Farnor

Chapter 1Darkness fell cold across Farnor’s face, extinguishing the myriad lights that had been flickering behind his closed eyelids and replacing them with shifting, blue-in-black shadows. He opened his eyes with a start, momentarily fearful that some stranger or menacing creature had silently crept upon him as he lay, half dozing, under the gently swaying trees. It was not so, however. The darkness was only a cloud passing in front of the sun. He made to smile away his reaction as foolishness, but, oddly, the unease persisted and with a frown he gazed around the sunlit woodland, searching for a sign of anything untoward that might have provoked this response. But there was nothing; just the rustling whisper of the wind-stirred trees and the innumerable splashes of bright sunlight flitting and dancing at their nodding behest. Guilty conscience, he thought wryly as he struggled to his feet, brushing twigs and grass from his trousers and shirt. Loafing around in the woods when you’re supposed to be checking the sheep. Thoughts of justification jostled for position as he walked to the edge of the wood and out into the brilliant spring sunshine. He hadn’t actually gone to sleep — well, hardly, anyway, and not for long — and besides, he’d get the job done — and there wasn’t anything special to do on the farm today... He cut them short. They were a remnant from the times when his father would regularly interrogate him about his daily doings — or misdoings. Now, however, he was being treated increasingly as a trusted partner in the running of the farm; as a man, even though he would still be considered a boy in the eyes of the villagers for almost a year yet. It was quite amazing how much his father had learned over the past few years, he reflected. Pausing, he looked down the valley towards the farm. It was hidden from view by the rolling terrain, but, as ever, he could feel its presence, solid and dependable; always there, always welcoming, a haven from all ills. And yet, as he turned and began to walk up the valley again, he could still feel the shadow of the unease to which he had wakened. He had a faint memory of strange voices talking all around him... talking about him. The sound of the trees intruding into his half dreams, he presumed, but... Almost angrily, he drove the end of his staff into the soft turf in an attempt to dispel once and for all the darkness that seemed reluctant to leave him. It hadn’t been the wisest of things to do, he supposed, going to sleep up here. Especially not with something worrying the sheep. ‘Someone’s dog gone wild,’ had been the usual opinion of the villagers to such happenings on the few occasions that Farnor had known them in the past; an opinion that was invariably proved correct after some judicious night-watching and trap-laying. The brighter sparks in the village would even take wagers on whose dog it was liable to be. But it was different this time, for though only a few sheep had been worried, the damage to them had been massive and the traditional conclusion had been spoken hesitantly and in subdued and anxious tones. Then, like a mysterious creak in an empty house, Farnor caught a whisper of the word ‘bear’. Somewhat awkwardly, he put it to his father, only to receive a confident shake of the head and a lip-curling dismissal of the author of the suggestion. ‘Ale-topers’ talk. Berries, grubs, the odd fish, that’s all bears eat unless they’re desperate. They’ve little taste for meat and generally sense enough to keep well away from people.’ ‘They say you can get rogue bears,’ Farnor offered. ‘Bears that have...’ His father cut across the tale with his final verdict: ‘The only rogues around here are those who should be working in the fields instead of swilling ale during the day and filling people’s heads with nonsense.’ Though he added, reassuringly, ‘It’s just a big dog gone wild, that’s all, Farnor. Probably from over the hill somewhere.’ From over the hill. The anonymous beyond. Where lived outsiders; people who weren’t ‘our’ people and who must necessarily be odd and thus quite capable of allowing large dogs to run wild and escape. Nevertheless, and with a deliberate casualness, his father had from that time insisted that his son take a particularly stout staff with him whenever, as today, he was to go any distance up the valley. As he moved further from the trees the last vestiges of Farnor’s unease fluttered away. Unconsciously he patted his knife in its rough sheath, then, impulsively, be swung his staff around in a whistling arc. He began to daydream. His mind ran ahead along his journey. He would come to his favourite spot near the head of the valley and there sit down to eat the food his mother had prepared for him. Then, just as he was about to eat, he would notice bloodstains trailing across the ground. He would follow them and soon come to their source: the mangled body of a sheep. Almost before he would be able to react however, there would be a rustling in the nearby undergrowth and the culprit would emerge, charging towards him at full tilt: a huge hound, wild-eyed and ferocious, with bloodstained foam spraying from its snarling mouth. A great battle would then ensue in which only Farnor’s skill with his staff would save him from the lightning, killing reflexes of this monstrous animal until finally, slipping on the bloodstained grass, he would crash to the ground and the creature would be on him, teeth scarce a hand span from his throat. Farnor drew his knife with a flourish and thrust it upwards into the sunlit air to emulate the final blow that would unexpectedly finish his attacker at the very last moment. He laughed out loud in his excitement and allowed his fantasy to peter out with images of his triumphal return to the village and the wide-eyed appreciation of the villagers — and their children in the years to come — who would beg him to tell them, yet again, the tale of his mighty battle against the beast of the valley. Then, though he knew he was quite alone, he glanced about, slightly embarrassed at this lapse into childish imagining. Nonetheless, it was a good tale. It was the kind of tale that Yonas the Teller would tell with much drama on his rare visits to the village. Farnor began to embellish it and to mouth it to himself after the manner of Yonas. Then he began to imagine himself to be a great Teller, travelling not only to towns and cities about the land, but even to other lands far, far away. Lands ruled by great princes and kings, and full of noble lords and fine ladies. Farnor stretched himself tall; ladies who would smile knowingly at him and... His foot sank into a cow pat. An ignoble but vigorous oath rose up amid the unique incense released by the deed, and self-reproaches fell back down on him. ‘Dreaming again, Farnor?’ he heard his father’s oft-repeated comment. A few ungainly, dragging steps relieved him of the bulk of his burden, but the remainder proved persistent and, despite a further brief, foot-twisting ballet, he was finally obliged to resort to sitting down and finishing the task with a clump of grass. His poetic mood dispelled, Farnor strode on sourly, content for the time being to be earthbound; neither slayer of beasts nor Teller of tales, but a plain, ordinary farmer’s son out looking after his father’s sheep. He was still so minded when he eventually came to the end of his journey: the place where, a little earlier, he had chosen to fight the ravening sheep-worrier. ‘That will be far enough,’ his father had said. It was his usual admonition; unelaborated, but laden with meaning. Farnor leaned on his staff and stared up the valley. This was the last rolling hummock before the mountains began to assert their presence on the terrain, closing in darkly and rising steep and rugged out of the lush greenery. But it was more than that: it was, to Farnor, the boundary of the known land. Just as beyond the valley and the village lay a strange and alien world best kept at bay, so beyond this point lay a forbidden world, a world of unspoken dangers and strange menace. As ever when he was here Farnor imagined how easy it would be to walk down the grassy slope in front of him and begin the climb up towards the head of the valley. The thought gave him a not unpleasant shiver of fear, but he could no more take that first step than he could fly. Such a journey would take him first to the old castle. The King’s castle stood stark and desolate, keeping a blank-eyed watch over the valley and, though long abandoned, it was still spoken of only with lowered voices by the villagers. Then beyond that were the caves. Caves that were said to wind down through steep, intricate tunnels into the bowels of the mountains to dark and secret vaults where lay unheard-of terrors; terrors from the ancient times that slept as the world had become civilized but which might be awakened again by the blundering of the unwary. And beyond that yet, never spoken of save by the children in their world of whispering and wonder, was the eerie, silent tree-filled gorge that led to the land of the Great Forest to the north. The land where even the people were different, and where who knew what other creatures dwelt? For a moment Farnor suddenly felt himself to be constrained, bound by unseen ties. He sensed a part of him struggling, crying out inarticulately. He drew in a sharp breath, as if someone had dashed cold water in his face, so unexpected and vivid was this sensation. Briefly the mountains became mountains and the castle a castle, then, once again, they were the mountains, the castle, and the images he saw were those of his upbringing. Yet... not quite so. Something was different. Something seemed to have changed. He shook his head. You’re hungry, he thought. Swinging his pack off his shoulder he turned towards his favourite seat: a small rocky outcrop which hid him from the ominous region to the north and on which he could sit and lean back and look down the valley. He settled down with relish and fumbled with the straps on his pack without looking at them. Ahead of him, green fields, white-dotted with sheep and outcropping rocks, lay vivid in the spring sunshine. The shadows of the few small clouds passing overhead marched slowly but resolutely across all obstacles, and the air was filled with the susurrant whispering of distant rustling trees, tumbling streams and the soft shifting of countless wind-stirred grasses and shrubs. Occasionally an isolated sound rose above this harmony: a sheep, a hoarse croak from one of the great black birds that circled high above, the buzz of some passing insect. Don’t go to sleep again, Farnor cautioned himself, as he felt the valley’s peace seeping into him. He sat up and began to concentrate on his food. After a mere mouthful, however, another matter forced itself upon him, setting aside both appetite and any chance of slipping into sleep. Only a few paces ahead of him the grass was streaked with blood. What had a little earlier been an exciting daydream was a more sober, not to say frightening, reality. With almost incongruous care he laid the piece of bread he had been eating back in his pack, stood up and walked hesitantly over to the stained grass. As he neared it he saw more blood. And the grass was crushed. Something had been dragged across it recently. A faint sense of excitement began to return, but it was mingled unevenly with alarm. Then duty and his native common sense took command. He had been sent out to check on the sheep. It was one of the responsibilities that his father had entrusted to him. This was probably no more than a rabbit killed by a fox, but he must have a look around just to be sure, and then he could return to his father and tell him what he had seen and what he had done about it. He found himself walking along quite a distinctive trail. It was a lot of blood for a rabbit. He bent down and pulled something that had snagged on a gorse bush. And that wasn’t rabbit’s fur... His face wrinkled in distress. He was going to find a sheep. One that might perhaps have injured itself. But that was his head talking; his stomach was beginning to tell him something else. And it was correct. He was at the end of his search: the remains of a sheep, its body rent open and its exposed entrails scattered recklessly about. In obscene contrast to the stark stillness of the animal, the gaping wound was crawlingly alive with flies, a shifting shroud glittering iridescent blue-black in the bright sunlight. As Farnor approached, the writhing mass disintegrated and rose up in front of him in a noisy black cloud. He flailed his arms angrily and pointlessly. Then, as if released by the departure of the flies, the smell struck him and he took an involuntary step backwards. He swore at his reaction. He’d seen enough dead animals and encountered enough smells in his days. Except this was peculiarly awful. And the damage to the sheep... It was — had been — a good-sized animal, certainly no weak and ailing stray. And there was a lot of it missing. He had seen worried sheep before, although he had been much younger, but this seemed to be different. Whatever had killed it must indeed have been large and powerful. Farnor looked around to see if there was any other sign the creature had left that would help his father and the villagers in the hunt they must surely now mount. But there was nothing. Not even an indication as to which way the creature had gone, no footprints on the short grass, no damage to the nearby shrubbery, nothing. Farnor was not unduly disappointed. His earlier, dramatic flight of fancy about the animal was now far from his mind. Dreamer he might be from time to time, but the hard-headed farm helper within him knew enough about the reality of wild animals not to wish to meet such a one as this alone, and so far from help. He must get back and tell his father what he had seen. A sudden sound made him start. He turned round quickly, his heart racing. The sound came again. Something was coming through the shrubbery towards him. Something large.