‘They’re all around us,’ answered Rannoch quietly. ‘They are here to restore the Island Chain.’
Sgorr paused. Something in the way Rannoch had said it made him tremble. It was another link in the Prophecy. But Sgorr shook off the feeling.
‘Dreams and nightmares!’ he spat. ‘Man will never come to your aid.’
‘He already has once,’ said Rannoch, ‘and I have knowledge of man, Sgorr. The Prophecy talks of that too.’
‘Knowledge of man?’ scoffed Sgorr. ‘What knowledge can there be that is greater than mine? All my life I have tried to study man, not as Herne’s Herd learnt from him, turning his power to superstition, but learning from the power that is greater than the Lera’s. Learning to think.’
‘Is that what you learnt on the island?’ said Rannoch coldly.
Sgorr swung his head up suddenly.
‘So you know?’ he gasped.
‘Yes, Sgorr, I know.’
Sgorr suddenly felt a terrible weakness enter him.
‘How much do you know?’ he said.
‘I know that you swam to the island as a young deer,’ whispered Rannoch.’I know that you stole a human fawn, Sgorr.’
Rannoch’s voice was trembling as he spoke.
‘And I know that you killed it,’ he said sadly, his voice echoing round the trees.
Sgorr’s eye peered back at Rannoch in the coming twilight. He suddenly felt afraid.
‘But I do not know why,’ whispered Rannoch.
‘And you would never understand,’ said Sgorr quietly.
‘Tell me,’ said the stag.
Sgorr peered back at Rannoch and there was fury in his look.
‘Very well. I went there to study man and learn from him. For suns I watched the humans in their dwelling. I learnt many things. That’s where I got the idea of sharpening the Herla’s antlers, from watching them grinding their shining sticks. Many other things too. But then the human hind had a fawn.’
‘And you stole it and killed it. Why?’
‘Why?’ cried Sgorr. ’Because I wanted to be stronger than them. Stronger than Herne. I made a sacrifice to myself. So I should never be afraid of anything again. I wanted the strength of his spirit to enter me and make me invincible.’
Rannoch looked back at the burning fury in Sgorr’s eye and he trembled as he realized that the thing he and Rurl had only guessed at on the island was true. They had hardly dared believe it as they had looked down at the little skeleton buried there in the sand, at the gaping skull and the ribs around the upper chest, broken and torn away.
‘So you. . .’
‘Yes,’ spat Sgorr, on the edge of frenzy, ‘so I ate its heart.’ Rannoch looked at Sgorr now and he felt almost sorry for him.
‘And when the leaders of Herne’s Herd discovered it, even they drove you out?’
‘I had transgressed the oldest law for they worshipped man as much as Herne. But though I admire man, I will worship nothing. Nothing.’
Sgorr was trembling with rage.
‘So that’s why you sealed the High Land?’
‘Until I could be sure that Herne’s Herd was destroyed and my secret safe. The Herla would never understand,’ said Sgorr almost sadly, ‘why it was. . . why it was necessary.’
‘You are evil, Sgorr,’ said Rannoch quietly.
‘There is no evil,’ answered Sgorr furiously.
‘You must be destroyed,’ said Rannoch, but there was little anger in his voice.
‘And you will destroy me?’ snorted Sgorr.’I am old, Rannoch, and you could kill me here and now. But there are those who will step into my place. Narl, and others. The Herla are strong now and the Great Herd is invincible.’
‘You’re wrong. For the Herla are coming from the north. The Outriders will fight you’
‘Outriders? They can do nothing. By tomorrow your friends will have been destroyed. They are trapped now, at the corrie. If you kill me they will still be destroyed and how then will you have served your god? You have failed, Rannoch, failed.’
‘Not yet,’ said Rannoch, ‘and that is what I have come to tell you. I thought perhaps I could reason with you, but now I see that is impossible. Well, Sgorr, know this. I will be there tomorrow and Herne will be at my back.’
Sgorr looked at the stag standing there so defiantly and he suddenly felt a strange admiration for him.
‘Then come on,’ he said quietly, ‘to fulfil your prophecy. For not even you know the end of it. You know what it says, Rannoch? If it is true, then you are the sacrifice. If you come tomorrow, you will die, Rannoch.’
Rannoch stared back at the hornless deer and inside he trembled also, but he snorted and turned away. Light was cracking all around them now.
‘Mark me,’ he whispered, ‘tomorrow I will come again. So look for me, Sgorr, and fear me.’
With that Rannoch was gone.
Sgorr stood there shaking in the grass.
‘Very well,’ he hissed, ‘then, if I have to, I will fight Herne himself.’
Rannoch ran as swiftly as he could away from the herd, towards the corrie. He was thinking now of his friends and of Willow. He would be with them soon. To fight and die with them if necessary. But first he had one more thing to do. He was looking for one of the human stands and for an antler to take with him to the fray, an antler of wood and sap, that burnt with the humans’ orange light.
24 The Stand
‘Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?’ Percy Bysshe Shelley, ‘Ode to the West Wind’
‘We must rush them now, break through the pass,’ said Thistle gravely.
The sun was high in the corrie and the clouds had cleared. The light was glittering off the lake now as the Outriders faced the day. The night had been nerve-racking for them all, but the Sgorrla had not attacked and at least they were rested. All morning they had been discussing what to do and now, as the day wore on, the urgency of their situation was crowding in on them again. They had noticed, though, that the Sgorrla seemed a little distracted and fewer than ever were in the neck of the pass.
‘It shouldn’t be impossible to get through,’ said Tain, ‘if we stay close together and run fast. The fighting will be worst in the centre of the pass, though. It’s very narrow and the Sgorrla will hit us from the slopes.’
‘Willow,’ said Thistle, ‘I want you and Peppa in the centre of the Outriders.’
‘No,’ said Willow immediately, ‘I can kick and—’
‘Please, Willow, you’ve done enough already. Do as I say.’ The hind looked steadily back at Thistle and then she nodded.
‘Well then,’ said Thistle quietly, ‘let’s get on with it.’
He turned to the Outriders. There were over a hundred and sixty of them, standing by the water with their antlers tilting expectantly. Thistle felt that they could face anything.
‘Come on,’ he cried suddenly, ‘let’s show the Sgorrla what we’re made of.’
Thistle began to run and Tain and Bankfoot leapt after him. Then the Outriders were all running, through the corrie, towards the pass.
‘Willow,’ cried Thistle as they ran. He was just in front of her.
‘What is it?’
‘When you were in the herd, did you hear anything of Alyth?’
Bankfoot overheard the question and he looked painfully at Willow.
‘No,’ called the hind sadly, ‘nothing.’
The Sgorrla in the pass saw them coming but many among their number had wandered away to graze and others were still high on the mountainside. They hadn’t expected the Outriders to try and break out quite so suddenly and anyway they were waiting for reinforcements. They began to rally, their commanders bellowing orders, but when the Outriders hit them they had, if not quite the element of surprise, then the force of an attack on their side.
Soon the narrow pass was alive with fighting deer, as the Outriders began to battle their way through. They were making hea
dway already, cutting and jabbing and rising on their haunches. The Sgorrla came down on them from the slopes, but the Outriders fought them off as every effort was turned to breaking through the pass.
Willow and Peppa stayed in the middle of the Outriders and they both wished they had antlers. But the hinds were not completely protected from the fighting. At one point a Sgorrla overreached himself on a charge and, pushing past an Outrider, came within an antler’s length of Peppa. The hind saw him and lashed out with her back hoof, catching him in the face just as he lowered his head.
‘We’re going to make it, Willow,’ cried Peppa amid the throng, ‘we’re going to make it.’
Ahead of them the hind could already see the end of the pass. But a wall of deer rose up in front of them and again the way was barred.
‘One last push,’ cried Thistle, lunging forwards. He met a large Sgorrla head-on and their antlers locked. Tain and Bankfoot dropped their antlers too and suddenly the way was clear again.
‘That’s it,’ shouted Thistle, but as he did so Willow gasped.
A single Sgorrla was coming at him full tilt, hurtling down the side of the mountain. The stag dipped his head as he ran and literally sprung from the slope, hurling himself at Thistle. Willow ran forward to try and get between them, but the cups of the stag’s antlers caught Thistle in the side and the deer stumbled and fell, somersaulting over as he did so. Willow pulled up as soon she saw him fall, as did Bankfoot and Haarg. Around them the Outriders swept on through the pass as Bankfoot fought off the lone Sgorrla. They had already put some distance between themselves and the rest of the pursuing Sgorrla so Willow rushed to Thistle’s side.
He lay there motionless on the earth.
‘Thistle,’ cried Willow, ‘Thistle.’ Thistle didn’t move.
‘Quickly, Thistle, before they’re on us again.’
Willow had seen the Sgorrla’s antlers strike and she knew that they couldn’t have gone in deep enough to do any real harm. But as she looked down at Thistle, she realized with horror what had happened. It wasn’t the antler that had done for Thistle, it was the fall. The deer had broken his neck.
‘No, Thistle, it can’t be,’ she gasped.
But the deer didn’t stir. Bankfoot came to Willow’s side and stared down in amazement at his dead friend.
‘I didn’t even have time to tell him about Alyth,’ whispered Willow bitterly.
‘That was one mercy, at least,’ said Bankfoot quietly. But there was no time to mourn.
‘Quickly,’ cried Haarg behind them. ‘They’re coming on again.’
Blind with rage, Willow and Bankfoot began to run after Haarg towards the head of the pass, where they could see Tain leading the Outriders out into the plain beyond. Tain had no idea of what had happened and now the captain’s heart was thrilling with courage and pride as he raced away. They had made it through.
But as the Outriders cleared the far end of the pass and swept into the plain, the forest curving to their left and a river swerving away to the right with more mountains beyond, the deer were met with a sight that threw them into confusion and despair. Tain pulled up in horror and the band of Outriders did the same. They all came to a halt.
There in front of them, as far as the eye could see, the Outriders were confronted with Sgorrla. Fallow and roe deer too. There must have been a thousand stags, stretching from the forest to the river. An army of antlers. The Great Herd was before them, waiting silently in the day.
Willow, Bankfoot and Haarg reached them too and though their thoughts had been on Thistle, lying dead in the pass, the sight of the Great Herd swept everything else from their minds. The friends and the Outriders looked at each other in despair.
‘We could turn back,’ cried Braan.
‘No, they’re coming through the pass,’ panted Bankfoot.
‘Quickly, make for the trees,’ shouted Tain, but as he did so and some of the Outriders swung to the left they saw more antlers emerging into the daylight at every passable point of the forest.
‘The river,’ said Bankfoot, but on the far side of the water a line of deer were already moving up to block their escape. There, on the wide plain, the hundred and sixty Outriders – so impressive a sight in the home herd or even in the corrie – were dwarfed by the regiments of deer that surrounded them.
‘Tain,’ cried Peppa desperately. ’Tain, what shall we do?’
‘Thistle,’ said Tain, suddenly waking from this vision of hopelessness, ‘let’s try to. . .’
But as he looked round Tain realized that Thistle was missing.
‘Thistle, where’s Thistle?’
He was looking at Willow and the hind shook her head sadly.
‘He never made it through the pass.’
Tain gazed back at her in horror but now the captain’s instincts began to rally for he realized that without Thistle the Outriders were leaderless. He turned to scan the plain desperately and almost immediately his eyes settled on a patch of ground to the west, near the forest, that rose a way above the plain; a hillock of rock and heaped earth with a single rowan tree growing in its middle, but wide enough for a good many deer.
‘There,’ cried Tain, ‘we’ll make our stand there.’
Braan had seen it too and he was already bellowing to the Outriders as he turned towards it. Like a flock of birds the deer swung after him and again they were running, making for the higher ground. The Sgorrla saw what they were doing and instantly fifty of them broke from the facing wall of deer and rushed forward to try and cut them off. But the mound was closer to the Outriders than to the Great Herd and as the Sgorrla drew near, Braan and Tain had already reached it. The Outriders flowed up its sides after them and as they did so the Sgorrla pulled up and, bucking their antlers angrily, turned back to the main body of the herd.
There the Outriders settled. The four old friends, with Braan and Haarg at their side, gathered round the rowan tree, the other stags all about them. They made a brave sight, but a desperate one too. Silence fell on the plain and the Outriders waited, but the Sgorrla didn’t move. The deer across the river made no attempt to cross the water and to the east the Sgorrla stayed in the shadow of the trees. Behind them the pass was sealed again with stags, but they did not advance either. They were all waiting.
Suddenly, as the Outriders looked on at their impenetrable enemy, the ranks of the Sgorrla in front of them began to stir and then parted. Through the middle of them came two deer. From the hillock the friends recognized Narl and at his side was an old stag whose bare head stood out clearly among the waves of antlers.
‘Sgorr,’ hissed Braan.
Narl and Sgorr had reached the front of the stags and they began to range up and down the columns of waiting deer, inspecting their antlers and nodding approvingly.
Sgorr smiled inwardly. His night terrors and the shock of meeting Rannoch had passed away with the morning and now his courage swelled as he looked on. The Outriders were so few compared to the Sgorrla, the odds nearly ten to one. Though Sgorr was concerned about the Herla coming from the north, his scouts had seen nothing at all and he knew that they would never reach the Outriders in time. They were doomed.
‘He has lost, Narl,’ whispered Sgorr delightedly.
Narl nodded. He had been amazed when Sgorr told him of Rannoch’s visit, but any fear that had woken in his heart was dispelled by the sheer might of the Great Herd.
‘Today we will put an end to the Prophecy,’ said Sgorr.
‘Before Larn comes we will put an end to Herne once and for all. And if he dares to come we will put an end to Rannoch too.’
Narl smiled.
‘Narl, I will watch from those trees,’ said Sgorr, nodding casually towards a cluster of birches. ‘Bring some Sgorrla to guard me. But first I want to talk to these fools.’
Narl gave the order as Sgorr walked forwards. The distance to the mound was some twenty tall trees, but the plain dipped slightly and in the still air Sgorr’s voice carried clearly to the waiting Outrid
ers and across the ranks of the Sgorrla too.
‘Outriders,’ he cried, ‘I had thought to let you live, for Narl tells me you fought well in the corrie. But now I see you, I feel nothing but contempt. You will never see another Larn.’
Sgorr dipped his head and as the Outriders stood there they trembled, for across the grass came a terrible sound. A violent clicking. The Sgorrla were knocking their antlers together in rhythm.
The dreadful noise carried far through the day, even to the slopes of the surrounding mountains where three old hinds trembled as they watched the tragic scene.
‘I’m frightened, Willow,’ whispered Peppa as the clicking swelled across the plain.
Willow smiled sadly at her sister.
‘If we’re to die,’ she answered, ‘then at least we will die together.’
Peppa lifted her head. Bankfoot and Tain were listening now and the friends drew near and looked at each other silently. Bankfoot gazed at Peppa sadly, for he had never even told the hind what he felt for her. But they had all been through so much together and they knew each other so well, that words now seemed barely necessary.
‘You know,’ said Bankfoot after a while, smiling as he looked at the splash of black by Peppa’s ear, ‘I always longed to be an Outrider. And here I am, an Outrider captain. But for what? I’ll never even get a chance to guard the herd. It’s funny, really.’
‘Don’t say it, Bankfoot,’ said Tain quietly. ‘Be proud to be a captain.’
Bankfoot looked at his friend and nodded.
‘I am,’ he whispered.
‘And I’m proud that I’ve known you,’ said Willow, ‘all of you.’
‘If only Rannoch would come,’ said Peppa.
‘No, Peppa,’ whispered Tain, ‘it is better that he’s not here. What could he do? If there are more Herla coming from the north they’ll never make it through the pass in time. And Rannoch alone, he would just add his carcass to ours. I’m glad he’s not here.’
‘And at least I know now,’ said Willow, ‘that he was never a coward. But I wish. . . I wish. . . Our parting was so terrible.’