It brought him to a halt by a gate. He leaned on it breathlessly. There was nothing to be burned on the farm.
Suddenly, more tangible fears rose within him.
Fire! There’d been a fire in one of the outbuildings. And he hadn’t been there! With a cry, he clambered over the gate and began running again.
As he neared the farm, his fears began to be real-ized. A column of smoke was rising above the small hill that separated him from the farm. Despite his exhaus-tion, he forced himself on.
What had happened? Visions filled his mind. The barns? The stables? The work-shed?
He reached the top of the hill and stopped.
The rain had flattened his hair against his head and ran in streams down his face.
And his world was no more.
A dreadful numbness began to spread through him.
Where had stood the clutter of buildings with the solid block of the farmhouse at its heart – a sight as timeless and immutable as the mountains themselves – stood now a grim mockery of that sight. The buildings were there, though they were different now. Their perspective had been changed. Changed because what had been the farmhouse was now a gaping maw, jagged with shattered walls and blackened rafters. Fires burned here and there, and dense wreaths of smoke swirled in leisurely vortices about the broken carcass, like predators at a battlefield, before finally twisting upwards and rising into the air to disappear into the grey, rainy sky.
And from somewhere came a noise which, though familiar, Farnor could not identify.
Farnor’s mouth worked as he searched for words of denial that would dismiss this sight from his vision.
But none came.
Instead a silent cry of reproach rose up within him.
Move your legs. Get down there. Find out if your mother and father are safe. Find out what’s happened.
It seemed to Farnor as he ran towards the smoking ruins that he was in fact motionless and that the house was approaching him, like some injured friend seeking help.
He clambered over the wall and ran round into the yard, calling out.
‘Mother! Father!’
But there was no reply, except for the sound of the falling rain splashing on to the waterlogged ground and gurgling along gutters and down pipes into the collection butts. And too there was the noise that he had heard on top of the rise. Though much louder than the rain, it seemed to be coming from a great distance. It was the animals clamouring, panic-stricken, to escape their pens. He hesitated, looking from side to side indecisively, as if debating whether he should attend to these demented creatures or continue to search for his parents.
‘Mother! Father!’
He called several times, but there was no response until a single fretful bark pierced the din.
One of the dogs was standing by the blackened, smoke-streaked gap that had been the front door. It was sniffing at what appeared to be a pile of debris.
Farnor ran over to it.
The dog’s tail was dragging along the ground, but it wagged guiltily as he approached, as if it were in some way responsible for the devastation of the farm.
As he reached the dog, the feeling of numbness spread to possess Farnor totally and for a long, timeless interval he stood staring at the shapeless mound that the dog had been sniffing. Then, slowly, he knew it for his father and mother.
As if he were looking at a picture in a book, Farnor noted his father’s twisted frame. He was like a broken toy, not a person. And next to him…
‘Mother,’ he said.
He knelt down beside her and shook her gently as if she might simply be sleeping out in the rain, not knowing that her house had burned down.
‘Mother.’
He put his arm around her shoulder and lifted her into a sitting position.
‘Your dress is all wet and crumpled,’ he said, quietly, fingering the soiled fabric awkwardly. ‘And you’ve dirtied it too. Look.’
Shaking his head in imitation of his mother’s fre-quent gesture, he ran his hand over the circular stain just beneath the line of his mother’s ribcage. Then he looked at his hand. It was covered in blood. He laid his mother down gently, and touched the bloodstained palm curiously with his other hand.
Slowly, he stood up and walked across the yard. Then, quite deliberately and very calmly, he opened the doors of the various stalls to release the distraught animals.
Some brushed him aside in their panic, but others remained where they were. The dog tried to round up some of the escapees dutifully, but after one or two appealing looks at Farnor, who was standing watching them vaguely, it abandoned the attempt.
Farnor went to the gate. It was wide open. Patiently, he pulled it shut and secured it, then he leaned back against the gate post and slid down it until he was sitting on the ground.
The rain continued steadily, and gradually the fires died out and the heavy coils of smoke changed into pale grey wisps. Occasionally some too-charred timber would succumb to the depredations of the fire and the water and tumble apologetically into the rubble.
Farnor sat staring fixedly at the house for a long time without moving. A few pigs and hens were wandering aimlessly about the yard, but most of those animals that had not fled had retreated to their opened pens in the face of the rain.
Once or twice his lips moved, but no sound came. The dull afternoon light began to fail. Then, for no apparent reason, he stood up, climbed over the gate as he had done almost every day of his life and walked into the darkening evening.
Gryss staggered as Farnor slumped into his arms.
‘Marna!’ he shouted, urgently.
She was by his side almost immediately. Taking in the scene at a glance, she pushed the door to with her foot and moved to help Gryss support the collapsing Farnor. They manhandled him along the hallway and into the back room, where he was dropped into a chair.
Gryss took Farnor’s chin in his hand, lifted his face up, then prised open his flickering eyelids and peered into his eyes.
‘What’s happened to him?’ Marna asked, anxiously. ‘It’s shock, by the look of it,’ Gryss said. ‘Fetch me some water.’
When she returned, Farnor was recovering con-sciousness. He was talking desperately but incoherently and he was struggling to rise from the chair while Gryss was trying unsuccessfully to restrain him.
Marna watched for a moment, then shouted angrily. ‘Farnor, sit down and be still, will you?’ Farnor started, but did as he was told. Gryss gave her a grateful nod.
Marna however did not notice. She was pointing, and her face was full of alarm. ‘Look,’ she whispered, as if afraid to attract Farnor’s attention.
Gryss followed her gaze. It took him to Farnor’s hands. He reached down and took hold of them. Farnor offered no resistance.
Gryss frowned. ‘Blood,’ he said, flatly.
Marna brought her hand to her mouth, and the alarm in her face became fear. She did not speak and for a few minutes the room was silent as Gryss busied himself with cleaning and examining Farnor while he was still compliant.
‘It doesn’t seem to be his – the blood,’ he said even-tually. ‘He seems sound enough apart from his arm and being wet and cold.’ The information did little to ease either his or Marna’s anxiety, however. Inevitably, she voiced hers.
‘Whose is it, then?’ she demanded. ‘And why’s he in such a state?’
‘How the devil do I know, Marna?’ Gryss said irrita-bly, then, with a flicker of self-reproach, he laid a hand on her arm in immediate apology.
He pulled forward a chair and sat down in front of Farnor. ‘What’s happened?’ he asked gently.
Farnor’s eyes livened a little at the sound of his voice. They drifted to Marna and then back to Gryss, and a pleasant, surprised, smile appeared on his face.
‘What’s happened, Farnor?’ Gryss asked again, his tone anxious now.
He opened his mouth to speak and then realization spread across his face. He stood up with a terrible cry.
‘It’s all gone,’ he said hoarsely. ‘All gone! Black raf-ters and sodden ashes. All gone!’ He slumped back into the chair, and looked about agitatedly. ‘And the animals are all loose.’