‘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.’
Tain finished on this triumphant note and the deer nodded their appreciation.
‘Well told,’ said Rannoch, ‘and a very beautiful story too.’
‘Yes, it is beautiful, isn’t it?’ agreed Tain thoughtfully. ‘If only it were true.’
‘You don’t think there’s any t-t-truth in it, then?’ said
Bankfoot.
‘No, not really,’ answered Tain, ‘though I believe that what Blindweed said about the High Land had some truth. That there are great forests and plenty of food and cover for a deer. Perhaps there really are less Lera to hunt us.’
‘Well, now,’ said Rannoch quietly, ‘we should get some sleep, for whatever we find up there, we daren’t stay here much longer. It’s not safe.’
But with his friends around him once again Rannoch suddenly felt safer than he had done for longer than he cared to remember.
14 The Fearful Glen
‘For I dipt into the future, far as human eye could see ,Saw the Vision of the world and all the wonder that would be.’ Alfred Lord Tennyson, ‘Locksley Hall’
It was mid-morning when the friends got on their way and it was much colder than it had been, a frost making the grass spark and glitter. After a time, as they journeyed north-west, they came past the opening to a great glen with sheer cliffs and jagged rock peaks that reared into the skies. This they passed and headed on towards the edge of a sea loch they could now see ahead of them. They reached the sea after a sun and the friends grew quiet as they walked and the mountains and the water overawed them.
Rannoch pulled them up as they came close to the end of the loch. In the distance, spreading out from the edge of the water, they could now see dwellings, smoke furling up from their low rooftops. There were people by the w
ater too and carved trees like the ones Rurl had described.
The others stirred as their scents came to them across the wind, but Rannoch told them not to worry for they were still far away. Rannoch could see, though, that to travel ahead would bring them close to the encampment, so he decided to turn back and strike east through the valley they had passed the sun before, hoping to turn north again as soon as they could. This they did and soon the red deer were entering the glen’s wide flanks.
A strange hush fell on the deer as they walked. Never before had they seen country like this. They felt they were entering a world of dreams. The vast walls of the glen rose around them like sleeping giants as the track they were taking along the valley bottom wove left and right through the hills, following the river gurgling through their centre. Ahead loomed three great spurs of rock and the rich, dark green of the valley and the slate black of the mountains seemed to swallow them up. Soon they felt like tiny moving specks lost in an immensity of stone. High above them the cry of birds echoed against the dizzy crags and the mist swayed and broke across the trees.
In the late afternoon they crossed the river and the sun managed to break through the clouds. The deer’s spirits rose for the glen had grown eerily beautiful under its gentle light. They came to a small loch but they didn’t pause to drink or ruminate in the winter sunshine as they would normally have done, for they all felt an urgency to press on, as though something were chasing them through the mighty valley. The sombre mystery that hung about the place made the deer tremble and start at the slightest sound, so by the time night came down they were at their nerves’ end.
‘Do you feel it?’ whispered Willow to Rannoch breathlessly, as the deer stopped in the twilight.
‘Yes,’ said Rannoch, ‘there’s something strange about the place. I don’t know what it is yet.’
‘Herne’s Herd?’ said Bankfoot.
‘No, I don’t think so and I don’t sense any immediate danger,’ answered Rannoch. ‘But it’s very odd. Like some feeling far away.’
Bankfoot looked nervously at Rannoch’s fawn mark.
The deer went on as silently as before. The darkness turned the crags and the stones into fearful shapes and the air seemed to hold an impossible stillness. With the night it began to rain again and soon the deer were miserable. They stopped and grazed a little, then huddled together in the shadow of the hills. At last Rannoch suggested that they move on, so the deer crept ahead through the darkness as the wind wailed through the valley. They began to imagine that they too were a part of the old tales, of the legends that run with the Herla.
After a while, however, Rannoch started to grow restive again and kept stopping to scent the air or listen to the wind. But it was a good while before they heard a sound that made them all stop in their tracks. It rose, strange and mournful, around the rocks; a plaintive piping like an eerie wind. The young deer crowded together and listened and when it stopped, finally and suddenly, Rannoch nodded.
‘I thought so,’ he whispered. ‘There are humans up ahead.’
‘What shall we do, Rannoch?’ asked Tain. ’Go back?’
‘We could,’ said Rannoch, ‘or we could wait till the sun comes. But I think it’s dangerous to stay here. I’m for going on.’
‘M-m-me too,’ stammered Bankfoot. ’I d-d-don’t want to go back the way we came. It makes me nervous.’
Rannoch asked the others what they felt and it was decided that he should lead them on, but they were preparing to set off when Bracken suddenly spoke. It was the first thing she had said since they had been reunited.
‘I don’t think I can,’ she said hoarsely. ‘I think I’ll stay here.’
‘But you can’t, Mother,’ said Rannoch.
‘Just leave me, I’ll be all right. I’ll come on in the sunlight. You wait for me up ahead.’
‘No, Mother,’ said Rannoch firmly. He could see she was shaking badly. ‘It’ll be all right, I know it will.’
But Bracken just shook her head and said desperately, ‘Just leave me. Can’t you see I don’t want to come yet?’ Rannoch looked Bracken tenderly in the eyes and began to speak very quietly.
‘We’re all afraid, Mother. But it’s far more dangerous to stay here on your own. Nothing will happen, for if we get close to the humans they’ll be asleep and have no desire to harm us.’
Bracken shook her head.
‘I can’t. It’s as though everything around me is black.’
‘I know. It’s as though you were trapped in a gully. But you can control it. Fight the blackness until you can think again. That’s the secret, Mother. Follow in my tracks and every time you feel it threatening to overcome you, breathe and think; think of something special. Anything. Think of the High Land or Starbuck or Herne, and as long as you can think, it will be all right.’
Bracken looked at Rannoch pleadingly but at last she nodded.
‘Right. Listen to me, all of you,’ said Rannoch.’I know something of men, so I’ll lead. Stay close and do what I do. Walk slowly if I do, run if I run. I will lead us round them if I can and tomorrow we’ll be well away from here, munching heather in the sunlight.’
The young stag nodded resolutely, turned and led them on.
Above them the sky began to rumble and it started to rain. The water came down in torrents, great pebbles of wet, so that the deer were soon dripping and the ground began to turn to mud as the water splashed and slurried down the sides of the valley. After a while they dimly made out the source of their fear.
The dwellings were grouped loosely across the side of the valley the deer had been travelling along. But, unfortunately, where the encampment hit the side of the mountain the rock buckled inwards and then rose sheer. It was impossible to skirt them to the right. Willow expected Rannoch to stop and lead them across to the slopes on the far side of the glen. But the deer did nothing of the kind. Hardly slowing and not once turning round, Rannoch led them off the slopes and straight down towards the encampment.
As the smell of men hit their nostrils there was not one of the other deer who did not want to turn and run. Each of them felt it. Fear came over them like a fog. But they remembered what Rannoch had said and struggled to keep the feeling at bay, and Rannoch’s strange calmness as he walked ahead gave each of them confidence.
The encampment was quite large with squat boulder walls and peat roofs slung low on the stone houses. The dying embers of open fires outside spat and fizzled their last in the rain, but little smoke came from the rooftops and the only sound that the deer heard was the cacophony falling from the sky. A path ran straight up through the main group of dwellings, and though it had turned to pure mud Rannoch began to follow it. The deers’ heads hung low as they squelched through the mud behind him, hardly daring to breathe. So the line of Herla crept on in the pouring rain through the very centre of the village.
Bracken, who was in the middle of the group, kept looking back nervously at Willow behind her. Although the hind was herself petrified, she nodded to Bracken calmly and kept going without a sound. A horse whinnied mournfully from somewhere and a dog began to bark, but Rannoch neither ran nor quickened his pace. At last the houses began to disappear and the piled boulders dropped away.
Only then did Rannoch suddenly throw back his antlers and run, straight up the slopes of the glen. The others followed him instantly and soon the deer were racing away from the camp as fast as their legs would carry them.
‘Rannoch, you got us through,’ cried Willow delightedly. To her surprise, Rannoch didn’t answer her. He just kept on going, straight ahead through the soaking grass. He didn’t stop for ages and when he did so he still said nothing, but looked about him desperately. Then he ran up the side of the valley to the very edge of the cliff, where an outcrop of overhanging rock formed a kind of open cave. Here Rannoch stopped at last and the others joined him, glad to get out of the wet.
The friends began to talk excitedly and Bankfoot found some leaves at the back of the cave which the exhaus
ted deer munched on gratefully. Their sense of relief was over- powering. Only Rannoch stayed apart, at the front of the cave, refusing to eat or say anything, looking back across the glen. Willow walked up to him quietly.
‘Rannoch,’ she said softly, ‘Rannoch, what is it? What’s wrong?’
Still the deer said nothing.
‘Rannoch, please tell me, you’re frightening me.’
Now Rannoch started and seemed to come out of a reverie.
‘Willow,’ he said, his eyes clearing, ‘is it you?’
‘Yes. What is it, Rannoch? Can I help you?’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ said Rannoch bitterly, ‘It’s this feeling. I can’t get rid of it. Willow, I’m afraid.’
‘We were all afraid, Rannoch, but it’s gone now. You led us through. You know, Rannoch, it’s right what you said about fighting the feeling and thinking at all costs. There was a point out there when—’
‘No, Willow, I’m still afraid. The feeling’s still here. It’s got something to do with this place.’
‘It’s a strange place, but I don’t think I understand. I’m sorry.’
‘I don’t really understand either. When we came to the humans I thought at first that we should cross the valley to try to avoid them. But then something took hold of me. I don’t know what it was. I wanted to get close to them again, I think. To learn more about them. To see if they were like—’ Rannoch stopped. ‘Anyway, I was all right at first, walking up through their stones, but as we went something else happened. Something new came over me.’
‘What, Rannoch?’
‘I was listening very closely for any noise that meant we should run. But as I listened I suddenly thought I could hear the humans, breathing all around me. Then I knew that they were asleep among their stones. But as I concentrated, everything around me suddenly began to grow light and it wasn’t raining any more. The path we were on was dry and as I looked up a mist was rolling towards me across the glen. But, Willow,’ said Rannoch, trembling violently now, his voice strangled with pain, ‘the mist was made of blood. The whole glen was red and as it came down I suddenly felt a terrible pain. It was linked to those sleeping bodies around me. But there was something else. Some feeling that I couldn’t quite touch. Like anger. Then suddenly my ears were filled with screams and the air was thick with the smell of death. I looked up and realized we had come to the edge of their stones and I began to run. But the mist was still everywhere.’