Fire Bringer (12 page)

‘Well then,’ said Bhreac, trying to sound as cheerful as possible, ‘so few. Never mind. We will travel faster. Go and wake your little ones. We must leave right away. We will meet at the pool. But make sure to go by different paths so as not to arouse the suspicions of the Draila. The curfew still holds but, thank Herne, the night is overcast so we have a chance.’

The hinds nodded and padded away to wake their fawns.

‘Well, my dear. We have done what we can,’ said Bhreac, turning to Eloin. ’You must not blame yourself if the hinds are fools. Now, what will you do?’

‘You are coming with us, surely?’ said Bracken genuinely, although the thought of losing Rannoch pained her deeply.

Eloin was silent for a while. When she spoke she was shaking.

‘No. I am staying here.’

‘But Eloin,’ whispered Bracken.

‘I’ve made up my mind. If Drail really plans to harm the yearlings I may have some influence yet to stay his will. Besides, if he finds I have gone with you he will never stop hunting you.’

‘You may be right, my dear,’ said Bhreac sadly. Eloin could see that the old hind was deeply affected and her tone suddenly changed.

‘Well then, it’s settled,’ she said cheerfully. ’Now, you must get away from here. But Bracken, may I say goodbye to Rannoch?’

Rannoch was standing with Tain and Shira when the hinds arrived. The little fawns were sleepy and bewildered for it was very late by now and they hardly understood what was happening. While their mothers had been at the meeting they had been allowed to play together, watched by one of the younger hinds.

‘Rannoch,’ said Bracken softly, calling the fawn to her side. ’We are going on a journey.’

‘Yes, Mamma,’ answered the little fawn gravely, blinking up at her.

‘But before we leave I want you to meet a deer who has been very kind to us,’ said Bracken quietly as Eloin walked up to Rannoch.

Eloin’s eyes were full of love. ’Hello,’ she said softly. ’Your name is Rannoch, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Who are you?’

‘My name is Eloin, little one. I am. . .’ Eloin faltered. ’I

am . . . a friend of your father’s.’

‘Of my father’s?’ said Rannoch, his eyes opening wide. ’I never knew my father but Mamma says he was brave and strong.’

‘Yes, Rannoch, Brechin was brave and strong and he would be proud to see how you have grown into a fine little fawn.’

Rannoch was embarrassed, but as he looked at Eloin he felt something strange stir inside.

‘And now you must be brave and strong like him,’ Eloin went on, ‘for on your journey there will be no bucks to guard your mother, so you and your friends must be the stags.’

‘Yes,’ said Rannoch wonderingly. ’We’ll try.’

‘Now. Let me say goodbye to you properly,’ said Eloin. Rannoch wanted to run back to Bracken as Eloin came

closer and licked him gently on the muzzle, but something told him not to resist. He just stood there with his tail quivering until Eloin’s loving gaze released him and he ran back to Bracken’s side.

Shira and Tain were ready now, their breath turning to steam in the frosty darkness. Bracken and Bhreac took their farewell of Eloin, which would have been almost too painful for the old deer if Eloin hadn’t been so strong, urging them all to hurry and wishing them luck. Finally they were set.

Rannoch looked back as they padded into the darkness and he saw Eloin watching him, then he turned away and trotted up close to Bracken’s side. As the deer vanished into the night Eloin shook herself. It would have been impossible to lose her little one a second time if she hadn’t known that this was the only way to save him and that she herself had much to do. She set off too, skirting west towards the pool.

As they had been told, the hinds took different paths to the stream. The night was black and the Draila were tired after their search for Rannoch. Besides, the word had gone out that they would have hard work the following sun, so they were mostly off guard. But as Bhreac, Bracken, Rannoch, Shira and Tain made their way through the night they might have been caught by two Draila who grew suspicious when they saw the deer moving quietly through the blackness, if a hind had not suddenly emerged behind them and ordered them to escort her to the Home Oak. It was Eloin.

So they reached the pool without incident. Alyth, Morar and Fern were there already with their four calves but Canisp and Bankfoot were nowhere to be seen. Tain was full of the adventure and kept conjuring up stories of the woods and the mountains, but Rannoch was subdued for he knew that the deer had to leave because of him and he didn’t understand why. Thistle kept close to Alyth. He was upset at leaving his friends and he was already thinking of spring when he was due to go into the Drailing.

They waited and waited and Bhreac began to get very nervous, for she could scent the morning on the breeze and still Canisp had not arrived. At last the old deer made a decision.

‘We’ll have to go,’ she said gravely. ’They know the path we are taking.’

Rannoch’s ears pricked up.

‘But Mamma,’ he whispered to Bracken, ‘we can’t leave without Bankfoot.’

‘There is nothing we can do,’ said Bhreac. ’Don’t worry, my little one, he’ll be all right.’

So the hinds and their fawns began to climb the hill behind the flat rock where the Draila had spied Rannoch’s fawn mark. The hinds went in single file, the fawns at their side and Bhreac in front, snaking up the mountain through the thin covering of trees on this side of the valley. By the time they reached the top of the western hill and stopped to look back, the darkness had lifted and dawn was beginning to come up, streaking the mist with bands of pallid gold. But the skies were still heavy with cloud and the light was slow to come. In the valley below they could see the herd, mostly lying down or beginning to wake and stir, rising to graze or to feed their young. The stags too were stirring and members of the Draila were already gathering at the Home Oak. The hinds shuddered as they watched their antlers cutting through the chill air.

In the half light the hinds never spied the old stag who was watching them from the meadow. It was Blindweed. His eyes were moist and his limbs tired.

‘Chased by anger, fear and hate,’ he muttered to himself sadly and, shaking his head, the storyteller turned away.

‘Come,’ said Bhreac quietly on the top of the hill but, before she led the hinds away, she called Rannoch to her side.

‘You don’t need to hide that any more,’ she whispered. Bhreac began to lick Rannoch’s forehead until the leaf

stood out clear on his brow. Then the hinds, five of them accompanied by an old doe, led their little deer out of the home valley. As Eloin’s fawn went he felt something fall on his face. It was cold and tingly as it melted on his nose.

It had started to snow.

5 The Bridge

Quoth the Raven, ‘Nevermore’. Edgar Allan Poe, ‘The Raven’

Though this was the first snow of winter it fell thick and fast, as it will in Scotia, in great wet flakes that flurried and swirled in the air. Soon the hinds could hardly see where they were going and the pace became desperately slow. But the blizzard also brought a blessing, for it meant that when news reached Drail of a group of deer who had taken their calves and abandoned the herd, the Draila could not act for a full day. Scouts were sent to the brow of each hill but they could see nothing in this weather and they soon returned to wait until the skies cleared. When they were finally able to travel, a full sun later, Drail had no idea where the hinds had left from or where they were going. He sent out four parties of deer to scour the hills and others to warn the neighbouring herds to look for a calf with a white leaf on its brow.

The hinds spent the first morning out of the valley resting on the edge of a small copse, huddled together and shivering in the bitter cold. The fawns were the worst hit for their little hoofs were soon frozen as they sank into the white, but they also found delight in the snow and the adventure. Bhreac in particular was keen to move them on, realizing that the weather would mask their escape. It had stopped snowing for a while during the morning but by noon it started again, as thick as before. From the edge of the home valley the landscape began to flatten out and form the more regular contours of the Low Lands. The deer found themselves travelling across a patch of down where the undulating ground proved difficult to cross for in its folds the snow heaped thick and left snowdrifts which the fawns sank into up to their haunches.

At one point Tain disappeared altogether and if Rannoch hadn’t been watching him and marked the place where Alyth and Shira could dig him out with their hoofs, Tain might have frozen to death. But the little fawn was unhurt, though his nose was throbbing with cold, and the deer pushed on again into the winter.

By the afternoon of the next sun the snow began to get finer until it eventually stopped altogether and the sky began to clear, giving way to great patches of blue that looked as icy as the ground below. The deer’s spirits lifted with the weather and they made better progress. Rannoch, Tain and Thistle trotted along together, though the other calves stayed with their mothers. Thistle had cheered up a little and they laughed and joked and even found time to play, rolling around in the blanket of white. But at last, as Larn approached again and the evening star began to pierce the sky, a new fear entered the hinds’ thoughts.

As they came to a wood and looked back across the downs they realized that their hoofs had laid a clear trail in the snow. It was with sinking hearts that the hinds entered the trees where the ground began to rise. A deer’s mood is infectious and soon the fawns were nervous, their fear compounded by their unfamiliar surroundings. Among the calves only Rannoch felt more confident, for he had been into a wood before, and now he came into his own, trotting up and down and reassuring the others. He was running back towards Bracken when he overheard the twins, Peppa and Willow, talking under their breath as they padded along behind their mother.

‘I’m frightened, Willow,’ Peppa was saying, as darkness closed around them. ’The trees look like huge Draila.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said her sister quietly. ’I’ll look after you, Peppa.’

‘But there are things in the forest,’ Peppa went on nervously. ’I wish I was at home.’

Rannoch fell into step with the little does.

‘Your sister’s right,’ he said cheerfully. ’There’s nothing to worry about. I’ve been in a wood alone before and I’ve seen an owl and badgers and I was even lost for two nights but nothing happened.’

Peppa was very impressed but Willow said nothing. She turned her head away disdainfully.

‘My name’s Rannoch. You’re Peppa and Willow?’

‘That’s right,’ answered Peppa, no longer thinking of the big trees. ’We’re twins.’

‘I can see that,’ laughed Rannoch.’Are you Willow or

Peppa?’

‘Peppa.’

‘So you must be Willow?’ said Rannoch. Willow didn’t answer.

‘Willow it is then. It’s very nice to meet you.’

‘And you,’ said Peppa.’Willow, what’s wrong? Why don’t you say anything?’

Willow still refused to speak and the three fawns walked on for a while without talking. Rannoch finally broke the silence.

‘This is fun, isn’t it? I mean, how many other fawns would get to visit the forest?’

‘How many other fawns would want to?’ said Willow suddenly.

‘I didn’t mean . . . I was just trying. . .’

‘Well don’t. We’re fine on our own, thank you.’

‘Willow,’ scolded Peppa. ’Why are you being so unfriendly?’

‘Because it’s his fault that we’re here at all.’

Rannoch was hurt but he tossed up his head proudly.

‘Well, I’m very sorry, I’m sure,’ he said.

With that he ran on along the trail of deer, winding through the wood. He was angry and by the time he reached Bracken he felt miserable again. Bracken was with Bhreac and they were talking seriously.

‘Not now, dear,’ said Bracken when her fawn arrived. Rannoch ran over to Tain who was telling Thistle a story

he had just made up. He fell in with them and listened for a while, but his heart wasn’t in it and he was soon lost in his own thoughts.

The deer went on and at last they came to a wide clearing where the ground evened out. Bracken and Bhreac stopped to wait for the other hinds.

‘We’ll rest here tonight,’ said Bhreac when the others had all arrived. ‘The fawns are tired and it’s too dark to go on. If anyone’s following they’ll have to stop too.’

The hinds nodded in agreement but now Shira stepped forward.

‘Bhreac,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you know where we’re going?’

The hinds pricked up their ears, for they had been wondering this all day.

‘Not really, my dear. If we are to escape Drail we must get as far away as possible, even to the High Land if we can.’

There was not one among the hinds who really knew where the High Land was and they feared its name, but at least the sense of purpose and the thought of getting as far away as possible seemed to reassure them and they began to move about the clearing, smoothing the ground with their muzzles, clearing away the covering of settled snow and finding places where they could lie down with their little ones. But just as they were settling down they heard a noise that made them start and blink in terror.

‘What’s that?’ whispered Tain to Rannoch.

The two fawns were shivering in the frosty air as they listened. In the darkness, through the trees, came a sound that haunts all Herla. A low, quivering howl that seemed to rise from the depths of some wounded beast and echo through the night before it was lost again on the wind. The terrified deer shivered and the hinds, lost suddenly in their desire to run but held fast by their fear for their fawns, moved back and forth about the clearing like fish wiggling on a hook. Shira’s eyes darted back and forth looking for a thicket or a patch of bramble where she could hide Tain for a while if it came to flight.

The howl came again and was then picked up by another and another.

‘Wolves.’ Bracken shuddered.

The other hinds had heard her and though they knew the sound well, the word had its own power to add to their terror.