‘Are you with the Sgorrla?’ he heard one of the deer shouting to the stags.
‘No,’ answered a voice that sounded caught with pain and exhaustion. ‘We are Outriders. The last of the Outriders in the Low Lands.’
His words echoed round the herd.
As Rannoch came among the stags he saw in the darkness that they had been fighting. Some of them had wounds on their flanks and haunches and others had broken antlers. Their fur was thick with sweat and matted blood.
‘It is two moons since they came on us,’ the exhausted voice went on, ‘Sgorr and his minions. There were hundreds of them. We managed to escape through the trees but they have taken our hinds and fawns. Colquhar is dead. The last vestige of freedom has vanished from the Low Lands.’
Now Rannoch began to recognize some of the stags from the Herd above the Loch and as he drew near the speaker he spotted Braan. Braan was nearly ten now and Rannoch could see from his heavy rump how much he had aged, but his antlers were still strong and he had the same pride about him.
‘What can we do?’ Rannoch heard Willow saying suddenly.
‘Nothing for the moment. Sgorr has united all the herds. There were even roe and fallow deer among them. But we have come to seek your help.’
‘Our help?’
‘Yes. We are looking for the Marked One, the fawn that came amongst us. They say He never died but came into the High Land to free the Herla here. News of Him has spread across the south. They say He can heal and talk to the Lera. It’s the Prophecy.’
The whole herd was listening intently.
‘No, Braan,’ said Rannoch suddenly, ‘it is not the Prophecy.’
‘Rannoch,’ cried Braan delightedly, ‘then you are alive.’
The wounded Outriders were looking at the white oak leaf.
‘Yes, I’m alive.’
‘Then you must help us. We’ll rest and then lead the Outriders south.’
‘What for?’ said Rannoch quietly.
‘What do you mean what for? To fight Sgorr, of course.’
‘Fighting,’ said Rannoch, shaking his head, ‘always fighting. How many of you are there, Braan?’
‘Forty-eight of us survived the battle.’
‘Which with our Outriders – some of whose antlers are still as weak as rotten wood – makes perhaps two hundred stags. How many stags would you say Sgorr has?’
Braan paused. He could see what Rannoch was hinting at.
‘I don’t know,’ he said quietly, hanging his antlers. ‘He has brought all the herds together and the roe deer too.’
‘Perhaps two or three thousand Herla – or maybe more?’ Braan nodded.
‘And about eight or nine hundred stags,’ said Rannoch.
‘Well trained, used to fighting.’
The Outriders began to murmur discontentedly.
‘But that doesn’t matter,’ cried Braan, suddenly brightening. ’The Prophecy. We’ll have Herne on our side. We’ll have you.’
The herd around them were beginning to nod excitedly.
‘No, Braan,’ cried Rannoch, ‘you will not have me. Herla are not meant to fight. I was not born to fulfil some silly prophecy. I will stay here with my mother and teach the Herla a different way.’
‘But the Outriders?’ said Braan.
‘You are welcome to stay with us,’ said Rannoch simply, ‘and we will tend to your wounds.’
‘Tend to our wounds?’ cried Braan in disgust. ‘Hide here like old hinds while Sgorr enslaves the Herla and drives out the spirit of Herne? That’s not the Outriders’ way.’
‘Have you forgotten,’ said Rannoch coldly, ‘that Colquhar served Sgorr? That when it suited your purpose your brave Outriders handed over Willow and my mother and my friends to the mercy of the Sgorrla? Shira and the others are still with him. If I could help you – and I can’t – don’t you think they’d be the first to suffer?’
‘It lives in our memory, to the undying shame of every Outrider above the Loch,’ said Braan bitterly. ‘We betrayed you. But we were forced to. Colquhar convinced us that it was the only way that he could preserve the existence of the Outriders in the Low Lands. That is all he really lived for. But although he pretended to serve Sgorr, somewhere his heart was true. And he made a brave death.’
‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Rannoch with little feeling.
‘Did Tharn make a brave death too?’ Braan hung his head again.
‘So you won’t help us,’ he whispered.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Rannoch, and this time he meant it.
‘Then we are lost.’
‘No,’ cried a voice angrily, ‘if Rannoch won’t help you, I will.’
Thistle came running through the centre of the stags and his eyes were blazing at Rannoch.
‘You?’ said Braan, looking up in surprise.
As Thistle drew up he turned his antlers to acknowledge Willow.
‘If I can,’ he said.
‘But will the herd follow you?’ asked Braan. ’You are not the lord.’
‘Our herd has no lord,’ said Thistle with disgust, addressing all the deer, ‘for it seems that it is no longer blood that flows through the veins of our Outriders but pond water.’
‘Has no lord?’ said Braan. ’But Rannoch—’
‘Rannoch does not lead us any more,’ said Thistle coldly.
‘He prefers being the Lord of the Lera to being a real Herla.’
‘Thistle,’ said Rannoch quietly, ‘you don’t know what you are saying. You can’t defeat Sgorr. He’s too powerful. Would you lead the herd to certain death beyond the Great Mountain?’
‘I would lead those who would follow to fight and perhaps die with honour,’ cried Thistle, ‘like Outriders. You’ll come with me, won’t you, Haarg? And you, Bankfoot and Tain?’
The two friends looked down in embarrassment.
‘And Birrmagnur,’ said Thistle, ‘you’ll help us, won’t you?’ The reindeer said nothing.
‘If this is your plan,’ said Rannoch calmly, ‘I oppose it.’
‘At last,’ cried Thistle, swinging round suddenly towards Rannoch. ’Then you’ll fight me, Rannoch. To see who leads the herd? To see if Braan shall have our aid?’
Thistle bellowed. He ran straight up to Rannoch and as they came parallel the two deer seemed to be testing each other for just a moment, locked in an invisible conflict. Their antlers were of the same size and the battle would have been well matched. But Rannoch did nothing.
‘So you won’t fight me then?’ said Thistle at last. Rannoch hesitated. He was fighting with himself now.
‘No, I won’t fight you,’ he answered quietly, and he turned away.
‘But Rannoch,’ cried Willow.
Rannoch gave Willow a pained look. He glanced at Bankfoot and Tain and at his frightened mother standing next to the reindeer. The whole herd was hanging on his words now as he stood among his friends and the wounded Outriders.
‘Braan, I will be on the hill,’ he said quietly, ‘if you need me to help those wounds heal.’
But Braan didn’t answer. He looked coldly back at the stag. Rannoch paused. He felt hundreds of expectant eyes boring into him, trained on the fawn mark.
‘What is it you want of me?’ he cried with sudden anguish. Then Rannoch began to run, through the grass, up the hill.
As he went two Herla were entering the valley and they stopped apprehensively as they saw the herd gathered so closely together in the looming shadows. One was a stag and the other was a hind with a wound on her leg. They did not notice a third stag coming in from the south. His face was young and his eyes unusually bright and, unlike his kind, his forehead was unmarked.
20 The Island
‘Even the wisest man grows tense With some sort of violence Before he can accomplish fate, Know his work or choose his mate. W. B. Yeats, ‘Under Ben Bulben’
‘Let this cup pass from me.’ Matthew 26, 39
There was nothing that either Thistle or Braan could attempt until th
e Outriders’ wounds were healed. Besides, they really had no idea what they were going to do against the might of Sgorr’s Herla. However, in the suns that followed the confrontation with Rannoch, many in the herd began to look on Thistle with a new respect, and although nothing had really been settled, some even began to talk of him as the lord. Many a Larn in the coming days would find him and Braan standing apart from the rest of the herd, discussing the fate of the deer in the Low Lands.
Bankfoot and Tain looked on this with growing distress, for their loyalties had been torn in two. While their first loyalty was to Rannoch, they both felt that they had some duty to help Braan and the Outriders. Neither of them really acknowledged Thistle as Lord of the Herd, but they admired him for his courage and they were both desperately proud of their own positions as Outrider captains.
Birrmagnur found himself in an even more difficult position. He felt deeply for Braan and the others and what he had heard of Sgorr made the reindeer bitterly angry. But he was older and more circumspect than the rest and though he was as bemused as any about the Prophecy, he realized that Rannoch had been right about the impossible odds that faced them if they ventured south. He would argue this point forcefully and ask the deer why they couldn’t be happy living in the protection of the Great Mountain, free from Sgorr, or even moving deeper into the High Land.
Of all the friends, though, Willow was the most badly affected. She loved Rannoch deeply but she couldn’t fathom what had come over him now, and his denial of Anlach had already gravely disappointed her. She knew he was in pain but this sudden refusal to help the Outriders was the worst of all. As the suns passed Willow kept watching Thistle.
It was not that the whole herd was of one mind about what to do. Many of the hinds and even a sizeable number of the stags agreed with Rannoch and could see no hope of confronting Sgorr. Since the Slave Herds had been dissolved, they had only just begun to grow comfortable with their lives as free Herla, and many could see no reason to endanger that. The herd was split and while the Outriders, new and old, ranged the hills, others would look up to Rannoch talking to the Lera and tending to the sick, and nod to themselves.
There were many to attend to also after the battle above the loch. The Outriders’ wounds were deep and many had grown infected. Rannoch set those deer who supported him to collecting leaves and making poultices to help their wounds heal. At first the Outriders resisted, but Rannoch’s touch was so gentle and their needs so great, that they grudgingly submitted to his aid and were soon grateful for it. Not one who came from the south died of his wounds.
But now something happened that, for a brief time, subsumed not only thoughts of Sgorr or the Low Lands, but of the Prophecy too. Anlach arrived.
The stags began to fight for the hinds and soon the chill air was echoing with the bellow of rutting deer and the knock and clatter of jousting antlers. Heads were lowered in a conflict more primitive and consuming than any battle against Sgorr. Nature was stirring again in the deer’s veins, turning them against one another, testing their strength and challenging them to prove themselves in the greatest battle of all; the battle for survival.
As Rannoch looked out on the rutting stags his heart was deeply troubled as it had been ever since that night among the Standing Stones. For his time with Herne’s Herd had indeed had a deep effect on him and he was still wrestling to understand why.
He thought he had found an answer to his quest up there on the hill when he knew for certain that he was not Herne. He thought too that he had found a way of being free and living as a Herla. But as they had settled with the herd and tried to build a life, Rannoch had found that the violence that had so terrified him among Herne’s Herd, that he had smelt on the jaws of the wolf and sensed in the fearful glen, dwelt in the heart of the Herla too. In his own heart.
He had sensed it first when he had been with the boy and his antlers had come. And he felt it now as the deer jousted and boxed and fought for the hinds. Somewhere in him, Rannoch too longed to test himself against the other deer, to fight for his own hinds and to make his stand. To fight for Willow. Yet he was a healer, he knew that now, and he wanted to help things, not to harm them. And what he had told Birrmagnur about his power was true. When Anlach came and the blood rose in him, the ability to heal and to understand the Lera seemed to grow dim and fade.
Many times Rannoch would think of that and of the Prophecy and shake his head. So much of it seemed to be true, so much impossible. But deep inside, Rannoch was glad that his confusion meant that he could ignore those words that Blindweed had first mouthed to the calves. For with the years he had begun to think more and more of one line of the Prophecy that made him tremble: ‘Sacrifice shall be his meaning.’
He was thinking about the words now and all across the herd stags stood bellowing sentinel to the hinds that they had won in the rut when Birrmagnur came walking towards him through the grass. He looked grave.
‘I’ve found you at last,’ said the reindeer quietly as he arrived.
‘I’ve been looking for berries and horse chestnuts,’ began Rannoch, as cheerfully as he could.
‘Rannoch,’ interrupted Birrmagnur, ‘the others asked me to find you and tell you. They’re going away.’
‘Who?’
‘Thistle and the Outriders. They’re going south.’
‘They’ll be destroyed,’ said Rannoch quietly. ‘Is that what they really want?’
‘Rannoch, I’m going away as well,’ said Birrmagnur, dropping his head.
‘You, Birrmagnur? You’re going with them?’ The reindeer shook his head.
‘No, Rannoch, it’s time I found my own kind again.’
‘But why? Why don’t you stay with us?’
Birrmagnur paused and chewed the air.
‘What is it?’ said Rannoch.
‘It is not right, my friend,’ said Birrmagnur, ‘that Thistle is looked on as Lord of the Herd.’
‘I will not fight him.’
‘Nor Sgorr?’
‘No. The Outriders can do nothing against Sgorr.’ Birrmagnur nodded.
‘I’m sorry for you, Rannoch,’ he said, gazing at the white oak leaf on Rannoch’s brow, ‘but there’s other news. Willow has submitted to Thistle. She has joined his harem.’
Rannoch looked back at his old friend but he said nothing.
‘They have not had time to mate, and now they are going south she will join him. Peppa too.’
‘But they can’t,’ cried Rannoch with horror, ‘not Willow and Peppa.’
‘That’s what they plan to do.’
‘Thank you for telling me,’ said Rannoch sadly.
‘Rannoch,’ cried Birrmagnur suddenly, ‘you must choose. Choose to help them or not. Or fight Thistle for Willow. But you cannot continue to live like this.’
Rannoch was silent.
‘Well,’ said Birrmagnur, ‘I will come and say goodbye again. First I must make my farewells among the herd.’
As Rannoch watched his friend walking away he felt desperately alone. He looked out across the hills and there in the distance he saw Thistle moving slowly down the slope. In the valley below the Outriders were waiting for him and by his side Rannoch recognized the companion of his youth, Willow.
‘We’re all here,’ Thistle said as he reached the assembled deer. It was a ragged-looking bunch. ‘How many are coming, Braan?’
‘All forty-eight Outriders from the loch,’ answered the stag, ‘and with your thirty Herla, that makes about eighty.’
‘If Rannoch had been with us we could have trebled that,’ said Thistle bitterly. ‘Another twenty stags came from the north last week. But the rest of the herd listens to him and they fear Sgorr.’
‘It’s a pity Haarg won’t come,’ said Braan. ’He could have added to our numbers too. But he says he can’t leave Rannoch, not after everything he’s done.’
Willow looked sadly at Thistle as they talked of Rannoch. But she knew now that her duty lay with her friends.
‘I
wish he would change his mind,’ said Braan. ’Even if this prophecy isn’t true, to have him with us would lift the Outriders’ morale. If the Sgorrla heard of it, maybe we could persuade some of them to desert.’
‘Our best plan is to try and get as close to Sgorr as possible,’ said Thistle, ‘like we discussed. Then if a group of us can infiltrate the herd and kill him. . .’
Braan nodded, though the thought of what lay ahead of them filled none of the deer with any confidence. Thistle saw the look in their eyes and he tried to raise their spirits.
‘Captain Tain,’ he said firmly, ‘Captain Bankfoot. You will take ten Outriders and scout ahead as we travel. We must not be seen. It’s vitally important.’
Bankfoot and Tain lifted their antlers.
‘But have we time to say goodbye to him?’ said Willow. Thistle looked keenly at Willow.
‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘but you must hurry, we’re leaving before Larn. Winter is almost here and if we don’t beat it, we won’t be able to cross the Great Mountain until the spring. Who knows what will have happened in the Low Lands by then?’
The friends looked at each other almost guiltily. None of them could really believe that this was where their journey with Rannoch was coming to an end.
‘Willow,’ said Thistle, ‘you don’t have to come, you know. None of my other hinds want to. You can stay here with the herd and be safe.’
Suddenly Willow’s eyes blazed.
‘Thistle,’ she said frostily, ‘you called me at Anlach and I came. You are my lord now. Do you think I fear the danger?’
‘And you, Peppa?’ said Thistle.
‘I’ll stay with my sister,’ said the hind, though she was looking at Bankfoot.
When Willow found him, Rannoch was sitting on his own in the grass, ruminating sadly. Peppa, Bankfoot and Tain had already said their farewells and Rannoch looked deeply distressed. Again he had tried to dissuade his friends from going south, but it had been to no avail.
‘Rannoch,’ called the hind quietly as she walked up. Rannoch turned his head immediately.