Farnor Page 48

  He let out an irritated sigh. Whatever had happened, it had left him too awake to return to sleep while it was still too dark for him to search out a better hiding place.

  As these thoughts wandered through his head so the memory of why he was here returned, and the darkness of the night seemed to enter his very soul.

  Painfully he wrapped the blanket about himself and settled back against the tree trunk to wait for the dawn.

  Slowly, he began to relax. Thoughts of his parents and of the wreckage of his home drifted into his mind, but he set them aside. He did this coldly, but as they continued to return he was obliged to resort to crushing them ruthlessly. There would be time enough for such indulgence when he had destroyed Rannick.

  This inner turmoil angered him and after a while he stood up. Despite the warmth of the night and the blanket around him, he shivered.

  Yet he wasn't cold. Why then should he feel such a chill?

  Then, with an impact that was almost physical, the presence of the creature was all about him. He flattened himself against the trunk of the tree and cast about desperately, looking for the special shadow within the shadows that would mark the presence of the animal. But there was nothing. Nor too, was his horse distressed, and it, surely, would have felt such a presence if it were nearby.

  Yet it was all around him.

  Farnor stood very still, scarcely daring to breathe. He must learn about this creature, for it was Rannick's creature. Or he its. Either way, to learn of one was to learn of the other.

  The memory of the incident in the courtyard came back to him. Of something that had reached out from within him and denied the harm that was being brought here. The images meant nothing to him; places that were here and yet not here? Power that was great only because it did not truly belong?

  Yet whatever they meant they were vivid and, he knew, accurately remembered.

  As, too, was the memory that he had reached out and stopped this ... unlawful? ... dangerous?... flow!

  Or some part of him had.

  He did not dwell on the thoughts, however; the pervasive presence of the creature forbade that. Farnor clung almost desperately to the knowledge that, whatever was happening, the thing itself was not nearby. He could rely on his horse and the forest dwellers to tell him that.

  Nonetheless, he drew the knife from his belt and gripped it tightly.

  As he did so, the thought formed in his head; I shall kill you, you abomination. You do not belong. You never belonged.

  The presence about him shifted, as if it had heard something. Farnor could feel its power, drawn again from a place which should not be here. He felt something stir faintly within him, but it faded as the creature's presence moved away again. There was something familiar about the way in which the presence came and went.

  It was hunting, he realized sharply.

  Then, chillingly, he felt another presence mingling with that of the creature, riding it almost, both guiding and following.

  Rannick!

  Farnor's grip on the knife tightened further.

  He felt anger and hatred surging up inside him.

  'Flee, mover, you have not ...'

  Farnor started as the voices whispered softly to him. His mind jerked towards them but that very action again dispelled the subtle sound and the message was lost to him.

  Who are you? he thought, but there was no reply. Fearfully, he gritted his teeth and pressed himself back against the tree trunk.

  Was he going insane? Quivering in the silent woods beyond the castle, clutching his mother's favourite knife and hearing voices, feeling the presence of a creature that he had never seen?

  He felt as though his mind were teetering on the edge of a terrible darkness from which he could never return if he tumbled in. He heard the heavy thumping of his heart and the harsh rasping of his breath. All around he sensed forces moving, though to what end he could not even begin to guess.

  It seemed to him that he stood on this fearful edge for an eternity of time, waiting.

  Waiting...

  But for what...

  Faint ribbons of thought flitted through the darkness. Gryss, who had listened and believed; Marna, who had listened and believed; Rannick who had looked into the entrails of the slaughtered sheep and found—what...? A wind that had slammed a wicket door on his arm. His hand reached for the bruised arm and squeezed it hard.

  The pain cut through the darkness like distant lightning in the night sky, and the twisting ribbons of thought became like the pennants of an approaching army; sharp-etched against the gloom; confident and bold.

  No! For all its appalling strangeness, what was happening was happening and it was real. It was no rambling disorder from inside himself.

  I'm here, Rannick! Farnor called into the creature's watching silence.

  'No ...’ came the voices in despair.

  And, on the instant, Farnor felt the truth of their concern. For the presence of the creature was about him now as it had been on his flight back to the ruin of his home. Vast and overwhelming. Power pouring through huge rents in reality that must surely be beyond any repairing.

  And with it was Rannick's will, malevolent and wild with rage.

  * * * *

  'Farnor Yarrance,’ Rannick whispered to himself in the darkness of his communion with the creature. ‘Farnor Yarrance. It was you who defied me. Who stood in my light and marred my power.'

  It was beyond belief that such a thing could be. That a beaten and broken farmer's boy should have such a skill. And that he should come now with a defiant challenge.

  But in the same instant, he knew that his concerns had been of no account. For all that happened in the courtyard, the farm boy's will was no more than an autumn leaf caught in a winter wind. He could not prevail against the might that he, Rannick, now possessed; a might that grew daily both in its totality and in the refinement of its use.

  Tomorrow Farnor Yarrance would pay the penalty for his rash interference. There could be no escape for him. Rannick smiled. There would be the joy of the hunt and then the joy of the slow destroying. That this would also serve to quell further the spirit of the villagers added an exquisite savour to the prospect.

  Rannick wallowed in the glow of his triumph. Truly great powers were guiding and protecting him, to lead him so ingeniously to expose the one person in the valley who might have opposed him. His destiny, as ever, ran true.

  But something was amiss.

  The creature was disturbed. Rannick sensed its unease, and the awakening of its most ancient hunting instincts.

  No, he instructed. Not in the village. Not yet. Your time for that will come. There will be enough to sate even you in the future. But not yet.

  But though the creature heard and responded, still it stirred restlessly. Rannick felt his restraint tested, though in anxiety rather than defiance.

  He had a fleeting image of fleeing prey.

  Fleeing!

  He jolted into wakefulness. As he had felt Farnor's puny challenge, so Farnor had felt the weight of his awesome response.

  And he was running!

  Rannick and the creature became as one.

  Go! Rannick hissed into the lusting hunter. Go, hunt him down. He is yours. Let the whole valley be awakened to the ringing of his screams echoing from the peaks!

  * * *

  Chapter 37

  Blind fear filled Farnor. The power pervading the eerie presence of both Rannick and the creature was formidable. There were strange stirrings in him, but nothing, he knew, could oppose what was now levied against him. He was a sapling in the path of an avalanche that could sweep away an entire forest.

  Just as Nilsson's cruel fighting expertise had casually destroyed his shield of anger and hatred to leave him exposed, shivering and helpless against the icy blasts of reality, so now did Rannick's power.

  All his intentions of watching the castle and patiently waiting for the time when he would come upon Rannick alone vanished before the weight of the
ancient malevolence that was turning towards him.

  He was dimly aware of the voices again, urgent this time, and fear-laden.

  'Flee, mover, flee!'

  But he needed no such urging. Almost without realizing what he was doing, he was mounting his horse and kicking it forward. Instinctively it turned towards the village.

  'No’ said the voices inside him.

  They coincided with his own raucous shout, ‘No!’ The valley was Rannick's now; he could not go that way. He yanked the reins violently. Unused to such treatment, the horse reared and nearly unseated him, but desperation kept him in the saddle. Then the horse leapt forward. Farnor grabbed at its mane to keep his balance, then, as a low branch skimmed through his hair, he ducked and wrapped his arms about the horse's neck. As the horse gathered speed, he remained in this position.

  All around him—indeed, almost part of him—the presence of Rannick and the creature swung to and fro, searching. It seemed to Farnor that there was nothing in the entire world except these two malevolent wills seeking him out: Rannick taunting, vicious and triumphant; the creature primordial and savage, and focused utterly on its ordained prey.

  'Run, horse, run!’ Farnor whispered, over and over, as if to cry out would be somehow to draw the attention of the searching creature.

  And the horse ran, Farnor clinging to it like a terrified child to its mother, his bruised body begging for relief from the merciless pounding but his fear allowing it no voice. Dark-shadowed trunks flitted by, leafy branches reached down and brushed over him mockingly. Occasionally he became aware of the moon peering through the canopy above, as if it were galloping after him, marking his demented progress for the creature to follow.

  And still the presence of the creature was about him, hunting, scenting.

  Yet fragments of coherent thought broke through the relentless rhythm of Farnor's flight.

  The creature could feel his presence, his naked fear, and it knew that he was fleeing. But it did not know where he was. Briefly he found that his vision was not his own. It was steadier, and closer to the ground; and the sky was different. And, too, strange scents pervaded him, feeding a swirling mass of ancient hatreds that some part of him shied away from, so once again he was himself, pain-racked and frantic, hanging on desperately to his galloping horse.

  Whatever else the creature might be, he discovered, it was still an animal and, in seeking him out, it was constrained by the limitations of its body.

  The creature's frustration and anger washed over him even as the thought came to him.

  'Run, horse. Run!'

  So much pain!

  'Find him. Find him. He is yours,’ Rannick encouraged.

  Distance. Surely nothing could outrun this charging animal that he was clinging to? The creature had the woods to roam to find his scent before it could begin to pursue him.

  Yet Rannick was gloating. He had no doubts about the success of this hunt.

  Even before Farnor could ponder the reasons for this, a sudden breeze struck him from one side. The horse veered under the impact, but did not slow down appreciably. To Farnor's horror, the breeze was redolent with the presence of Rannick.

  He had searchers of his own.

  Farnor's stomach tightened agonizingly. He was found!

  'Run, horse. Run!'

  The breeze gathered strength and began to tear at him. Farnor wanted to scream his terrifying urgency to the horse, but he knew it would be futile. Besides, the sudden tormenting wind had, in itself, put more fear into the horse. All Farnor could do now was hold on, tighter and tighter.

  He caught another fleeting glimpse of the sky. A pattern of stars struck him. They pointed to a solitary star.

  North. He was heading north. For an instant, fears mingled. The fear of Rannick and creature, and the fear of what lay ahead in the mysterious land to the north. The Great Forest, whose existence had hovered with an uneasy menace in the background of his childhood years. But that fear was distant, and hedged about by as many years of homely security, and it was as nothing compared to the horror gathering behind him.

  The buffeting breeze stopped as abruptly as it had started. Farnor felt Rannick's will luring it back; he knew that it would be carrying its precious perfume back to the creature.

  'Run, horse. Run!'

  And then the hatred about him changed. It changed from being vague and dispersed to being sharp and focused. Farnor could feel the creature pausing to test the scent that it had been given, and then gathering its terrible resources to commit them to the simple, single-minded pursuit of its prey.

  The moon still dashed relentlessly overhead, marking his passage.

  And the creature was coming!

  Even the horse seemed to sense the change in their common danger. Its neck bent low and its pounding speed increased. It occurred to Farnor that the horse was quite likely to run itself to death, but his own terror swamped any compassion. All that mattered was that it outran this dreadful pursuer and gave him a chance to reach some kind of safety.

  'Run, horse. Run!'

  Farnor was the creature again. Moving faster now by far than when it had been hunting back and forth seeking his scent. Briefly he tried to use this strange possession to redirect it, to make it stumble, to run it into a tree, a bush ... anything. But to no avail. He was himself again on the instant, brushed aside effortlessly by a greater will.

  There was no hope for him except speed.

  And he was moving downhill now, he realized. They must have passed the head of the valley and be heading down into the land to the north.

  He wondered where he would find himself if he survived this chase, but the thought was gone almost before he noted it. He could feel the creature closing the distance between them relentlessly, yet as its presence about him grew stronger, he felt Rannick's growing weaker. A faint spark of hope began to glimmer in the darkness.

  But it fanned into no great blaze. The creature's presence was as massive as it was baleful. Indeed, as Rannick's influence seemed to wane so the creature's savagery grew.

  And then he could hear it. Penetrating even into the thunderous tumult of his flight came an intermittent baying, partly a frantic, frustrated screaming, partly a demented roaring.

  And the horse heard it too. It missed its footing as its fear began to turn into outright panic. Belatedly Farnor's concern turned towards his mount. If the horse stumbled at this speed then, if the fall did not kill him, the creature certainly would. With an effort he changed his goading litany to a more soothing one.

  'Easy, easy,’ he whispered.

  It had no effect; the sound of the creature was growing louder. Farnor's instincts overwhelmed his reason.

  'Run, horse. Run!'

  Then for the briefest of moments, but with appalling horror, he saw himself, with keen night-eyed vision, draped over the neck of the horse scarcely a hundred paces away, galloping through the trees. As he became himself again he felt an acid, lustful taste in his mouth, and a chilling hint of the ancient and awful emotions now dominating the creature.

  He managed to turn his head to peer into the darkness behind, to search for his pursuer, but he could see nothing. He had not the vision of this dweller in the darkness.

  He closed his eyes and buried his head in the throbbing neck of the horse.

  And waited.

  Somewhere in the heart of his terror he knew that he was beyond Rannick's will. But it was of no consequence; his terrible envoy was here to do his bidding, and within a count of heartbeats its dreadful crushing jaws would be upon him.

  His whole being filled suddenly and totally with the comforting musty scent of the horse and the rich night perfumes of the trees and crushed forest turf.

  But the creature's presence penetrated this flimsy shield and reached right into him. From deep in the darkness of his inner self, Farnor felt a scream forming. And a knowledge that it was what was needed, it was what the creature wanted. It would appease its dreadful lust; turn its rage away
.

  Yet the scream would not come. Some other inner resource demanded resistance against this pursuing torturer. It reached out and denied the scream, then ensnared and strangled it. But Farnor was scarcely aware of this dispute. Verging on unconsciousness, his dominant thought was to hold on to the horse and to will it forward still faster.

  'Run, horse. Run,’ he mouthed, but no sound came now.

  Behind him, the creature drew nearer with each breathless pace.

  * * * *

  Rannick waited, alone in the darkness. Waited for the return of the creature and the knowledge that Farnor was no more. It disturbed him a little to have the creature beyond his influence, but he consoled himself with the thought that it needed no guidance from him to hunt down the fleeing youth, especially after he had given it his scent. And of course, it would return to him. It would never leave him. Brought once again to the world of men by who knew what great upheaval in its deep and ancient lair, it had waited for too long for such as he to abandon him now.

  He had not realized it at the time, but the creature had been desperately weak when he had first ventured into the darkness to find it. Perhaps, he mused in his increasingly rare reflective moments, had it not been so, then he might have perished for his temerity in striving to master it. But master it he had. Once again his destiny had guided him truly.

  He had kept it silent in its lair as the villagers had first searched for it and then stood guard, waiting for it to blunder into their feeble traps. Then he had nurtured it on sheep he had stolen in the confusion. And, throughout, he had grown with it as its terrible power had burgeoned, their two ambitions feeding one from the other.

  But it had only been after the killing of Nilsson's men that he had come nearer to learning of its true nature. For it drew qualities from the killing of men that it could draw from no other prey—not even the horse it had taken. Qualities other than mere sustenance. Qualities that fed its dark soul.

  From wherever it had come, it had not simply been trained to kill men, nor had it accidentally acquired a taste for them. To hunt, destroy and kill men was engrained in the distorted spiralling weave of its very nature. It had been bred for that purpose and seemingly no other, and nothing, save death, could divert it. Yet a deeper purpose had been written into the making of the creature and all its kind, and those with the gift could reach into its depths and unleash that purpose; could be drawn into the places beyond, where the power lay; could bring it here, where its use was unfettered.