again. One of the wolves had broken from the pack and now it was back at the pool. This time, instead of trying to pick up Rannoch’s scent, it seemed itself to be measuring the distance to the ledge. Suddenly it sprang and landed on the rock to Rannoch’s left, but as it did so it slipped too on the damp moss. Not towards the water and the cave but to the right and the edge of the falls. With a desperate yelp, the wolf disappeared over the drop.

Rannoch was too startled to do anything. He backed into the cave and stood there shivering, transfixed by the sound of the water. The darkness came in and a moon rose. Its pale blue light shone on the curtain of water and danced on the edge of the cave as the deer listened to the world outside. No scent came to his keen nostrils and no sound to his straining ears. Glittering shadows shimmered before his frightened eyes and at last he lay down and slept, exhausted by his flight.

When Rannoch opened his eyes again it took him a while to realize where he was. He thought at first he was listening to the sound of the sea. Outside the daylight had come again and Rannoch stepped through the curtain of water onto the ledge and, slipping only a little, sprang onto the grassy slope.

Rannoch shook himself dry and looked about him. The day was overcast again and the sky was already beginning to speck. It was much colder than it had been the sun before and he shivered as he began to make his way down the slope.

But as Rannoch reached a mound above the lower pool he paused again, not knowing what to do. There, stretched motionless on a flat rock below, lay the wolf.

The animal’s eyes were closed and there was blood on the stone beside it. But the deer could see from its shallow breathing that the wolf was still alive. Rannoch snorted angrily and flicked his antlers forward. The smell of the animal frightened and sickened him and he turned away. But as he did so he had the same feeling that had come upon him on the escarpment. Somewhere a voice seemed to be saying, ‘Listen, Rannoch, listen.’

He turned back and for a time stood watching the stricken creature. Five times Rannoch tried to leave the wolf that day. But every time something called the deer back. He tried to graze, he told himself not to be so foolish, that this Lera had wanted to kill him, that this was his most hated enemy, but Larn found the deer still standing there above the pool.

The wolf had not opened its eyes all day and its tongue lolled from its mouth as it slept. Even from this height Rannoch could see that its belly was injured and, though it stirred now and then, the deer sensed that it was close to death. A wind came up and it started to rain hard. Still the wolf lay there. Night came down and it got colder, and Rannoch stood there, uncertain and afraid. But at last the deer wound down to the side of the water and stepped onto the rock. He approached the wolf desperately slowly, scenting the ground, ready to run at any movement.

Rannoch was finally standing above him. The wolf was shivering badly and its coat was soaked through. The blood on the stone beside it had been washed away by the rain, but now Rannoch could see the wound that cut into its side and suddenly he was reminded of the boy. The wolf’s proximity made Rannoch shake, and every muscle in him was trying to revolt. It was as though an unseen force was repelling him. But, at last, the red deer dropped down and laid himself by the wolf’s side to give it warmth.

It was another sun before the wolf opened his eyes. He found himself alone on the rock. He tried to lift his head and as he did so he saw the waterfall and the ledge above him and he remembered with anguish what had happened to him. He began to whimper pitifully and struggled to get up.

‘Lie still,’ said a voice from somewhere above him. ‘You’ll need to save your strength.’

When he saw the antlers and the deer’s young face with a white mark in the centre of its forehead peering down at him, the wolf thought he must be dreaming, or that the fall had knocked out his wits. He blinked and struggled again.

‘I said lie still,’ said Rannoch quietly.

Now the wolf was certain. A deer was talking to him. Weak as he was, the sight filled the wolf with rage. He began to snarl, curling up his upper lip so that the sharp canines stood out, hard and white. Rannoch watched him warily, but even if the wolf had been strong enough to get up and spring, up there on the mound Rannoch was far out of reach.

‘Be still,’ called Rannoch again. ‘It won’t do you any good. You’re in no state to chase a stag.’

The wolf opened his jaws furiously again and then, distracted by the realization that he could hardly move, he started to whimper and lick his paws. The creature was in a great deal of pain. At last he looked down to examine the open wound that he could now feel burning his belly.

‘What’s this?’ he cried angrily as he did so.’What has happened to me?’

On his stomach, where the cut was deepest, the wolf saw that a strange green mixture had been smeared across the fur. It was made of wet leaves. The wolf struggled in fear and began to growl again.

‘They’re only leaves,’ said Rannoch softly from above, looking down on the herb he had found growing in a small copse beyond the waterfall. ‘They’ll do you good.’

‘You did this?’ said the amazed wolf.

‘Yes.’

‘Poison,’ snarled the wolf suddenly, remembering all the things in the forest that his mother had long ago told him could kill a wolf. ‘You’re trying to poison me.’