Fire Bringer by Clement-Davies David

Author:Clement-Davies, David [Clement-Davies, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780956824905
Publisher: Phoenix Ark Press
Published: 2011-02-01T16:00:00+00:00

13 Reunited

‘Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas— Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland.’ John Galt, ‘The Lone Shieling’

The weather was changing rapidly now and as Rannoch travelled further north towards the Great Mountain and Herne’s Herd, looking all the time for signs of Bracken and the others, great splinters of rock rose around him, stone screes scarred the green and the mountains loomed ever higher through the hanging mist.

Down their slopes ran seemingly endless streams and rivulets as their tops shed the weight of the autumn rains. They turned the valley bottoms into vast bogs that Rannoch slopped and waded through as he went. The rain seemed never to stop, so that when the skies did clear for a while, grumbling with thunder, Rannoch felt as though he had swum through a huge sea that had soaked into his bones. Rannoch swung west, following the contours of the mountain behind him, and after a while he began to catch a now familiar scent on the wind. Again he smelt the breath of the sea.

It was morning when the deer came to another sea loch. The sides of the mountain he was on plunged sheer to the water and all around they rose up again in walls of stone. The cold wind lashed the surface of the lake and through the mist Rannoch saw a strange sight. He knew instantly it was the work of man. It stood on a promontory, its squat granite walls black and forbidding – a castle. As he gazed at it Rannoch was reminded of the men in the gully with their swords and axes.

Rannoch followed the line of the loch now and after a while he saw tracks. He knew immediately they were the slots of red deer. In the soggy ground Rannoch made out the marks of at least five animals and as he examined their size and shape and the distance between the fore and back hoofs, his heart leapt, for he realized that they weren’t just stags that had been this way, there were hinds too. He began to scent the air but could smell nothing, so he pressed on excitedly. It wasn’t until he had travelled for a good while more that Rannoch saw them in the distance, through the mist. There were six of them, grazing together. Rannoch’s heart began to race.

‘I’m s-s-soaked through,’ said Bankfoot miserably as he stood there in the rain, and the mist swirled around the little group of deer. Bankfoot was a six-pointer and his antlers were growing stronger.

‘I know, Bankfoot, it’s horrid,’ said the hind next to him. Willow had grown into a very fine deer. Her smooth coat was the colour of fire-bracken, while her clear, black eyes glinted like jet.

‘Th-th-thistle never stops grumbling,’ said Bankfoot, looking towards the young stag who was talking to Tain and Peppa a little way away. They had all grown since their escape over a year before. Peppa looked even more

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