Rannick walked towards the fire, seemingly unper-turbed by Yeorson’s threatening manner.
‘You must be the gatherers,’ he said as he stopped a few paces away from Yeorson. His tone and his smile were mildly ironic.
‘This amuses you?’ Yeorson asked menacingly. The men casually surrounded the new arrival.
‘A little,’ Rannick admitted.
A knife appeared at his throat. ‘How would another smile across your face amuse you, farm boy?’ its holder asked viciously.
Rannick looked at his assailant calmly. ‘Put the knife away,’ he said, very quietly. ‘I’m no danger to you.’
The man did not move but, to Yeorson, it seemed for a moment that he was immobilized by Rannick’s gaze rather than by any determination to stand his ground.
There was a long silence.
Yeorson’s voice broke it. ‘Let him be, Meirach,’ he snapped, pushing the man away none too gently. There was a flicker of relief on Meirach’s face as Yeorson’s blow tore him away from Rannick, and he gave only a cursory indication that he wanted to return to the fray.
As Yeorson watched Meirach the men he had sent out began to reappear from the darkness. They shook their heads as Yeorson looked at them. The man was alone, then.
He studied Rannick carefully. Under normal cir-cumstances, a lone traveller encountering a group under his charge would have little likelihood of surviving, but the prospect of Nilsson’s bloody retribution rose before him if such a deed were to cause problems with the villagers. And, almost certainly, someone, somewhere, would be keeping a discreet eye on this oaf, for all the protestations that no one ever came up here. They would surely know where he was and when he would be back. He decided; there would be no sport from this one tonight.
‘Sit down and join us… Rannick,’ he said, gesturing to the others to do the same. ‘I’m sorry for the welcome, but it’s the way we are. You’re lucky you weren’t killed on sight.’
Rannick came forward, but made no response to this remark. As he sat he looked from Yeorson to the other men around the fire. After a moment, he nodded.
‘I understand,’ he said, eyes wide. ‘You’re soldiers. Your life must be full of adventure and excitement. I suppose you’re always ready for danger.’
There was awe and sincerity in his voice and man-ner that no one in the village would have recognized. The mood around the fire relaxed almost palpably. Just another village simpleton was the unspoken consensus. There was some laughter, though in anticipation of the torments that would most likely befall their visitor before long rather than at his seeming naivety. Yeorson made no effort to hide his disdain from Rannick. ‘We’d been told that no one ever comes here,’ he said.
‘Nor do they,’ Rannick said. ‘I only come here be-cause the rabbits and the birds aren’t as shy as they are in the valley.’
‘Where’s your catch?’ Yeorson asked.
Rannick shrugged self-deprecatingly. ‘I’ve not done too well so far, but I’ll give it another day or two.’
He looked expectantly at the food that was lying about the fire.
‘Do you know these woods well, Rannick?’ The speaker was Storran. He picked up a piece of meat and offered it to him.
Rannick’s eyes widened as he took the meat but as he raised it to his nose and sniffed at it, he closed them.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I know them very well.’ He bit into the meat. It had only been lightly cooked, and a trickle of blood ran slowly down his chin. At the same time, Yeorson applied his foot vigorously to the fire. It flared up brightly and for an instant, in its ancient light, Rannick, with his hand clawed around the meat, his bloodstained teeth bared and his eyes turned into black shadowed orbs, looked like the spirit of some terrible predator from an age long dead, had any there had the wit to note it.
‘Very well,’ he repeated, as the flames died down.
Yeorson nodded approvingly at Storran; a little local knowledge could save them a great deal of time and effort.
‘How far do these woods go north?’ Storran asked.
Rannick stopped chewing. ‘Up to the Great Forest,’ he said in some surprise. ‘Anyone could have told you that.’
Storran’s mouth forced itself into a smile. ‘They did,’ he said. ‘But they never come here, do they? So how can they know? They could be wrong. We’ve had it before. People not knowing what’s on the other side of their own mountain. But you’re here. You know this place.’
‘Oh, yes. I’m very familiar with this place,’ Rannick said, his voice enigmatic as he looked around the makeshift camp.
‘You’ve actually been through the valley? Seen this… Great Forest?’ Storran persisted.
‘Why do you want to know?’ Rannick asked.
Yeorson started slightly at this sudden reversal in roles. ‘We need to know,’ he said brusquely. Then, tempering his reply, he added, ‘It’s the… King’s orders. We have to find out what lies beyond the borders of his land.’ His invention began to amuse him. ‘And if you can help us, then we’ll tell him how you helped. There might even be a… reward… for it. A medal, perhaps.’
With the hand away from Rannick’s gaze, he beat down the rising sniggers of his companions.
Rannick’s eyes widened innocently. ‘A reward?’ he said, then his shoulders slumped.
‘What’s the matter?’ Yeorson asked in genuine sur-prise.
‘You can’t go through to the Great Forest,’ Rannick replied.
‘What do you mean?’ Yeorson demanded. ‘We can’t go through. Are there bandits or something? Or a river or a gorge we can’t cross?’
Rannick shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You just can’t go. It’s too dangerous.’ He lowered his voice and looked around as if someone in the surrounding shadows might be listening. ‘It’s cursed. It’s an evil place. Guarded by demons.’
In sharp contrast to Rannick’s almost whispered concern, the listening men, ignoring Yeorson’s restrain-ing hand, broke into raucous laughter.
‘Stretch him over the fire,’ someone said amid the din. ‘Show him what we do to demons.’
‘Or anyone else,’ another added.
The idea gathered momentum and Rannick looked at Yeorson fearfully.
‘Shut up,’ Yeorson roared. ‘Captain Nilsson won’t appreciate us treating him badly. Him having friends in the village and all.’
Nilsson’s instructions of the previous evening had been quite unequivocal and, as all present knew, his response to disobedience would be equally so. The mention of Nilsson’s name and the reference to the village thus had the desired effect, and the laughter faded into a mixture of scornful sneers and surliness. Yeorson looked round the group angrily, to ensure that all had understood the full import of his remarks.
Rannick turned to the man who had called for the roasting. It was Meirach, still smarting from his earlier rebuke. ‘You shouldn’t say things like that,’ he said, almost plaintively. ‘Even as a joke. You’re liable to bring them down on yourself.’
Meirach, half lying by the fire, glared at him, but a gesture from Yeorson stifled any reply. Irritably he extended his foot and kicked some smouldering branches back into the fire.
There was an awkward silence.
Rannick turned back to the fire, his eyes squinting as if disturbed by its brightness. Then he looked up into the darkness.
The unseen tree tops around them began to rustle as if a breeze had caught them. Rannick returned his gaze to Meirach. Their eyes met.
Suddenly part of the fire collapsed and a large burn-ing log tumbled out of it and fell across Meirach’s legs. He pulled them back immediately with an oath, but a branch on the log tangled in his long jacket and as he jerked his legs the log bounced into his lap almost as if it were alive.
Seeing his plight, his companions started to laugh, though a couple of them kicked out at the log in an attempt either to dislodge it or perhaps to harass him further. Frantically Meirach struggled to his feet, but the log remained entangled in his jacket and the flames, in continuing to rise upwards, began to play over his chest and face. Some of the laughter increased in intensity, but cries of alarm also began to make themselves heard.