Fire Bringer (6 page)

Suddenly there was the sound of splintering branches and churning leaves. From above a shape was hurtling towards them. There was no time to get out of the way as the charging stag reached them. His trez tines caught the Draila who had wounded Bandach, full in his side. The startled animal bellowed in terror and tried to swing right with his antlers but the impact of the blow knocked him clean off his feet and threw him sideways. The charging deer crashed on top of him, lost its balance and together they tumbled down the slope.

Bandach didn’t waste a moment. Almost as soon as the unknown deer collided with the first Draila Bandach dipped his head, turned it slightly to one side and lunged. The prone brow tine was aimed straight at the second Draila’s chest, at the soft flesh where the haunches meet, and Bandach’s aim was true. Being below the attacking deer now gave Bandach the advantage, for the tine passed in and up. The deer bucked free and, bleeding badly, he turned and fled. Bandach shook himself and looked round.

Below he could see that the other Draila had got up and was also running. Nearby, the unknown stag was pulling himself to his feet. His right antler had snapped in two and part of it was hanging off the beam, covered in blood and torn velvet. Then Bandach blinked in recognition. It was Salen whose hind, Bracken, had given birth to the stillborn calf. The old stag came towards him up the slope. But as he walked his front legs suddenly gave way and he stumbled. It was only then that Bandach noticed the deep gash on his flank.

‘Salen, Salen! You’re wounded,’ cried Bandach as he rushed forward.

‘Yes,’ panted Salen desperately. ‘They came on us downwind. We thought they were Outriders at first and by the time I realized what was happening it was too late. The cowards attacked us in groups. There were too many of them, Bandach, too many’.

‘Hush, Salen,’ said Bandach. ’Don’t speak.’

‘I saw you from above the path,’ Salen went on, struggling with his breath. ‘I was resting up there in the bracken. When I saw you pinned against that tree I realized you hadn’t a hope. I knew with this wound there was little chance of helping you on flat ground, but with that slope there was a slim one.’

‘You saved my life, Salen.’

‘At least I did some good then.’ Salen nodded, his breathing shallow now and his eyes glassy. ‘Those damned Draila. They’ve taken Tarn, Straloch and Crinnan. I passed their bodies by the old cairn. I saw them catch Spey on the east hill. We’ve all gone, Bandach, all of us. The Outriders have been destroyed.’

‘Hush, Salen. Try not to move.’

Salen’s head was swaying back and forward now. But suddenly his dazed eyes seemed to clear.

‘Bandach, tell me. What of Captain Brechin?’

Bandach hesitated. ’Salen, you’re wrong,’ he said suddenly. ‘You’re not the last of the Outriders. I saw Captain Brechin escape over the western hills.’

‘I knew it,’ sighed Salen. ’They’d never take Brechin. Then at least there is some hope.’

Salen’s body began to shudder violently. His legs shook and with a great sigh he laid his head on the forest floor. In the valley bottom the Draila had finally settled the hinds and the nervous mothers were beginning to graze again.

But suddenly, as though of one body, the hinds and their fawns flinched and pricked up their ears to listen. From the hillside they heard, for the last time on that terrible day, one more bellow of pain. It was Bandach, mourning for Salen.

‘Enough of your silly stories, Blindweed,’ snorted Bhreac by the rowan tree. ‘Can’t you see you’re frightening Eloin?’

Eloin’s little calf had started to feed again.

‘They’re more than just stories,’ grumbled Blindweed.

‘Nonsense. Besides we’ve more important things to worry about than a fawn mark.’

Eloin, who had been deep in thought, pricked up her ears.

‘What do you mean, Bhreac?’ she said. ‘What’s wrong?’ Bhreac was silent. She looked nervously at Blindweed.

‘What’s happened?’ said Eloin, struggling to get up.

‘My dear,’ answered Blindweed quietly, ‘there has been fighting in the herd. The Draila are up to something.’

‘Brechin?’ cried Eloin. She was up now and pawing the ground as Rannoch tried to nudge between her legs.

‘I don’t know. I last saw him going to the meeting place’.

‘Then I didn’t dream it. The cries from the hillside?’

‘No, you didn’t dream it,’ said Blindweed. ’The Outriders have been attacked.’

Rannoch seemed to sense his mother’s fear for he nestled in beside her, looking up nervously at the two old deer.

‘I must try to find Brechin,’ said Eloin, glancing about her desperately. Nearby she saw Bracken, her dead new-born fawn lying motionless at her feet, as she grazed listlessly by the trees.

‘No, my dear, it is better that you stay here with the little one,’ said Bhreac. ‘Blindweed says the herd is swarming with Draila. Blindweed? What are you doing now, you old fool?’

The storyteller had wandered off to the edge of the stream and was pushing his muzzle into the side of the bank, as though trying to pick up a scent.

‘This is no time to graze Blindweed,’ snapped Bhreac.

‘Have you gone mad?’

But when Blindweed lifted his head it was stained with mud from the wet ground. He trotted back towards them.

‘Blindweed. Stop fooling,’ said Bhreac.

‘Silence, hind,’ snapped Blindweed suddenly. ’Eloin, I am old and have strange ways and there is much trouble in the herd. I do not understand politics. But I know this: that fawn mark of little Rannoch’s will bring him nothing but trouble. Will you trust me, Eloin?’

Eloin didn’t understand but as she gazed back into the old storyteller’s grave eyes she realized he was deadly serious. She nodded.

‘Come here, Rannoch,’ said Blindweed. He nudged the fawn and Rannoch swung round, startled. The old deer reached down and, with one swing, rubbed his nose across the little fawn’s forehead. The smear of mud stained Rannoch’s fur, almost completely masking the white leaf.

‘That’s better,’ said Blindweed. ’We can’t have you wandering around with a fawn mark like that and making the other deer jealous, can we now?’

Rannoch blinked up at Blindweed, then, suddenly frightened of the huge mouth and great tongue, he turned back to his mother. Eloin let him come and stood gazing out across the home valley. She hardly knew why, but she felt better for what Blindweed had done.

‘Oh, Brechin,’ she whispered. ‘I wish you would hurry’.

As Sgorr ran, his Draila behind him, he let the wind score his face and his lungs swelled with pleasure. The night’s success had surpassed even his wildest expectations. The Outriders, who he had tried to outmanoeuvre for so long, were crushed. Brechin was dead and now a new time was beginning in the Low Lands. Drail would not be challenged for three summers at least and thus Sgorr’s own position was secure.

Drail. He’s an old fool, thought Sgorr to himself. But he won’t last. He’s lame and tired. But I must bide my time. Then they’ll see. Then let them talk, when a hornless stag is the Lord of Herds.

Bitterness welled up in Sgorr’s stomach. He remembered the days of terrible humiliation when his antlers had first failed. Then the contempt with which he had been treated by stags so much stupider than himself. That was before he had been driven out and forced to wander the forests alone. Ah, but it had been fate that he had stumbled on this bunch of brailah. If it hadn’t been for the gullible, lame Drail, Sgorr thought, where would he be now?

His thoughts turned to Brechin and he bared his teeth with satisfaction. Brechin had fought hardest to prevent him entering the herd; now Brechin was dead and he was on his way to fetch Eloin. The beautiful Eloin. Drail would have her. For now at least.

As Sgorr pictured Eloin he felt a strange confusion enter him. It was the closest he had ever come to loving anything in his life. He thought of her sleek fur and her proud muzzle. Of her huge eyes and her bold temper. But as he thought and he tried to picture the two of them together, the vision failed. ‘How could she ever want to stand with me?’ he said to himself bitterly. With one eye. With no brave antlers to fight his place. But he must have her somehow. Then he hit on it. Eloin’s calf. Soon, Eloin, soon. Then he would have revenge for his own ugliness.

Sgorr was shaken from his thoughts by a stag running towards them from across the valley. It was the Draila that Sgorr had sent off from the meeting place.

‘Well?’ he said as the stag came up to him and bowed.

‘Have you found her?’

‘No, Captain Sgorr. But a hind over there says she thinks she’s beyond the stream.’

‘Good. Then let us see.’

Sgorr wheeled round and ran straight for the pasture towards Eloin and Rannoch.

Blindweed was moving restlessly up and down the edge of the stream, trying to scan the valley for signs of movement or for any approaching Draila as Bhreac tried to reassure Eloin.

‘Brechin will be all right, my dear,’ the kindly old doe was saying, ‘you’ll see. He hasn’t ever been beaten.’

‘No,’ agreed Eloin nervously. ‘I’m sure you’re right.’ From the corner of her eye Eloin saw Bracken flinch and the two deer heard the trees on the mountainside rustle.

‘A stag,’ whispered Eloin. ’Coming down the hill.’ Blindweed had heard it too and was with them again.

‘Brechin?’ said Bhreac.

The branches parted and, as the deer emerged, Eloin shook her head.

‘No,’ she sighed sadly as she spied Bandach running towards her. He raced straight over to the group. He was panting heavily and drenched in blood and sweat.

‘Forgive me stealing up on you,’ said the young stag as he reached them.’ Captain Brechin sent me.’

‘Brechin? He’s all right?’ Bandach lowered his head.

‘No, Eloin, I’m sorry,’ he answered. ‘The Outriders are gone.’

Eloin began to shake. Her haunches flinched and she walked backwards as Rannoch tried to stay under her soft belly.

‘What have they done?’ cried Blindweed. ’Stags do not kill each other.’

‘Drail has gone mad,’ said Bandach. ’He has forbidden Anlach.’

‘But he can’t.’

‘The Draila are everywhere. And Eloin, I have come to warn you. They are coming to take you to Drail.’

‘Drail?’ cried Eloin. ’Never.’

‘It is worse than that,’ whispered Bandach, looking down at Rannoch. ’Sgorr. He is coming to kill your calf. I must get you all away.’

Suddenly the terrible sadness that was filling Eloin’s heart was swept away. Now all she could think of was saving her fawn. She would gladly die if she had to, but she must protect her little one.

‘We will go west over the valley to the next glen,’ said Bandach. ’From there into the high mountains. Perhaps even into the High Land itself.’

Bhreac looked fearfully at the hind. To the Low Land deer the High Land was a distant, sinister place, surrounded by legend and fable and cloaked in mystery.

‘But the little one,’ said Bhreac, ‘he’ll never survive the journey.’

‘We must try. It’s his only hope.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Eloin, ‘we must try.’

‘It’s too late,’ cried Blindweed.

Blindweed was looking across the stream. In the distance, no more than thirty trees away, Sgorr and five Draila were hurrying towards them.

‘We’re lost,’ said Bhreac.

‘Hush,’ snapped Blindweed. ’I’ve an idea. If only we had more time.’

‘If time is all you need,’ cried Bandach, ‘you shall have it. But hurry with your plan, for Herne’s sake.’

Bandach leapt forward on his front haunches and, tossing back his antlers, he splashed through the stream. Up the facing bank he ran and then, bucking and kicking, he shot forward diagonally across Sgorr’s path. He was out in the middle of the valley when the Draila spied him and, as he had gambled, the whole group swung away to follow him. Bandach had guessed that Sgorr would not risk depleting his own bodyguard, nor deprive himself of such a prize.

On Bandach sped, with the wind in his ears and anger pumping his heart. He was fast and young and for a while he held them off. But at last the day’s terrible exertions and the fight on the hillside began to catch up with him. He slowed and the Draila drew nearer. Then they caught him. He kicked out behind him but an antler caught him in the leg and he tripped. Bandach would never get up again.

Sgorr led the Draila slowly back across the stream. He wanted to savour this moment. As they reached the far verge, he saw Eloin ahead of him, along with the fool of a storyteller Blindweed and an old doe he didn’t recognize. From Eloin’s shape he knew instantly that she had already calved.

‘Eloin,’ he said in a silken voice as he ran up. ‘I hope you are well.’

‘Don’t bring your foul, lying tongue here, Sgorr,’ spat Eloin, backing away.

‘My dear, such manners hardly befit a captain’s hind.’

‘You’ll pay dearly for what you have done, Sgorr.’

‘What I have done? Ah, but of course. You’ve been consorting with traitors and spies. Then you know everything?’

‘I know that you have poisoned the herd. I know that you have killed Brechin and the others. I know that you have broken the Lore.’

‘That is a pity. I had hoped to bring you the news myself.’

‘If I had an antler, Sgorr, I would poke out that patch of pondweed you call an eye.’

‘Yes. It’s understandable you’re upset,’ said Sgorr softly.

‘Perhaps you should be thinking of more pleasant things. Well then, I’ve a surprise. Drail wants to see you.’

‘Drail,’ snorted Eloin. ’I’d rather die than stand with that lame horn.’

Sgorr was mightily pleased, for in his twisted mind he had thought it impossible that Eloin should not be drawn to the Lord of Herds.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘it may only be for a time. There are others who would protect you, and I am young.’

Eloin stared back at Sgorr in disbelief.

‘You, Sgorr?’ she said. ‘You? I’d rather Drail than you in ten thousand years. You’ll have to find some other doe to bathe your eye and lick you between the ears.’

The insult was aimed well and Sgorr winced.

‘Very well, Eloin. Drail shall have you. But now,’ he continued, his voice dropping, ‘perhaps you’ll introduce me to your new fawn. I bet he’s a bold one, if his mother’s anything to go by.’