He plunged back into his tent and emerged, sword in hand, just as Derwyn’s men, shouting and screaming, and borne along by their ancient fury, galloped into the camp. They made a formidable sight and, skilled horsemen and lancers that they were, they brought down several men with their initial rush. These however, were mainly new recruits, who panicked and ran. The bulk of Nilsson’s men had faced true cavalry in the past, and though they wavered at the first onslaught, they held their ground in tight groups, spiky with menacing swords and alive with blazing brands.
Then, as the impetus of the Valderen’s charge was lost and the riders began to mill about, obstructing one another and uncertain how they should attack these unexpected enclaves, Nilsson’s men attacked in their turn. The tight-knit groups became suddenly mobile. Selecting a rider they would surge forward, some to hack at the horse’s legs while others menaced the rider, who could do little but wave his lance futilely until his horse collapsed under him, or he himself was struck from his blind side.
Derwyn, one of the first riders into the camp and now at the edge of the melee, turned to look at the scene. His eyes widened in horror at what he saw, but it was the terrible noises that were beginning to ring through the silent trees that struck to his heart and froze him into immobility; the dreadful screaming of men and horses and the savage, triumphant cries of Nilsson’s men. Farnor’s words formed cruelly in his mind. ‘They’re brutal fighting men. If you go against them rashly, they’ll hack you down without a thought.’ And in his careless fury he had moved against them rashly indeed.
As Nilsson watched, however, his reaction was one of growing disbelief. Who were these people? Certainly they weren’t his own countrymen, as he had assumed. In fact, though they were good riders, they weren’t even cavalrymen. What he had anticipated being a long-awaited confrontation, a bloody and testing battle, promised now to be a bloody and amusing rout. The suddenly remembered old fears evaporated. He shrugged and chuckled to himself. No doubt a few of the attackers would be taken alive for entertainment later on, and he could have his questions answered then.
‘Derwyn!’ Marken’s voice, soft but desperately ur-gent, penetrated into Derwyn’s guilt and horror. He started violently.
‘What have I done, Marken?’ he said, his voice trem-bling.
‘Your horn, man, your horn. Call them to you. Get them out of there,’ Marken shouted.
Derwyn hesitated for a moment. Then, with shaking hands, unhooked the hunting horn from his saddle. As he raised it to his lips he faltered. His mouth was too dry and his breathing shallow and unsteady.
‘Spit, for pity’s sake. Take a deep breath, and don’t let the others see you like this, or we’re all dead,’ Marken hissed, seizing his arm and shaking him ferociously.
Derwyn nodded automatically. Somehow, he man-aged to moisten his lips and steady his breath. The first note was harsh and discordant, but the very sound of it started to lift him out of his paralysis. Marken raised and sounded his own horn, then others gathering around them did the same, until the calls finally rose above the din of the battle.
Farnor needed no warning from the trees. The presence of the creature grew in intensity, although it was not as if it were waking. Rather, it seemed to be returning from somewhere: somewhere that was not in this place. It was a terrifying sensation. His own words to Derwyn returned to him mockingly. ‘Expect to be afraid, but don’t fear your fear.’ Well, he was afraid, all right, but that said, what was he to do next?
He put the lantern back into his pocket, then tight-ened his grip about the staff. Perhaps the creature wouldn’t see him, or scent him. But he knew that these were vain hopes even as they came to him. The creature knew him as he knew it, and it would smell his fear both drifting through the night air and trembling through that mysterious bond that he had with it. No. There would be no place secure enough, nor flight fast enough, to save him from it when it emerged to hunt.
His mouth filled suddenly with acrid saliva and his body was possessed with a terrible longing. Blood and terror were in the air, rich and desirable.
Good…
Farnor spat in disgust and denial. In the distance he heard horn calls. Though their note was rapid, desperate even, he was once again staring over the ancient Forest, washed in the bright dawn sunlight, his heart crying out its prayer of thanksgiving to his parents for the gift of life that they had given him. And, he realized now, thanksgiving for the other gifts that they had given him: the love that had sustained him and brought him thus far, scathed but whole and himself, knowing better both the light and the darkness of his nature. And as he had accepted and enjoyed these gifts, so now he must accept that other gift, the one they had given him unknowingly, the one that had twisted and turned its way through the generations of lives in the valley until it had become his; the gift to oppose this creature and the foulness that it had guided Rannick to.
He opened and closed his hands about Marrin’s staff fitfully. He could feel the spirit of the most ancient still held in it. Oddly, it gave him more comfort than had the machete and the bow and the vicious arrows that he had just lost. But it was not going to be much use as a weapon.
He peered up into the darkness. The presence of the creature was becoming more intense. It was drawing nearer. The horns were still calling, shrill and urgent now. Derwyn and Nilsson must have met and, whatever the outcome, blood had been spilt. And soon the creature would leave its lair to range through the woods, slaughtering and feeding amongst whomsoever Rannick decreed: Derwyn’s people.
‘No,’ he said. Not knowing how he did it, he reached out and touched the creature. ‘I understand you more now. Your darkness holds no greater terrors or knowledge than my own. But the light I bring you will destroy you and your master.’
A terrible, high-pitched scream tore open the night. Farnor flinched away from it, but using Marrin’s staff to test the ground ahead of him, he forced himself to walk on towards the heart of the malevolence that he could now feel oozing down the mountainside towards him. He felt, too, the creature’s claws scrabbling over the rock-strewn ground as it raced frenziedly to reach him. And its pounding heart, its rasping breath, its foul desires. And he could feel its lust for the fear that was soaking through him. Then, most terrifying of all, he felt the rift through which, with Rannick, it drew its awful powers. That mysterious rent in this reality that opened into those worlds that did not belong here; could not belong here without terrible havoc following.
For a fleeting instant, Farnor had a vision of the Forest’s great and ancient fear; fear that a flaw lay in the very nature of all things in this age. But it left him – was torn away from him? – almost before he could note it, and his fear became more prosaic: a fear of the power that was emerging to overwhelm him.
Scarcely realizing what he was doing, he leaned on his staff and, looking into the darkness, let the shaking and trembling that he was struggling to restrain take complete possession of him.
After a timeless time, he was still, and all about him was still. The wound torn by the creature filled his consciousness. He reached out, and with his quietness, made it whole.
The scream that the creature had made before was as nothing to that which it uttered now. It seemed to Farnor that the whole of creation rang with its fury and desperation as it strove to tear open that which he had sealed.
But Farnor held.
Though this would not be enough, he knew. The creature still had power enough to kill him and return to undo his work. It had to be destroyed utterly.