Fire Bringer (32 page)

‘I’m s-s-soaked through,’ said Bankfoot miserably as he stood there in the rain, and the mist swirled around the little group of deer. Bankfoot was a six-pointer and his antlers were growing stronger.

‘I know, Bankfoot, it’s horrid,’ said the hind next to him. Willow had grown into a very fine deer. Her smooth coat was the colour of fire-bracken, while her clear, black eyes glinted like jet.

‘Th-th-thistle never stops grumbling,’ said Bankfoot, looking towards the young stag who was talking to Tain and Peppa a little way away. They had all grown since their escape over a year before. Peppa looked even more like her sister and both Tain and Thistle had their third heads too, though Thistle’s antlers looked stronger than Tain’s.

‘Yes,’ agreed Willow, ‘and I’m worried about him. Though he hates the Sgorrla, he seems to hate running from them even more.’

‘Yes,’ said Bankfoot, but then he added, ‘But when Thistle decided on es-es-escaping with us he did throw his whole heart into it. We wouldn’t have made it this f-f-far without him. Remember the fight at the burn?’

‘I know,’ said Willow.’He’s a natural leader.’

‘M-m-more than an Outrider,’ agreed Bankfoot.

‘Not more,’ said Willow, ‘just different. But it’s Bracken I’m most worried about. Her leg’s very bad. It’s slowing us up terribly.’

They both looked over to the hind. She was standing on her own, grazing half-heartedly across the soggy ground. Her leg had been wounded over two moons before and it still wasn’t healing.

‘It’s n-n-not just that,’ said Bankfoot.’Some days she hardly seems to know what’s happening at all. She’s never got over Rannoch.’

Both of them still hated to think of that terrible day. The day the riders had come.

Willow gazed out into the mist.

‘I still miss him terribly,’ she said quietly.

‘M-m-me too,’ nodded Bankfoot.

‘But look at us,’ said Willow suddenly, affecting a cheerfulness. ‘As gloomy as Herne’s Wood. Come on, we’ve got to keep moving.’

Bankfoot began to move over towards the others. But he suddenly stopped dead. Like all young bucks his sense of smell had grown more and more acute and now he had scented something.

‘What is it, Bankfoot?’ said Willow when she saw how tense his face was. ‘Is there danger?’

‘I d-d-don’t know. I th-th-think it’s another deer.’

‘Sgorrla?’ whispered Willow, staring fixedly through the mist.

Suddenly a gust of wind cleared the mist away and the two of them saw a young stag running straight towards them. But now Willow, whose eyes were especially sharp, was shaking and shaking uncontrollably.

‘W-w-willow,’ whispered Bankfoot, ‘what is it?’

‘It can’t be.’

‘W-w-what?’

‘Bankfoot,’ whispered the hind, hardly daring to breathe.

‘Look at his forehead.’

Bankfoot strained his young eyes and suddenly he too was trembling.

‘It’s im-im-impossible,’ he stammered.

But as the deer drew closer Willow could now clearly see the white oak leaf on his brow. Then Willow was running towards him, bounding as fast as her legs would carry her.

‘Rannoch,’ she cried, ‘Rannoch, you’re alive!’

Of all the strange meetings that Herla can face in the wild, that was possibly the strangest. Rannoch, returned from the dead, surrounded by the little party of deer, themselves at their nerves’ end from the strain of their flight. Months of fear and flight, the mystery of Rannoch’s disappearance, the strange explanation that he gave of a pit high above the loch and Rannoch’s own unbounded joy, all blended together to produce an overwhelming mixture of exhilaration and wonder.

The deer could hardly stop talking, the friends quizzing Rannoch about everything that had happened to him and marvelling at his account of Rurl and the wolf. Rannoch asked each of them in turn about the loch and Tharn, Colquhar and their journey, and they had so many questions that they hardly had time to discuss where exactly they were going. It was approaching Larn when Rannoch reminded them that the Sgorrla were close and that it was better if they talked as they travelled.

So the friends set off again. As they went it was Bankfoot who explained proudly how they had escaped from the Sgorrla and wandered south for moons, driven further and further away from the High Land by the pursuing stags. The going had been desperately slow, for the Sgorrla were hunting everywhere and Bracken found it hard to keep up. So, hiding in copses and caves sometimes for moons on end, they had eventually turned north again.

The most moving meeting of all was between Rannoch and Bracken. When Rannoch went up to her, Bracken looked quizzically into his face and as she stared at the fawn mark only the faintest flicker of recognition came into her sad eyes, mingled with a note of fear.

‘Mother, it’s me,’ Rannoch said gently, and the young stag licked her muzzle and tried to tell her what had happened to him.

Bracken said nothing as she listened and Rannoch knew that she barely understood him. But he examined her wounded leg and fetched some of the special leaves he had used on the wolf and, very gently, rubbed some of the healing tincture into the cut. From then on the hind hung on Rannoch’s every word and kept as close to him as she could.

Tain, Bankfoot, Willow and Peppa could hardly contain their joy at Rannoch’s reappearance though all of them looked at his fawn mark and wondered what it really meant. Only Thistle was a little colder than the rest, though he tried to hide it. He listened to Rannoch’s story carefully and when he gazed at his friend’s forehead and six pointed tines, his eyes betrayed a strange wariness. But by the time they had all spent a couple of suns travelling together, it was almost as though they had never been parted.

Larn was well passed and they had all sat down together to rest in the wet grass.

‘So you were travelling into the High Land too, Rannoch?’said Willow.

‘Yes, I’m looking for a herd, Willow. They call themselves Herne’s Herd. They live in the northern shadows of the Great Mountain. Rurl told me they might have some answers. I thought of coming to help you but. . . but first I had to know more.’

‘About the Prophecy?’ said Willow quietly.

All the friends looked at each other nervously. They were surprised that Willow had mentioned it so openly, but each of them had secretly wanted to ask Rannoch. They had been waiting for a chance to get him on his own. But Willow, knowing more of Rannoch’s heart than the others, wanted to bring it out into the open as quickly as possible. Rannoch knew immediately what they were all thinking.

‘The Prophecy can’t be true, can it, Mother?’ he said softly, looking at Bracken. The hind looked back suddenly with a fearful glance but she said nothing and Rannoch went on. ‘But maybe parts of it are true, and the seal told me this herd might know something.’

‘I’ve heard of them,’ said Tain. ’An Outrider above the loch used to talk about them, but nothing he told me made me want to meet them.’

All the deer looked at Tain.

‘What do you mean?’ said Thistle.

‘Only that there are strange rumours surrounding them,’ said Tain, already getting carried away with his own imagination, ‘dark legends. Of ghosts and cannibalism and—’

‘Stop it,’ said Willow.

‘It’s all right,’ Rannoch whispered in the darkness, ‘I’ve heard the rumours too. But there’s something else. The Sgorrla I overheard the other day said that Sgorr has forbidden any deer to go into the High Land. Maybe there’s something up there he fears. Something that could help us fight him.’

‘Well, if the l-l-legends are true about this herd,’ Bankfoot interrupted, ‘you’ll need some g-g-good friends with you, at any rate.’

Rannoch smiled.

‘Thank you, Bankfoot,’ he said, ‘but I can’t expect any of you to follow me there. Who knows what I’ll find. Tell me, though, what were you all planning to do in the High Land when you got there?’

‘Get away from Sgorr, first off,’ said Tain. ’Then, who knows.’

‘Find another herd,’ added Willow, ‘and join them. That was Thistle’s idea. Then,’ she went on, ‘rear some fine little Outriders, far away from the Low Lands.’

Rannoch looked back at Willow. It was only their flight and the strange adventure they found themselves on that had stopped her from finding a mate, Rannoch found himself thinking. But he wasn’t sad that she had not already stood with another.

‘B-b-become an Outrider,’ added Bankfoot enthusiastically, looking at Peppa, ‘and roam the hills, free as the day and p-p-proud to stand in the heather and guard the herd from harm.’

‘But aren’t you frightened, Tain, of what’s up there?’ asked Rannoch suddenly.

‘Oh, there are other stories about the High Land apart from the ones about Herne’s Herd,’ answered Tain cheerfully, forgetting all about ghosts and cannibalism. ‘Stories that Blindweed used to tell me.’

‘Like what?’ said Rannoch.

‘Well, some say that in the High Land a deer is safe from everything.’

‘Go on,’ said Rannoch, for the talk of Herne’s Herd and the Prophecy had made them all nervous and he was glad of this chance of a distraction.

‘That up there the Herla are free from fear and never want for anything, for the High Land has forests as wide as the moon and oaks that reach to the stars. There is no need for a Corps in the High Land because there is no danger to Herla and they may chew and graze all day long in the sunshine and run where they will.’

‘N-n-no danger?’ whispered Bankfoot. ’No predators?’

‘None,’ said Tain, ‘because Starbuck sealed the High Land from the rest of the world and only the Herla may come there.’

‘Tell us, Tain,’ said Rannoch.

‘All right.’

So as the others settled down around him in the grass, Tain began.

‘It was when Starbuck had come off the Great Mountain,’ he said, ‘and met Herne again. Herne was still angry with him for stealing the antlers and Starbuck knew it, so he was especially respectful when he approached him. He bowed low and begged the lord to help him, for he was still looking for a place where the Herla would be safe from harm. Now as Herne listened coldly to Starbuck he suddenly had an idea. He chuckled to himself, for he had decided to play a trick on the deer.

‘ ‘‘Very well,’’ he said, ‘‘I will help you. But first I will set you a test and if you fail it you must never ask me for my help again. You must go into the forest beyond and walk for two suns until you come to the Great Clearing. When you find it you must place something there of your own. And it must be of your own. When you do it, that thing will have the power to keep out any Lera that threatens you. But Starbuck, there are two other things. First, you must eat nothing in the forest, nothing at all, and secondly, as you go you must not carry anything in your mouth.’’

‘Now Herne was very pleased with himself, for the conditions he had set meant that Starbuck could carry nothing with him to the clearing. Nothing except the antlers on his head. It was spring and Herne had an idea that Starbuck would wait until he got to the clearing to shed his antlers and so win the magic. But Herne had other ideas. He would send down branches and vines in the forest that would catch on Starbuck’s antlers and break them off long before he finished his journey.

‘Well, Starbuck listened closely to Herne and the clever deer knew that the god planned to trick him. But he pretended to be very grateful at this chance and said he would do his very best. So Starbuck went to the forest. But instead of making straight for the clearing, he waited at the edge of the trees and began to graze. He munched on leaves and grass, careful not to touch anything within the forest itself. At the next sun Herne came to find him and was surprised to see him still there, eating away.

‘ ‘‘Why have you not set out on your journey?’’ asked Herne.

‘Starbuck now pretended to be very frightened and answered in a faint voice, ‘‘Lord, the journey ahead will be long and I must eat nothing in the forest. So I am feeding now, as much as I can.’’

‘Then Starbuck did something that was very clever indeed. While Herne was watching him suspiciously he said, ‘‘And Herne, these antlers on my head are very heavy. I fear they may slow me down among the trees, for I may catch them in the branches.’’

‘With that Starbuck went up to one of the trees and began to knock his antlers against the trunk. The antlers were dry and brittle and they soon snapped off. When he saw this Herne shook his head for he thought that Starbuck must be a very stupid animal after all and, now that there was no chance of the deer succeeding in his quest, Herne turned away and went up to the great stone to sleep in the sunshine.

‘But Starbuck had broken off his antlers precisely to put Herne off his guard and when he saw that the god was asleep he turned and ran into the forest as fast as he could. In two days the deer reached the wide clearing. There he stopped and, running round its edge, he began to cough and bring back the grass which he hadn’t eaten at all, but kept in his stomach as he ran. He placed the little globes of fodder in a wide circle right round the clearing and then he called to Herne.

‘ ‘‘Lord, Lord, wake up. I have completed my task.’’

‘When Herne saw what Starbuck had done he was furious that it was he who had been tricked. In a rage he decided to kill the deer, but as he was approaching, Starbuck cried,

‘‘Lord, remember your promise, for you said that anything I placed in the clearing would protect me from any Lera that threatens me. Now you are a god, Lord, but you are a Lera too, for you have the shape of a Herla.’’

‘At first Herne was even more angry, but as he looked at Starbuck standing there proudly in the clearing, he suddenly felt compassion for the clever creature and began to laugh.

‘ ‘‘Very well, Starbuck, again you have tricked me and again I must grant your wish. So wherever you place those pellets they will protect you. But Starbuck, I am a god and do not like to be tricked, so from now on you and the Herla shall eat like this for ever. For you must hold your food in your stomach and bring it back again when you want to feed.’’

‘Starbuck did not care much about this for now he had a way of protecting the Herla. So he thanked the god and left the forest and then he began to run, leaping and springing as he did so. He travelled for months on end, right across the High Land until he had circuited it entirely. And as he went he stopped to chew the cud and left pellets of magic grass on the mountain tops. So, at last, the whole country was ringed like the clearing in the wood and no Lera who wanted to harm a deer could pass. That is why the High Land is a magic place and why there the deer are always safe.’