by Roger Taylor
He lurched forward in the direction of the nearby trees. Pebbles and stones jumped and bounced out of his path as he neared them, branches rustled away from him as if he were the heart of a great wind.
Though aware of this turmoil, Rannick ignored it, letting his power flit to and fro indiscriminately. He felt a myriad tiny scrabblings and burrowings, panic-stricken, terrified. Insects, worms, ants, all the inconsequential creatures of the woodland, he divined. But nothing larger. And yet there must be birds about, perhaps squirrels, even a fox...
He stopped and forced himself to become calmer.
The uproar in his mind silenced, the sounds around him began to impinge again. He leaned forward, listening carefully. Beneath the ceaseless rustle of the trees he began to detect other noises, though they were diminishing rapidly. There were cries and squeals, and the crackling of undergrowth being hastily swept aside and trodden underfoot.
They were fleeing! All those creatures that could do so were fleeing from him. Running from him as if he were a summer fire.
He smacked the edge of his clenched fist against a tree in both frustration and elation. The rough bark grazed his hand but he did not notice. They knew what he could do. The simple creatures of the forest knew. They needed no painstaking reasoning and explanation. No demonstrations. They did not have to struggle with disbelief. They had confirmed his new-found skill with their flight as effectively as if they had remained there to be hurled to and fro like the rocks themselves.
It was good.
Then his hand throbbed. He looked at it. The skin had been broken and peeled back slightly. Absently, he raised his hand to his mouth, bit off the torn skin and sucked the small, bleeding wound clean.
It was good, he thought again as he spat out the dead skin.
Good...
The sensation resonated in his mind as if it had echoed and re-echoed from some towering cliff face, and his mouth suddenly became alive with the taste of blood; bitter ... warm...
Good...
For a moment terror flooded through him. As surely as he knew his own power when it reached out and touched things, so he knew now that that same power was reaching out and touching him.
The realization transformed his terror on the instant. No! His whole being cried out in rage. Grasses and bushes bowed flat before him and the branches of the trees around him swayed frantically. Somewhere, stones rattled. This could not be. This would not be. This was his gift, his power. He would share it with no one and he would destroy anyone who sought to use it against him.
He would destroy anyone who even possessed it.
The strange touch, however, was gone. Seemingly vanished at the instant of his furious inner cry.
Watchful, Rannick waited.
Slowly he sensed a faint shadow of the presence returning hesitantly. It was almost as if it were reluctant to depart.
Rannick gathered himself for a berserker onslaught to expunge this lingering remnant. The touch slithered away from his rage again. But it did not flee utterly. Rannick hesitated, curious now. He closed his eyes and covered his ears to shut out the sights and sounds around him so that he could better feel this strange presence that was both within and without him.
He sank to the ground, unwittingly increasing his isolation from his surroundings by crouching low and drawing his arms up over his head.
Cautiously he reached out. The presence moved away, wary, nervous. Yet Rannick sensed great strength in it; and its power was both the same and different from his own. It was more whole, more balanced, more assured. But it was also more feral, savage, unfettered.
It was an animal, he realized. A powerful, predatory, animal. Rannick's curiosity grew. What kind of an animal could it be, and how could it have his power?
And why did it stay with him like this? What did it want?
Then amid the nervousness he began to sense something else. It was familiar, but it eluded him for a moment. Only gradually did he recognize it as subservience.
And need!
The presence lingered because it needed him in some way!
No sooner had he reached this conclusion than the character of the presence seemed to change. A profound, black sense of loneliness—eternal loneliness—passed over him. But for all that, it evoked no sympathy, for it was riddled through with a dreadful malice, a malice that Rannick found drawing a like response from somewhere deep within himself.
Whatever this creature was, it was a kindred spirit.
And it needed him.
A small part of him whispered tentatively, Why? but the question died almost before it could be formed. Deeper forces within Rannick were guiding him now. Forces that knew that this creature could serve their needs.
Yet Rannick knew that it was a fearful thing. Could it not in its turn become the master instead of the servant?
It was the last lingering doubt.
No. He had never encountered an animal that he could not master if need arose, with whip or with will. And this one had already accepted him as its superior. Powerful and savage this creature might be, but it would be his to command.
A malevolent glee swept over him as the presence began to fawn on him.
* * * *
Farnor and Marna were the first to join the growing group of hunters converging on the edge of a small lake. Garren and Gryss had again fallen behind despite the downhill slope.
The group had formed into a circle at the centre of which lay another brutally slaughtered sheep.
From the peaks above came a sound like distant thunder. Farnor's flesh tingled.
'Rock slide,’ someone said casually, and attention reverted to the dead animal.
Garren and Gryss arrived, the elder quietly pushing his way to the front of the circle. He bent over the remains of the sheep. ‘This hasn't been dead as long as the other one,’ he pronounced after a brief inspection. ‘It's getting hungrier.'
'Or it's just acquiring the taste,’ Garren said. Gryss nodded. it was irrelevant which. Both knew that the attacks on the sheep would now become more frequent.
'It's making itself at home,’ someone said, by way of confirmation.
Gryss looked up at the sun. ‘We've quite a lot of the day left. We must try and find it or we'll be having to round up the flocks and set a night watch.'
This observation sobered even the merriest members of the group. A hunt was a hunt, but night watches were a different matter altogether. Dismal affairs at best. Small groups chosen by lot to mount guard on a few huddled sheep. Waiting silent through the cold, dark night, with no fire, no light, not even any talking to set aside the brooding presence of the unseen mountains. And certainly no ale. Fall asleep out there full of ale and glowing and, blanket or no, you could expect to wake up dead.
'Where do we start?’ a young man asked. ‘There aren't any tracks to follow.'
Gryss glowered at the speaker. ‘It's a big dog, or more than one,’ he said, pointing at the corpse. ‘There'll be signs somewhere if we bother to look properly. If not footprints, then fur snagged on the gorse or a bush. Or bits of this poor beast dropped somewhere. Just spread out carefully and keep your eyes open.'
Subdued, the hunters did as they were bidden.
'What can we do?’ Farnor asked his father.
'The same,’ Garren replied. ‘But keep us in sight.'
As Farnor made to walk away, Garren laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I mean that,’ he said sternly but softly so that Marna would not hear. ‘I don't want you, by the way, drifting off into some thicket with milady there.'
Farnor coloured and opened his mouth to deny the implicit accusation, but too many protestations formed at once and culminated only in an incoherent stutter which Garren waved to silence. He repeated Gryss's comments. ‘We have to find whatever's killing these sheep as quickly as possible now, but it's marked this place out as its territory and it's liable to attack anyone who stumbles on it carelessly. So be alert. No foolishness of any kind. Do you understand?'
&
nbsp; 'What's the matter?’ Marna asked as Farnor joined her.
Farnor, still a little indignant, fought down a petulant ‘Nothing!', and substituted, ‘He was just telling me to be careful.'
Marna looked at him and then back at the two men. They were laughing about something. Her eyes narrowed, but she said nothing.
Inexorably, Marna and Farnor's search carried them back in the direction of the castle, though, in conscience, they were diligent in their duties, scanning the ground for signs of the passage of the predator. It was, however, with mixed feelings that Farnor noticed some flattened ferns at the edge of an overgrown area bounding the grassy slope up which he and Marna were walking.
He bent down to examine the damaged fronds. They were bloodstained.
'I'll call the others,’ Marna said and, putting two fingers in her mouth, she gave a piercing whistle.
'Don't touch it,’ she said. ‘The dogs might be able to pick up a scent.'
They did. But instead of a chorus of excited barking rising to greet this find, an oppressive silence fell on the group as each dog in its turn sniffed the ferns and then started back, ears flattened and tail curled deep between its legs. Some whimpered.
'Leash them,’ Gryss said softly. ‘It looks like we'll have to finish this without them.'
The dogs’ unease, though, had spread to the hunters and such enthusiasm as they still had waned markedly as they tied up their dogs.
'So it's big,’ Garren said, speaking the silent concern. ‘We knew that. We've got staves and axes enough for any dog, haven't we, for pity's sake? Do you really want to come back up here on night watches? Come on. Let's find the damn thing and kill it.’ And without waiting for any debate, he plunged off through the ferns. Rather shamefacedly the others followed, some of them raising their spirits by roundly swearing at their dogs.
After his initial rush Garren soon slowed down for, large though it might have been, the animal had left little in the way of clear signs to follow: a broken stem here, long grass trampled there.
Then some fur snagged on a bush.
Garren untangled it and rubbed it pensively between his fingers. It was a mixture of black and dark brown and unusually coarse. He offered it to one of the dogs, but again the ears went back and the tail drooped, and the dog looked reproachfully at its master.
Garren pulled a rueful face as he straightened up and threw the fur away. ‘Well, at least with this colour it should be easy enough to spot,’ he said.
Farnor bent and picked up the fur as the group set off again. It had a peculiarly unpleasant feel to it, and he felt his skin crawling again just as it had when he had heard the rumble of the rock slide earlier.
He rubbed his right arm to still the sensation but his touch felt odd, as if both hand and arm were someone else's, someone in a different place, at once near and far away. He glanced down, momentarily fearful. His arm and his hand looked as they felt, near yet distant; his, yet not his. Only the dark fur of the strange, slaughtering animal held in the familiar, alien fingers seemed to be truly real and present. Indeed, it was vividly present, as if it alone belonged here.
Something somewhere began to form the idea that he was light-headed with the sun and the walking and the excitement of events that day, but it faded into the background as, abruptly, a dreadful malevolence seemed to possess him.
That it was the spirit of the creature they were hunting he knew as surely as he knew his father and Gryss and the others about him, pressing forward through the ferns in their own distant world.
He heard the breath being drawn from him at the horror of the sensation, while at the same time he felt two responses rise within him like ill-matched horses drawing a wagon. Sword-swinging rage to destroy this abomination and all its ilk for ever. And pity for this creation, into which so much wilful evil had been nurtured.
Part of him reached out...
* * * *
Following a path of his own, Rannick faltered as the presence about him momentarily vanished, then returned, heightened tenfold and full of bloodlust and desire. Desire for vengeance.
* * * *
With a gasp, Farnor fell headlong forward.
* * *
Chapter 5
Many sounds filled the swimming darkness that was another place. Sounds and sensations. Clamouring, pushing. Unfocused and incoherent.
Confusion, bewilderment, concern. And, too, anger; human anger. And a different anger; a demented anger; an unfettered animal anger full of awful intent. The two were mingled in an unholy union.
Then they were gone, snatched away brutally. In their wake was a strange void that gradually filled with a myriad voices whispering and calling softly. There was a sense of a vast ... family? filled with surprise and inquiry; and some disbelieving alarm. How could it have come here?
But that too drifted away ... softer ... and softer.
And then he was many people, staring, talking, anxious for the downed young man.
Mostly anxious.
And finally there was only confusion. Eddying to and fro, slipping tantalizingly into coherence then slipping away before it could be grasped. Until, slowly, a rhythm made its way through the swirling din and demanded attention. Drawing all to it like mountain streams to a valley lake.
'Farnor. Farnor.'
Light entered the darkness, painfully bright.
And blue.
'Farnor. Son.'
And he was back; the focus of a ring of worried faces centred by Gryss, head cocked on one side, and his father and Marna gazing down at him. The heavy scent of crushed ferns filling his nostrils.
He held up his hand and stared at it curiously. It was there, and solid, and, beyond debate, his. He felt unexpectedly relieved at the revelation.
'Are you all right?’ His father's voice impinged on his reverie.
Farnor looked up at him and smiled. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘What happened?'
'You tell me what happened,’ Gryss replied, almost indignantly. ‘You fell over. You've been unconscious for a good few minutes.'
Farnor made to sit up but Gryss restrained him. ‘Give yourself a moment,’ he said. ‘It's probably the heat. When did you eat last?'
Farnor scowled. A surge of rebellion stirred in him. He wouldn't be treated like some sticky child out on his first round-up. The humiliation!
But a quieter part of him set the indignation aside.
He looked again at the watching faces. People he had known all his life. Down-to-earth people. Some he liked, some he respected, some made him laugh, some were just friends.
He wanted to tell them that in some way he had touched the creature that they were hunting. Touched it and other things also. He wanted to tell them that the creature was profoundly evil and that if it were caught—and that would be no light task—then it would wreak appalling destruction on its captors.
There was no doubt about his new-gained knowledge of the creature, though how it had come to him he could not begin to fathom—it was just there. But they would not understand. Not even his own father. Gryss, perhaps. But still...
'I'm fine,’ he said. ‘Truly. I must have snagged my foot and tumbled. Winded myself. Or banged my head on the ground.'
Garren looked at him closely and then stood up, relieved normality closing about him. He made a small pantomime of searching for damage to the ground as he gave his son's shoulder a squeeze. ‘I can't see a dent,’ he said. There was some laughter from the spectators at this antic, and several hands helped Farnor to his feet. As he stood he caught Gryss's eye; the eye of old Gryss, the healer, from whom little could be kept.
Farnor shrugged.
'Watch where you're putting your feet then, young Farnor,’ Gryss said significantly. ‘I doubt anyone here's anxious to be carrying you back home.'
And the hunt set off again.
Farnor was relieved to have avoided further interrogation by Gryss, but sensed that this was only a postponement.
'Are you all right? What happened?�
�� The questions this time came softly from Marna.
'I told you, I tripped,’ Farnor replied irritably, though equally softly.
'You didn't,’ Marna hissed. ‘You were looking at the fur, then you went down like a log. I saw you.'
'I don't want to talk about it,’ Farnor said, recognizing the mistake even as he made it.
Marna seized it. ‘Talk about what?’ she demanded.
'Nothing!’ Farnor snapped as loudly as he dared. Marna took his arm and shook it. ‘I'll tell you later,’ he surrendered, and Marna released him grudgingly.
The group continued in silence for some time until the ferns petered out, and with them even such small signs as the creature had left. And there were other problems.
The path they had been following had taken them away from the castle, but they were almost level with it. Ahead the valley floor rose gradually, and the tree cover became thicker.
Without any command they stopped. To continue would be to go beyond the castle. They had reached the boundary of their territory and, though no obstacle opposed them, only some grim necessity would make them go further.
Gryss swore under his breath. He knew that for every reason he could put forward for continuing, two would be raised for turning back and trying some other method of catching the creature. Even night watches. As leader he would have to follow.
'This is far enough,’ he said, voicing the silent consensus. ‘It seems as if it's hiding in the woods up there. It could be anywhere. We'll have to wait for it to come to us, after all.'
Farnor looked around, registering only faintly the unspoken unwillingness to travel beyond this unmarked boundary. Having been drawn past his own limits, he saw nothing in this place to restrain him. On either side of the valley the high peaks were closing in, but they were not yet oppressive. Ahead lay rising undulations of easy mountain turf no different from those parts of the valley that he knew. And the trees too were no different. Swaying and whispering gently. Almost as if they were calling out to him.
To the left, some way away and much higher than the motionless group, was the castle, oddly dominant now in spite of the mountains behind it.