The prospect of a hunt might have been a source of some irritation to the adults of the valley, but to the young men and the boys it offered the prospect of considerable excitement although the former affected a haughty indifference to it.
And even the men were making little effort to keep their faces stern as they gathered a few mornings later at Garren’s farm with their various dogs and a motley assortment of weapons. There were pitchforks, spades, hatchets, billhooks, even a rusty old sword or two and, of course, the inevitable bows. There were also more than a few ale jugs in evidence.
Gryss looked at them dubiously and then laid down the law sternly.
‘No bows,’ he declared.
There were injured protests.
Gryss gave his reasons without any concession to the finer feelings of his audience.
‘There’s not one of you could hit a cottage end from ten paces, sober. The last time bows went out on a hunt we lost the dog we were after and brought down two beaters and three ewes.
It was somewhat of an exaggeration but not entirely unfair. With all their needs being well met from their farming, hunting skills were generally not required by the valley people.
Denials rose among the continuing protests.
Gryss met them full on. ‘Half of you don’t know which hand to let go of,’ he expanded heatedly.
Hackles rose even further and rebellion seemed imminent. Gryss’s eyes narrowed and his shoulders rose as if he were about to push a large weight. Then he seemed to concede and, swinging his pack off his shoulder, he began rooting around in it.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘I’m not going to argue with you, but…’ He pulled a long-bladed and lethal-looking knife from his pack and squinted knowledgeably along its edge. Then he breathed on it and slowly and deliberately whetted it on his sleeve. ‘If I’m going to be gouging arrows out of people…’ He made a laboured, scooping gesture with the knife as he laid emphasis on the word ‘gouging’. ‘Then I’ll be needing this. And…’ He turned to Garren. ‘Lend me one of your boring irons and some good dry kindling would you, Garren? Or, better still, a few sunstones if you can spare them so that we can get some real heat. It’s always best to seal those big wounds in the field. Better a little discomfort than bleeding to death on the way home.’
Interest in archery waned abruptly, as did the pro-tests, and soon the bows and quivers were leaning against the wall of Garren’s farmhouse.
Gryss allowed himself no victory celebration, but turned immediately to the next skirmish. ‘And you needn’t think you’re coming, Marna,’ he said, pointing a curved arm over the heads of the group. ‘I can see you there, trying to be inconspicuous.’
The small crowd parted to reveal a black-haired figure with what could have been a handsome face had it not been for its defiant glowering and a mouth wavering between a grim line and a pout. There was expectant amusement among the crowd and even the dogs fell silent.
Gryss threw up his hands in despair. ‘Look at you in those clothes!’ he said. ‘You look like a boy, for heaven’s sake. You should be home cleaning your father’s house, mending, cooking…’
The girl interrupted him with an angry gesture. ‘The house is clean, nothing needs mending and my father’s downland cutting reeds,’ she said, her voice as defiant as her appearance.
‘He wants to cut a thick one and lay it across your backside,’ Gryss muttered, though very softly. ‘Yes. And I’ve got to look him in the face when he gets back,’ he went on, louder. ‘I don’t want to be telling him his daughter’s been savaged by some wild animal.’
‘What’s going to savage anyone with all you around?’ Marna retorted, her tone witheringly dismis-sive. ‘It’s only some stupid dog we’ll be chasing.’
Gryss cringed inwardly. Having had no mother that she could recall, and a gentle, slightly lost father who was as compliant as the canes he wove into baskets and stools, Marna was wild, outspoken and prodigiously self-willed. That she was also large-hearted and generous in her nature served only to make her more difficult to deal with when she chose to stand her ground.
‘You’re not coming,’ Gryss declaimed, with as much an air of finality as he could muster, though, as ever with Marna, he could feel the argument slipping from him. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
‘It’s only a dog, for pity’s sake, Gryss,’ Marna reiter-ated. Her look darkened further. ‘You don’t want me along because I’ll probably find it while you’re all swilling ale. The only chance of me getting hurt is through one of you falling on top of me.’
All eyes turned back to Gryss. He clutched at a straw. ‘It might be a bear,’ he said.
The eyes returned to Marna. Her hands came to her hips and she shook her head in mock weariness at having to deal with such blatant foolishness.
‘Bear, my behind!’ she snorted.
Laughter erupted around her, coupled with shouts of encouragement. Marna’s cheeks coloured. One swain reached out as if to tug at her trousers, but retreated rapidly to avoid a ferocious blow. The dogs began barking again.
Gryss smiled, but did not join in the laughter. He shook his head. ‘You can come, Marna,’ he said, unable to take advantage of his inadvertent victory over her. ‘But stay by me and Garren.’
The party thus set out in a mood of some merri-ment, wending its way through the morning sunshine and leaving a dark trail through the dew-sodden grass.
It was a while before they reached the place where Farnor had found the dead sheep and, as a result of stopping once or twice to enable the slower members to ‘catch their wind’, some of the party were already unsteady.
The remains of the sheep, however, sobered them. The corpse was a little smaller than it had been when Farnor had first found it, but it was alive with crawling activity and the extent of the damage caused by the predator was vividly displayed. The increasingly warm sun did nothing to improve the scene.
The dogs, restrained some distance away, whined. Looking again at the destruction wrought on the animal, Farnor was glad that his father had decided not to bring their own dogs on the hunt, and Gryss unthinkingly laid a protective arm on Marna’s shoulder. She made no protest.
‘It was big,’ someone said eventually, voicing every-one’s concern. Then hesitantly, ‘It couldn’t be a bear, I suppose?’
Another voice sniggered, ‘Bear my behind,’ nerv-ously, but the buzzing air sustained no humour.
‘No,’ Gryss said at last. ‘We’d have seen more sign by now if it was a bear. No… It’ll be some big dog wandered in from… somewhere.’ He waved vaguely towards the mountains. ‘But this is worse than the others we’ve lost. It could be two dogs. We must find it… or them… and we mustn’t take any chances.’ He became more businesslike. ‘We’ll work in groups of four. Whatever you do, don’t split up. And if you happen to stumble on anything, don’t be a hero. Whistle us all in first.’
No one seemed inclined to dispute this advice and, after some further discussion, the party split into its various groups.
Gryss remained by the dead sheep with Garren, Farnor and Marna.
‘Did Rannick have anything to say?’ Garren asked.
‘I haven’t seen him since you told me about this,’ Gryss replied, offhandedly. ‘I’ve no idea where he is. Probably gone wandering off again. You know the way he is.’
Garren nodded. ‘God knows why he was out here in the first place,’ he said, his face puzzled. ‘But you’d imagine even he had enough sense of responsibility to help us find whatever did this. He’s got quite a nose for tracking.’
Gryss frowned. ‘Rannick’s Rannick,’ he said, as if reluctant to pursue the matter. ‘He’d be out here for no good, you can rest assured on that. The man’s not just irresponsible, he’s bad.’
Garren looked sharply at the elder and then, briefly, at Farnor and Marna. Farnor knew that it was his and Marna’s presence that prevented his father from reproaching Gryss for this complete and uncharacteris-tic condemnation. For a moment he considered taxing the old man himself, but the thought faded even as it formed. Marna might be able to handle Gryss up to a point but, for all her outspoken ways, she was a girl – or a woman, as she would protest – and thus allowed far more latitude than he would be. Besides, Gryss’s words were flaring up like a beacon for him, casting the shadow that Rannick threw across his mind into even darker relief. He realized that he agreed with Gryss’s verdict. Agreed with it totally.
Gryss cut across Farnor’s thoughts. ‘Rannick?’ he asked, flicking his hand towards some damage in the nearby shrubbery.
Farnor nodded. Gryss looked around. By now, al-most all of the villagers had disappeared from view in the rolling terrain, though an occasional shout could be heard.
‘We’ll go this way,’ he said.
Farnor’s stomach tightened. Gryss was pointing to the north. He glanced at his father, but Garren showed no surprise at this decision. In fact, he was agreeing. Farnor made an effort to keep the surprise and excitement from his face in case Marna saw it.
Gryss instructed as they walked down from the top of the rise. The remarks were ostensibly addressed to Farnor, but they were for everyone’s benefit. ‘The ground’s mostly too hard for tracks, but there’ll be the odd muddy patch which might be helpful, so watch where you’re walking. And keep your eyes open for any broken branches or bits of snagged fur.’
Farnor tightened his grip on his staff and his mind began to wander. He would be like one of the figures etched on the iron ring that hung from Gryss’s door: grim-faced and unyielding as he waited for the enemy’s final assault. Once again he would vanquish the monstrous sheep-slayer – several sheep-slayers – in a great battle. Or perhaps he might die heroically saving Marna from its cruel jaws…
He coloured at this unexpected thought and brought himself sharply back to the present. Surreptitiously he glanced at his companions in case he might have given some outward sign of this strange notion: especially to Marna. But there were no knowing looks being directed at him and he congratulated himself on a fortunate escape. Concentrate, hero, he thought.
The temperature rose as they dropped further down the hillside and moved out of the mild breeze that was drifting over the top. Their pace slowed.
Looking about him diligently, Farnor could see nothing untoward: occasional sheep tracks looking deceptively like man-made pathways, rocky outcrops, gorse, ferns, white and purple spring flowers, birds and insects flitting hither and thither. In fact this new terrain they were exploring was little different from the rest of the valley.
At the bottom of the slope a small stream dribbled by and the ground became softer.
‘Look around carefully,’ Gryss said. ‘See if you can find any unusual tracks.’
They spread out and moved through the squelching turf.
Farnor could see nothing other than the footprints of sheep in the muddier areas, except for the occasional skittering trail of some small animal and the busy, narrow scratches left by worm-hunting birds.
‘Here.’
It was Garren.
The other three converged on him. He was pointing his staff at a row of footprints.
‘You didn’t come down here, did you, Farnor?’ Gryss asked.
Farnor shook his head. ‘No, never,’ he said.
‘It’s Rannick then,’ Gryss said, none too pleasantly. ‘Damn his eyes.’
This time the presence of Farnor and Marna did not restrain Garren. Farnor respected his father’s sense of justice.
‘I know you don’t like the man, Gryss,’ he said. ‘But you seem more than usually set against him today.’
Gryss grunted by way of an answer, then he waved the party forward again. Farnor looked ahead and then instinctively back for some landmark to guide him should he become lost and have to return alone.
They followed Rannick’s footprints as far as they could and then continued in the direction they had been leading when they finally disappeared.
After a while Garren spoke. His voice was soft but Farnor could hear the concern in it. ‘This way will take us…’ He did not finish his sentence, but looked significantly at Gryss.
Gryss nodded, but again did not reply, and the party went on for some time in silence.
‘It’s not just today,’ he said abruptly. ‘It’s been grow-ing for some time. Years, perhaps. He’s getting worse.’
‘Who?’ Garren asked, puzzled.
‘Rannick, of course,’ Gryss replied, almost irritably. ‘And what you call my dislike for him.’
Garren shook his head as he recollected his own question. ‘What do you mean?’
Gryss hunched up his shoulders and his bright eyes became almost menacing. ‘He’s getting worse,’ he repeated. ‘More unpleasant, more argumentative, more unhelpful.’
‘I’ve never had much problem with him,’ Garren said, still feeling the need to plead for the absent Rannick. ‘Though I’ll grant he’s got an unfortunate manner.’
Gryss blew out a noisy breath. ‘You’d see good in a raiding fox, Garren Yarrance,’ he said, though not unkindly, laying a hand on Garren’s shoulder. ‘But I’ve watched Rannick from a lad in the hope that he’d improve as he grew up, and all I’ve seen is him going from bad to worse. And it seems he’s going faster and faster.’
Garren made to speak, but Gryss stopped him.
‘No, Garren,’ he said. ‘Don’t say anything. I’ve al-ways given him the benefit of the doubt – you know that, in spite of the fact that I didn’t like him. But I know his family farther back than you, or, for that matter, than almost anybody in the valley these days, and there’s an evil trait in it which is writ large in Rannick.’
Farnor and Marna glanced at one another as the word ‘evil’ floated into the sunny air. Farnor shivered suddenly.
Garren was more forthright. The word disturbed him also. ‘Evil!’ he exclaimed. ‘No, I can’t accept that. Good grief, his grandfather was a respected elder! A good man.’
‘Maybe,’ Gryss conceded. ‘But he wasn’t typical of the family by any means, and even he was a strange one until he married and seemed to quieten down.’ He stood still for a moment. ‘I think that’s perhaps what I’ve been expecting Rannick to do. Find a nice girl, settle down, become more… easy with his life.’
He set off again.
‘But Rannick’s grandfather was a healer,’ Garren said, falling in beside him. ‘And they say he had the power to understand the needs of animals almost as if he could talk to them.’
Gryss’s face darkened. ‘Yes, he could. And you’ve heard it said that if provoked he could knock a man down without seeming to touch him.’
Garren shrugged. ‘Alehouse tales,’ he said uncer-tainly.
Gryss shook his head. ‘I’ve seen him do it,’ he said. ‘Only once, when he was a young man and I was a lad. But I saw it. And I can see it now, as clear as if I was still there.’ He paused. ‘I don’t know how it came about, but there was some angry shouting, then there was a wave of his hand and this fellow went crashing across the room as if a cart had hit him. I remember the air tingling suddenly, as if a bad storm was due. And I remember the men around him going quiet and then start drifting away. And his face. I can’t forget that. Savage and cruel. Only ever saw it like that the once, but I’ve seen the same expression on Rannick’s many a time.’ He glanced down at his hands. ‘He had some skill… some power… that was beyond most people’s understanding. And his grandfather before him was said to be a wild man.’ He shook his head. ‘My father used to say the family line was tainted as far back as anyone could recall. I’ve thought as you do in the past: gossip, old wives’ tales, but all these old memories have been coming back lately.’ His voice faded away.
Farnor’s mouth went dry. Gryss’s tale, his patent concerns and doubts and, indeed, the whole conversa-tion between the two men, freely uttered within his hearing, seemed to have surrounded him with a fearful stillness into which the warm sun and the valley scents and sounds could not penetrate. It was as if, after passing over the boundary that had marked the limit of his wanderings all his life, he was now being taken across other, more subtle, boundaries by his father and the village elder. Boundaries to worlds that were at once here and yet far away. An urge rose within him to reach out and thank them both, to reassure them, to… comfort them?
Gryss raised his hand hesitantly as if something had lightly brushed against him. He smiled. ‘What…?’
The presence of the valley returned to Farnor so suddenly that he missed his step and staggered forward. He steadied himself with his staff.
‘Careful,’ his father said sternly. ‘I’ve no desire to be carrying you back home with a broken ankle.’
Before Farnor could reply however, a faint whistling reached them.
‘Someone’s found something,’ Gryss said, cocking his head on one side to see which direction the whistling was coming from. But the sound was rebounding from too many rock faces.
Gryss frowned and swore softly.
‘Let’s go on towards the castle,’ Garren suggested, pointing up a nearby slope. ‘We’ll be able to see and hear better from up there, and it’s not too far.’
Gryss nodded. Farnor’s excitement returned, though it was laced with trepidation.
The castle! The King’s castle! This was proving to be a remarkable day.
Standing almost at the head of the valley, the castle was large and impressive by the villagers’ standards, but although it commanded a view of much of the valley it did not dominate. No man-made structure could dominate the peaks that towered over it.
To the children of the valley however, it was a haunted, frightening and forbidden place: both the door to, and the protection from, the world that lay to the north. The world that was even more alien than the one over the hill. The world that lurked on the fringes of their darker dreams.
At play around the village, safe in their secret hud-dled conclaves, they would touch the darkness and run, whispering, ‘The caves…’ and, ‘The forest…’ And shivering breaths would be drawn.
To the adults of the valley on the other hand, the castle seemed to mean little, although they were not above saying ‘The King’s men will come for you’ to quieten their more awkward offspring. At most it was perhaps a reminder of the existence of the world over the hill, with its needs and, by implication, its powers. And, to that extent, people would tend to glance up at it more frequently towards Dalmas. Normally, however, it was just another unseen and ignored part of the landscape.
Yet even in the sober adults childhood shadows lingered, and most were content both to laugh at and to perpetuate them as ‘harmless tales’, while being happy that the castle was comfortably far away from the normal avenues of their lives. Few ever found it necessary to discuss the regions beyond, though the unkinder parents would occasionally extend the menace of their threats by declaring, ‘The Forest People will come for you!’
The four hunters moved off in the direction indi-cated by Garren.
‘Go ahead, if you want,’ he said to Farnor and Marna. ‘You’ll see the castle when you reach that ridge, but wait for us there. We don’t want to go trailing all the way unless we have to.’
Farnor wanted to ask his father how it was that he was so familiar with the terrain, but Garren was motioning him to follow Marna who had already set off.
‘Do you think we’ll catch it?’ he said, as he caught up with her.
The girl shook her head and made a disparaging noise. ‘Your father and Gryss might, and some of the other upland farmers, but the rest are only out here for the ale. Most of them need both hands to find their backsides at the best of times.’
Farnor grinned at Marna’s manner, but made a hasty gesture for silence and glanced quickly behind in case Gryss or his father were near enough to hear this cavalier disrespect. The two men were well out of earshot, though, trudging along at their own steady pace. He noticed however, that they were deep in conversation.
Not all boundaries were to be swept aside today, he sensed.
The thought brought a shadow back to him.
‘And Rannick,’ he said to Marna, not knowing why. ‘Could he catch it?’
He felt her stiffen. ‘Oh yes,’ she said flatly. ‘He could catch it.’
Farnor pressed on. ‘What do you think Gryss was talking about back there?’
‘Nothing I didn’t already know,’ Marna replied. ‘Rannick’s a mad dog. Bad and dangerous. The valley would be a quieter place without him.’ She shuddered.
Farnor could not keep the surprise from his face. Marna could be blunt to the point of considerable rudeness at times, but it was usually to someone’s face. And he had never heard her speak so brutally of anyone before. He found himself instinctively trying to take his father’s part as defender of the man against this condemnation, but he remained silent. Just as Gryss’s words had illuminated his own feelings about Rannick, so too had Marna’s.
But feelings were feelings. There must surely be reasons for such vehemence.
‘What’s the matter with him?’ he half stammered. ‘I don’t like him much myself but…’
‘He wants things, Farnor,’ Marna replied before he could finish.
‘We all want things,’ Farnor retorted.
Marna shook her head. ‘No, not like that,’ she said. ‘He wants to be what he’s not. Wants to… push people about… make them run when he tells them… jump when he tells them. Wants to be in charge of everything.’
‘An elder?’ Farnor queried, though sensing immedi-ately that this was a naive response.
‘No, of course not,’ Marna said impatiently. ‘Nothing like an elder. He wants to be like…’ She waved her arms about, in search of a word. ‘Like a… great lord of some kind… a king, even.’
Farnor looked at her intently. ‘You mean it, don’t you?’ he said. Then, without waiting for a reply, ‘That’s stupid. Why on earth would he want to be something he couldn’t possibly be? No one in the whole valley would let him.’ A thought came to him. ‘And how would you know something like that, anyway?’ he added, suspi-ciously.
Marna glowered at him. ‘Because he’s a man, and men think stupid thoughts like that, that’s why, you donkey. And I know because it’s written in his face, in his eyes. Just look at them one day.’
Farnor felt that he had inadvertently wandered into a thorn bush and he retreated in haste. He sensed that Marna was blustering to hide some other concern, but he wasn’t going to ask about it.
They continued in an uneasy silence.
As they walked over the rounded top of the rise, the castle came into view ahead of them. It was still some considerable distance away, but neither Farnor nor Marna had been so close to it before. They stopped and gazed at it in awe.
Its high, grey stone walls crawled purposefully over the uneven ground, between great buttressing towers. These for the most part were circular, but wherever the wall changed direction they were six-sided. From some of them more slender towers rose up haughtily as if disdaining the earthbound solidity that actually supported them. Other towers, too, could be seen, rising from behind the walls, as could the roofs of lesser buildings. The walls themselves were made strangely watchful by lines of narrow vertical slits and, at intervals, small turrets jutted out from the battlements to hang confidently over the drop below. A tall, narrow gate wedged between two particularly massive towers fronted the whole.
‘It’s so big,’ Marna said softly. ‘It really is like some-thing out of one of Yonas’s tales.’
‘But this is real,’ Farnor wanted to say, but he just nodded dumbly. He felt the hairs on his arms rising in response to the sight. Questions burst in upon him.
What must it have been like here once, when it was first built back in the unknown past, or when the King’s soldiers occupied it? He saw lines of riders clattering up to the open gate, surcoats and shields emblazoned with strange devices shining bright amid the glittering armour. Servants and grooms ran out to greet the arrivals, dogs barked, orders were shouted, voices were raised in welcome, trumpets sounded…
‘Come on!’ Marna was tugging at his sleeve, the child in her showing through her stern adult mask. ‘Let’s go!’
Farnor hesitated. The castle was at once inviting and forbidding.
‘Wait there!’ A faint voice reached them from below to spare Farnor the need for a decision. He turned to see his father gesticulating. The command was repeated and he waved back in acknowledgement. Marna’s mouth tightened as she bit back some comment, and with a soft snort she sat down on the grass. Farnor felt awkward.
Eventually, Garren and Gryss reached them. Gryss was puffing heavily.
‘It’s been too long since I went sheep-herding,’ he said, smiling ruefully as Garren motioned him to a flat rock on which he could sit.
‘I walked too quickly for you,’ Garren said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Gryss brushed the apology aside and looked up at the castle.
‘It doesn’t seem to change, does it?’ he said.
Garren shook his head. ‘There’s craftsmanship there that we can’t begin to equal,’ he said.
Farnor could remain silent no longer. ‘You’ve been here before?’ he said, almost rhetorically. ‘Why? You never told me. You’ve always said it was a place where we shouldn’t go.’
‘And so it is,’ Garren replied, his manner authorita-tive. ‘I’ve been here from time to time, just to look for sheep, that’s all. But it’s a…’ He paused and his authority seemed to fade. ‘It’s a place you should avoid,’ he concluded lamely.
Unexpectedly, Farnor felt affronted. An indignant protest began to form, but Gryss intercepted it.
‘All things in their time, Farnor,’ he said. ‘There’s nothing here for any of the valley folk. The ground’s too poor for cultivation, and not even very good for grazing sheep.’
He looked at Farnor, who could not keep his dissat-isfaction at this answer from his face. He seemed to reach a conclusion.
‘It’s a limit, Farnor,’ he said. ‘A boundary. You’ll meet them all your life. Things that can’t be done… for many reasons. Things you can’t have.’ He pointed beyond the castle, to the north. ‘The land over the hill is a strange enough place, with not much to commend it. But over there…’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Over there, there’s a world stranger still. It’s best let be. Kept away from.’
‘How do you know?’ Marna asked. Farnor started at her tone, part true inquiry, part challenging taunt.
Gryss scowled and turned to speak to her, but the whistling that had brought them to the top of the rise reached them again.
‘Over there,’ Garren said, pointing. He clambered up on to a small outcrop. ‘I can see them. They’ve found something.’