by Roger Taylor
Rannick put his head on one side, his brow fur-rowed in puzzlement. ‘What do you…?’ he began, then he stopped and straightened and his face hardened. He spoke slowly and very deliberately, his forefinger emphasizing his words. There was a finality in his voice that was unmistakable.
‘Tell me about yourself and your companions, Mei-rach,’ he said. ‘Now!’
He opened his mouth wide with this last word and it seemed to Meirach that Rannick was not a man, but the heart of a terrible storm. A blast of air struck him, scouring his burned face. He covered it with his hands, but to no avail. The wind seemed to seep around his fingers, tearing at his burns with relish.
He sank to his knees.
‘For pity’s sake, no more,’ he said hoarsely. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘I told you before,’ Rannick replied, almost gently. ‘Everything.’
* * * *
Moving carefully along the rock face above the tree line, Yeorson and his men gradually made their way around the headland until, at last, they found themselves able to look along the valley for some distance.
The valley wound and twisted away from them, and throughout the length that could be seen, the majestic peaks and ridges rose out of a dense, continuous forest. A strong breeze was blowing around the vantage that the climbers had reached, cooling damp foreheads and tacking chilly shirts and tunics to damp backs, but the forest below seemed unaffected by it, lying serene in the spring sunshine.
Its serenity, however, did not encompass the watch-ers. Yeorson swore and wiped his arm across his brow. He looked up at the cliff looming over him, and thence at the neighbouring peaks. It was beyond him or any of his men to scale it, and, as far as he could judge the ridges, he doubted that they could be traversed easily by anyone capable of reaching them.
One of his men spoke. ‘That Rannick said the valley led to the Great Forest. Just getting through this lot is going to be a major expedition, and if there’s only more forest at the end of it…’
He left the observation unfinished.
Yeorson offered him no rebuke; the words chimed too closely with his own thoughts and the speaker was Haral, as bloody-handed a follower of Nilsson as any and by no definition either a grumbler or a faint heart.
He nodded but entered no debate. ‘We’ve seen what we came to see,’ he said. ‘Let’s get back down, then we’ll decide what’s to be…’
‘Hush!’ someone said, holding up his hand urgently for silence.
The group froze into alert immobility and the speaker craned forward in concentration.
A faint high-pitched sound drifted up to them. It continued for a few seconds then it was gone, sub-merged under the wind soughing around them.
There was a brief silence. Though scarcely percepti-ble, there had been an unsettling, even frightening, edge to the sound. ‘Never heard an animal make a noise like that,’ Haral said, voicing everyone’s thoughts. He frowned, uncharacteristically uncertain. ‘What if that Rannick was right about this place being bad, danger-ous?’ he said.
Yeorson looked at the forest stretching ahead, then at the treacherously easy-looking journey sloping away from them back towards the camp. He saw both for what they were and his face became contemptuous. ‘We’re dangerous, Haral,’ he said. ‘And certainly more dangerous than anything that lives down there.’ The sneer curled into a dark smile. ‘Anyway, when we get back to camp we might be able to encourage friend Rannick to explain himself in more detail.’
It was an encouraging prospect.
* * * *
When they arrived back at the camp, however, it was to the news that Rannick had not been found, and that Meirach was gone.
‘What do you mean, gone?’ Yeorson demanded.
‘What I said,’ Storran protested. ‘He’s taken a horse and left.’
‘Didn’t he leave a message?’
‘No.’
There was some debate about why Meirach had left but Yeorson was in no mood for reason. Something about this place was unnerving him. He lashed out.
‘And where’s Rannick, for crying out loud?’ he shouted angrily. ‘How could you not find him? He was only on foot.’
Storran’s round face coloured and his mouth tight-ened warningly. ‘And what did you find, after your climb?’ he asked with menacing softness.
Yeorson told him.
‘Marvellous,’ Storran exclaimed witheringly. ‘Noth-ing but forest ahead of us. Meirach wandering off when he’s supposed to be guarding the horses. And that bumpkin, Rannick, running us round in circles.’ He swore violently and, suddenly drawing his sword, aimed a savage blow at the trunk of a nearby tree. It was an uncharacteristic outburst and the men moved away from him warily. Nevertheless, it served to bring the two leaders back to their senses.
‘What happened?’ Yeorson asked as Storran sheathed his sword.
Storran clenched and unclenched his fists as the residual irritation expended itself. ‘He left tracks a blind man could follow,’ he said. ‘Here, there, everywhere. Wandering aimlessly, by the look of it.’ He waved his hands vaguely. ‘We couldn’t see any traps he might have been visiting. Then we came to a rocky outcrop and the tracks just disappeared.’
‘Disappeared?’ Yeorson queried.
Storran nodded. ‘We looked all around it and couldn’t find any sign of a camp or of him leaving,’ he replied. ‘My nose tells me he knew we’d follow him and that he was leading us on. It was a mistake to let him go last night.’
‘Well, we did,’ Yeorson said with growling fatalism. ‘But right now we’ve got other things to worry about, namely Meirach and where we go next: forward through this damn forest or back to the castle.’
There was no serious alternative. They would have to search for Meirach.
‘He’s a troublesome son of a whore, but he’s too handy in a fight to lose,’ was Yeorson’s conclusion. ‘We can decide whether to go on or back when we find what kind of a state he’s in.’
They would all go, it was agreed, leaving a note for Meirach should he return to find the camp deserted, and marking their route well. Not knowing what they were going to find, there was no point in splitting the patrol again.
An examination of the ground around the tether line showed them the direction in which Meirach had left. It was to the north.
‘And he’s leading his horse,’ Storran said, crouching down to study the tracks more closely.
Both pieces of information were puzzling. What could have possessed him to head further away from the castle?
After some congestion around the edge of the clear-ing, the trees became more widely separated and the undergrowth less dense. The patrol was obliged to move slowly and carefully as they followed Meirach’s tracks, and their progress took on the appearance of being nothing more than a group of friends enjoying a leisurely afternoon ride across a stately parkland as they moved through the leaf-shadowed shafts of sunlight.
They travelled thus for some time.
Then Haral touched Yeorson’s arm and pointed. Yeorson squinted into the distance and in turn reached out and touched Storran.
Ahead of them lay a mound. It was not possible to make out what it was from a distance because of the shadows being thrown across it by the surrounding trees, but when they reached it, such quietness of spirit each might have been secretly relishing in the silent search, vanished abruptly. The mound was a horse. Its belly and throat had been ripped open and its entrails strewn about the forest floor. Flies were beginning to gather.
For a while the men simply stared at the carnage. They had seen worse in their time, but this had a peculiar horror by virtue of the sunlit calm about them and the implications for their companion.
‘What kind of an animal could’ve done that?’ some-one said eventually, his voice hoarse with shock.
Storran ignored the question and moved to stem any outburst of conjectures. ‘Stay mounted,’ he said sternly, swinging down from his horse. ‘And keep still. We don’t want to disturb
any tracks.’
His voluptuous mouth twisted in distaste, he ap-proached the carcass. Yeorson joined him.
‘Good question,’ Yeorson said softly as they both crouched by the body. ‘What could’ve done this?’
‘And what did it do to Meirach?’ Storran added.
‘We heard some kind of a scream when we were up the mountain,’ Yeorson said. ‘Did you hear anything?’
‘Faintly,’ Storran replied. ‘We were a long way from here.’
‘Well, I’ll wager that tells us when this happened,’ Yeorson said, standing up. ‘How do you think we should go about finding out what?’
Storran was prodding the body thoughtfully. ‘I’m not sure I want to,’ he said.
‘We’ve got to find Meirach,’ Yeorson said, uncertain about Storran’s intentions.
Storran glanced up at him. ‘Look at the size of this bite.’ He poked the jagged edge of a wound in the horse’s side. ‘Whatever did this won’t have left much of Meirach.’
‘We’ve still got to find him. Or whatever’s left of him,’ Yeorson said. ‘Morale’s bad enough, and on the whole I’d rather face whatever did this than have to tell Nilsson we lost someone and didn’t look for him.’
Storran looked at the waiting men then heaved him-self upright. ‘I know,’ he said, blowing out a resigned breath. ‘Let’s get on with it.’ He turned to the men. ‘Those of you who’ve got them, string your bows,’ he said. ‘And if you see anything big, shoot it and ask after.’
‘Even if it’s Meirach?’ someone shouted.
‘Especially if it’s Meirach, the trouble he’s caused us,’ Storran said.
The raucous laughter was strained as it floated up to the sunlit canopy overhead.
There sat two figures.
‘Your friends don’t seem to be taking your loss too much to heart, Meirach,’ Rannick said softly.
Meirach’s face had a deathly pallor which made his burns peculiarly livid. He stared at Rannick wide-eyed, but made no answer.
Chapter 15
‘What do you mean, you couldn’t find him?’ Nilsson thundered, bringing his two fists violently down on to the table.
Yeorson and Storran held their ground before his onslaught, but barely.
‘Just that, Captain,’ Yeorson said. He summarized his account again. ‘There were the tracks of a horse and someone walking it up to where we found its body, then…’ He shrugged in exaggerated helplessness. ‘Nothing. Literally nothing. No sign of anyone or anything moving away from the body. We circled out to over a hundred paces, and there was still nothing. We went back to the camp site to see if we’d missed anything else, but we hadn’t. We’d followed the only track out other than those we’d made ourselves. There was nothing we could do but come back.’ He leaned forward. ‘That place is bad, Captain,’ he said. ‘Me and Storran felt it the first time we went. This fellow, Rannick, said the same, and he was a weird one. We’ve got problems to the north, Captain. My guts tell me it’ll cost us dear if we go that way and if there’s only this… Great Forest… at the other end.’
Nilsson met his gaze ominously. ‘I don’t want to hear this, Yeorson,’ he said.
‘I didn’t want to have to tell you, Captain,’ Yeorson replied, doggedly.
Nilsson’s eyes narrowed, but Dessane, sitting next to him, whispered, ‘Steady, Nils. Listen to him. You didn’t see the men when they came back; they were badly shaken up. We’re going to have a serious morale problem on our hands if we’re not careful. Something’s frightened Yeorson to make him talk like that. He’s a good man, you know that. So is Storran. Better with us than against us.’
Nilsson remained motionless for a moment then he nodded and relaxed.
‘Sit down,’ he said to the two men. Hesitantly they did as they were told, judiciously placing themselves at the opposite side of the table.
Silence filled the room as Nilsson pondered the news he had received. When he spoke, his heavy face had a grim set about it. ‘I suppose everyone knows about Meirach and the horse by now, but have you told anyone about your… feelings… about the forest?’ he asked.
‘No, Captain,’ Yeorson and Storran replied simulta-neously.
‘Good. See it stays that way. And anything we dis-cuss here, now, stays between us also. Is that clear?’ Nilsson twisted his chair sideways and, leaning backwards on it, swung his leg on to the table. ‘This is a cosy niche,’ he said, looking round at the stone walls whose bareness seemed to lend no small irony to his words. ‘And we’ve reached it without making any great stir. Without… anyone… knowing where we are. We’ve been lucky.’ He rocked his chair back and forth gently. ‘In fact, very lucky indeed to stumble across such a place with its plentiful food and its quiet people.’ He paused for a moment, then drew in a noisy breath through his bared teeth. ‘However, we can’t stay here for ever, and if we go south we’ll be going towards trouble. Back towards the consequences of our past activities. It’s not something we can even consider unless all other avenues are closed to us.’ He tapped out an uneasy tattoo on the table top with his fingertips. ‘Completely closed to us,’ he emphasized.
He looked at each of his listeners in turn as he con-tinued. ‘Gentlemen, we have mountains to the east and the west, shades to the south and doubts to the north. The first impassable, the second undesirable, the third…?’ He shrugged. ‘We have no choice. We go north unless it proves absolutely impossible.’
He drummed his fingers on the table again, then brought his palm down on it with a sharp slap to mark the end of his reverie.
‘North, gentlemen,’ he said briskly. ‘No choice. But I trust your judgement in this matter. I always have, you know that. You’ve spared us problems enough in the past with your ability to judge the whims and fancies of…’ His voice faltered. ‘Of our previous leader.’
The atmosphere in the room grew suddenly chilly and for a moment Nilsson appeared reluctant, or unable, to continue. It was as if the memories that this inadvertent reference invoked were so powerful that they forbade the very existence of the present. With an effort, he recovered his composure and continued.
‘So I accept there’s a problem in the north of this valley that we must contend with.’ He became increas-ingly businesslike. ‘And to contend with it, we need to know what it is. Which is why I sent you out in the first place.’ He waved his hand to forestall any protests. ‘But I accept that what happened left you no alternative but to come back.’
Both Yeorson and Storran breathed out silently.
‘But what did happen?’ he mused. It was a rhetorical question and not an invitation to repeat the telling. ‘Meirach first got himself burned, then got himself lost. ‘Storran couldn’t find this…’ He snapped his fingers for the name.
‘Rannick,’ Yeorson supplied dutifully.
‘Rannick,’ Nilsson echoed. ‘And finally you find a mauled horse. A badly mauled horse. This is so?’
‘Yes, Captain,’ Yeorson confirmed, cautiously.
Nilsson nodded. ‘Overlying all of which is your and Storran’s general… unease about the place,’ he went on. ‘Though this has not really manifested itself in any tangible way so far. This, too, is so?’
‘Everything was unusual, Captain,’ Yeorson said, almost unwillingly, a tic beginning to flicker beneath his left eye. ‘Meirach’s burning and then his disappearance, Rannick’s manner, the damage done to the horse…’
‘True,’ Nilsson said. ‘But, equally, a camp fire burn-ing is a camp fire burning. Hardly an unusual occurrence. Meirach could have gone down with a fever in the night. From what you tell me he was lucky not to have been burned far worse, and he was obviously in a rare state to draw a knife on you when you woke him, wasn’t he?’ He did not wait for an answer. ‘Then a local man, meeting strangers – King’s men, as he thinks – and, reasonably expecting hospitality, is threatened with a roasting no less. Very wisely he runs away at the first possible opportunity and subsequently makes damn sure you can’t follow him by layi
ng a false trail.’ He smiled. ‘And, good trackers though you might be, he was a hunter and on his own territory.’
He stretched his extended leg and eased his chair back a little further. ‘And finally we have a mauled horse.’ His brow furrowed slightly. ‘I seem to remember that healer-cum-headman… Gryss… mentioning something about sheep being worried. I’ll lay odds it’s nothing more than a big hunting dog gone rogue, or maybe even a pack of dogs. You know how vicious they can be. And if Meirach was with the horse, and feverish, when it or they attacked, he was probably up a tree and away like a frightened squirrel. Hence no tracks.’ He turned to Yeorson and Storran again. ‘This could be so?’ he said, a hint of menace seeping back into his voice.
‘Yes,’ Yeorson conceded. ‘But we found no animal tracks. Certainly no evidence of a pack…’
‘No buts,’ Nilsson commanded. ‘That’s the way it was as far as the men are concerned. Is that clear?’
Yeorson was still uncertain.
‘I’m not dismissing your concerns,’ Nilsson said, swinging his leg down. ‘Perhaps there is a savage dog wandering about out there but we can contend with that, for pity’s sake. What we have to concern ourselves with now is the fact that the men will be nervous and unhappy about what’s happened, not least because we’ve apparently had to abandon one of our own, and you know how they feel – how we all feel – about that. But I don’t want their alarm aggravated by tales of mysterious forces at work in the woods. Some of them have never recovered from seeing what…’
Again he faltered and an unease seemed to fill the room. ‘From what they’ve seen in the past,’ he managed eventually. ‘And it’s not in our interests to feed such memories.’
He paused as if waiting for comments, though his eyes forbade any.