Roger Taylor: Farnor

It was hunting, he realized sharply.

Then, chillingly, he felt another presence mingling with that of the creature, riding it almost, both guiding and following.

Rannick!

Farnor’s grip on the knife tightened further.

He felt anger and hatred surging up inside him.

‘Flee, mover, you have not…’

Farnor started as the voices whispered softly to him. His mind jerked towards them but that very action again dispelled the subtle sound and the message was lost to him.

Who are you? he thought, but there was no reply. Fearfully, he gritted his teeth and pressed himself back against the tree trunk.

Was he going insane? Quivering in the silent woods beyond the castle, clutching his mother’s favourite knife and hearing voices, feeling the presence of a creature that he had never seen?

He felt as though his mind were teetering on the edge of a terrible darkness from which he could never return if he tumbled in. He heard the heavy thumping of his heart and the harsh rasping of his breath. All around he sensed forces moving, though to what end he could not even begin to guess.

It seemed to him that he stood on this fearful edge for an eternity of time, waiting.

Waiting…

But for what…

Faint ribbons of thought flitted through the dark-ness. Gryss, who had listened and believed; Marna, who had listened and believed; Rannick who had looked into the entrails of the slaughtered sheep and found – what…? A wind that had slammed a wicket door on his arm. His hand reached for the bruised arm and squeezed it hard.

The pain cut through the darkness like distant lightning in the night sky, and the twisting ribbons of thought became like the pennants of an approaching army; sharp-etched against the gloom; confident and bold.

No! For all its appalling strangeness, what was hap-pening was happening and it was real. It was no rambling disorder from inside himself.

I’m here, Rannick! Farnor called into the creature’s watching silence.

‘No…’ came the voices in despair.

And, on the instant, Farnor felt the truth of their concern. For the presence of the creature was about him now as it had been on his flight back to the ruin of his home. Vast and overwhelming. Power pouring through huge rents in reality that must surely be beyond any repairing.

And with it was Rannick’s will, malevolent and wild with rage.

‘Farnor Yarrance,’ Rannick whispered to himself in the darkness of his communion with the creature. ‘Farnor Yarrance. It was you who defied me. Who stood in my light and marred my power.’

It was beyond belief that such a thing could be. That a beaten and broken farmer’s boy should have such a skill. And that he should come now with a defiant challenge.

But in the same instant, he knew that his concerns had been of no account. For all that happened in the courtyard, the farm boy’s will was no more than an autumn leaf caught in a winter wind. He could not prevail against the might that he, Rannick, now possessed; a might that grew daily both in its totality and in the refinement of its use.

Tomorrow Farnor Yarrance would pay the penalty for his rash interference. There could be no escape for him. Rannick smiled. There would be the joy of the hunt and then the joy of the slow destroying. That this would also serve to quell further the spirit of the villagers added an exquisite savour to the prospect.

Rannick wallowed in the glow of his triumph. Truly great powers were guiding and protecting him, to lead him so ingeniously to expose the one person in the valley who might have opposed him. His destiny, as ever, ran true.

But something was amiss.

The creature was disturbed. Rannick sensed its unease, and the awakening of its most ancient hunting instincts.

No, he instructed. Not in the village. Not yet. Your time for that will come. There will be enough to sate even you in the future. But not yet.

But though the creature heard and responded, still it stirred restlessly. Rannick felt his restraint tested, though in anxiety rather than defiance.

He had a fleeting image of fleeing prey.

Fleeing!

He jolted into wakefulness. As he had felt Farnor’s puny challenge, so Farnor had felt the weight of his awesome response.

And he was running!

Rannick and the creature became as one.

Go! Rannick hissed into the lusting hunter. Go, hunt him down. He is yours. Let the whole valley be awak-ened to the ringing of his screams echoing from the peaks!

Blind fear filled Farnor. The power pervading the eerie presence of both Rannick and the creature was formi-dable. There were strange stirrings in him, but nothing, he knew, could oppose what was now levied against him. He was a sapling in the path of an avalanche that could sweep away an entire forest.

Just as Nilsson’s cruel fighting expertise had casu-ally destroyed his shield of anger and hatred to leave him exposed, shivering and helpless against the icy blasts of reality, so now did Rannick’s power.

All his intentions of watching the castle and pa-tiently waiting for the time when he would come upon Rannick alone vanished before the weight of the ancient malevolence that was turning towards him.

He was dimly aware of the voices again, urgent this time, and fear-laden.

‘Flee, mover, flee!’

But he needed no such urging. Almost without real-izing what he was doing, he was mounting his horse and kicking it forward. Instinctively it turned towards the village.

‘ No ’ said the voices inside him.

They coincided with his own raucous shout, ‘No!’ The valley was Rannick’s now; he could not go that way. He yanked the reins violently. Unused to such treat-ment, the horse reared and nearly unseated him, but desperation kept him in the saddle. Then the horse leapt forward. Farnor grabbed at its mane to keep his balance, then, as a low branch skimmed through his hair, he ducked and wrapped his arms about the horse’s neck. As the horse gathered speed, he remained in this position.

All around him – indeed, almost part of him – the presence of Rannick and the creature swung to and fro, searching. It seemed to Farnor that there was nothing in the entire world except these two malevolent wills seeking him out: Rannick taunting, vicious and triumphant; the creature primordial and savage, and focused utterly on its ordained prey.

‘Run, horse, run!’ Farnor whispered, over and over, as if to cry out would be somehow to draw the attention of the searching creature.

And the horse ran, Farnor clinging to it like a terri-fied child to its mother, his bruised body begging for relief from the merciless pounding but his fear allowing it no voice. Dark-shadowed trunks flitted by, leafy branches reached down and brushed over him mock-ingly. Occasionally he became aware of the moon peering through the canopy above, as if it were gallop-ing after him, marking his demented progress for the creature to follow.

And still the presence of the creature was about him, hunting, scenting.

Yet fragments of coherent thought broke through the relentless rhythm of Farnor’s flight.

The creature could feel his presence, his naked fear, and it knew that he was fleeing. But it did not know where he was. Briefly he found that his vision was not his own. It was steadier, and closer to the ground; and the sky was different. And, too, strange scents pervaded him, feeding a swirling mass of ancient hatreds that some part of him shied away from, so once again he was himself, pain-racked and frantic, hanging on desper-ately to his galloping horse.

Whatever else the creature might be, he discovered, it was still an animal and, in seeking him out, it was constrained by the limitations of its body.