Roger Taylor - Farnor

‘Farnor, where are you going?’ she called into the night. But it was to no avail. The only reply was the sound of the hooves gathering speed.

She slammed the door shut and, turning, nearly tripped over the dog. ‘Shift, damn you,’ she snapped, as she staggered past it.

‘What’s he doing?’ Jeorg asked, trying to lever him-self out of the bed as she returned to his room.

Marna’s face was a mixture of rage and distress, and she was on the verge of tears. ‘I don’t know, the stupid sod,’ she blurted out. ‘And you stay where you are.’ An angry finger shot out purposefully at Jeorg, and he stopped his attempted escape. ‘There’ll be enough trouble with that idiot wandering the countryside trying to get himself killed without you getting up too soon. You can wait for your wife to arrive… or Gryss.’

Jeorg lay back, not unrelieved to be the butt of Marna’s anger. He could feel the terror of his treatment by Nilsson and Rannick receding a little, but his hasty movement had heightened the weakness and pain that pervaded his body.

‘He’ll be all right,’ he said, in an attempt to comfort Marna. ‘He’s a sensible lad at heart.’

Marna shook her head. ‘They killed his parents, Jeorg. For no reason. Just killed them. It’s done something to him. You saw how he was. I think it’s driven him crazy. I think he’s probably riding back up to the castle right now.’ Her face twisted in pain. ‘They’ll kill him for sure this time. I should have stopped him.’

‘Don’t be silly, Marna,’ Jeorg tried again. ‘You couldn’t have stopped him. And anyway, he won’t be crazy enough to go back for another beating off Nilsson, believe me.’ He winced as a casual movement brought him another unexpected pain. ‘He probably needed to be alone. Perhaps he wanted to cry. Knowing Farnor, that’d be difficult for him in front of you.’

Marna sat down heavily in the chair that she had occupied for much of the day and, leaning forward, put her head in her hands. Her mind was awash with swirling, nameless fears and with images of Farnor alone in the darkness, and of Rannick, crazed and powerful, and, most sinister of all, though she had not thought about it for some time, images of the strange, savage creature that linked both men.

Farnor rode through the darkness. The moon gave some light, but the horse had sufficient sense to ignore the urgings of its rider and proceeded at a steady trot.

Each jolting step racked Farnor’s beaten frame, but for a while he was oblivious to it. His whole being was still consumed by a black, driving desire to confront and destroy Rannick. On his immediate return with Gryss and the others, he had been struggling with the fear and humiliation that he had suffered during his beating by Nilsson. The humiliation in particular had risen to dominate him as the immediate pain of the beating had begun to fade. Its roots seemed to go deeper even than the cringing childishness to which he had been reduced and, as Gryss had surmised, he felt degraded in a way that he would never have imagined possible.

But, in its turn, this too had faded, or, rather, been overwhelmed as a terrible urging had arisen to seek out the source of this horror and destroy it. It, too, seemed to come from some depths beyond his awareness, if not from somewhere quite beyond him.

Yet, as Jeorg had declared, Farnor was a sensible lad at heart and gradually the complaints of his body began to force their way through his dark passion, bringing with them shadows of the fear and humiliation once more. He allowed the horse to slow to a walk. His hand went to his belt; the knife that had killed his mother was still there. More humiliation – Nilsson had considered him too trifling an opponent even to be disarmed while he was beating him.

Farnor bared his teeth in unconscious imitation of his tormentor, then drew out the knife. He tested its edge. It was as sharp as if he had honed it only today. But he would have expected nothing else from this. It was a fine knife; his mother’s favourite.

‘And I’ll split you open with it, Rannick,’ he said to the night. ‘And that obscenity you’ve conjured up.’

But even as he spoke the words he knew their false-ness. They were no more than the petulant swearing of a thwarted child. To go to the castle would be to die.

And yet…

And yet, though the words were hollow, the inten-tion was not. That was solid and true. Rannick must be destroyed for what he had done. And destroyed by him, if he was ever to know any peace. A memory of his parents leaning on the farmyard gate suddenly surged over him; his father looking out across the fields and his mother, prompted by some wry remark, turning to slap his arm while at the same time smiling so that the young girl inside burst out through the long-married wife and mother.

The vision was almost unbearable. Farnor clenched his teeth and twisted his fist painfully into his thigh to prevent it from overwhelming him. He must not give way, he told himself. That would be no honour to his parents. He must do what he had to do: finish the task that he had set himself.

The horse had stopped, and he kicked it on again. The sudden, vivid memory of his parents seemed to have left him hollow and empty inside. The future had ceased to exist. Plans that he had never really known he had made were gone. Plans for gradually acquiring his father’s knowledge and skills and for taking over the work of the farm as his father grew older. Plans perhaps for marrying and having children, to elevate his parents to the status of grandparents and to ensure the ancient continuity of the line. Vague though they might have been, they were gone utterly now. All that the future offered was a menacing blackness beyond which lay only further darkness.

And it was Rannick’s fault!

The hatred began to return, filling the emptiness inside him with comforting purposefulness. He would destroy Rannick, one way or another. He closed his hand around the knife hilt. He would indeed split him from end to end for what he had done. He would come to his future again, through Rannick’s blood.

Trailing in the wake of this turmoil, and slave to its decisions, came his rational mind. If he could not kill Rannick by confronting him at the castle, then he must kill him by some act of stealth. He must come upon him when he was alone.

Without realizing what he was doing, he turned the horse off the road and into the lane that led to the farm. He was about to jerk it back on to the road when he changed his mind and allowed the animal its head.

Rooting through the blackened rubble of the farm-house and through the horrific, disordered familiarity of the store-shed was grim work, but he steeled himself to it, once again fighting down those thoughts and memories that strove to unman him and divert him from his purpose. For his purpose would carry him through all things now if he so willed it.

Thus, a while later, Farnor returned to the road with his horse carrying saddle bags filled with food and such tools and other items as he would need to survive alone in the woods.

He could not assail the castle, but he could quietly besiege it. Watching the comings and goings of the men, learning their ways, their routines, watching and waiting until that moment when Rannick would venture out alone. For venture out alone he surely would. Sooner or later, Farnor knew, though he could not have said how he knew it, Rannick would wander to the north to commune with the creature. And when he did…

Farnor laid his hand on the knife in his belt.

But he was going the wrong way. This road would lead him directly to the castle. He tugged the reins gently and the horse turned obediently off the road.

Slowly, Farnor rode over the rolling fields in a wide arc, well away from the castle. On the few occasions when it was clearly in view, he could see little or no activity; just a few slits of light along the walls and the odd torch glimmering on the battlements.