Roger Taylor - Farnor

‘On the wall by the main gate, Captain,’ Haral said. Despite his basic trust in Haral, Nilsson kept his hands loose and near to his knives as he followed him through the castle. In fact the brief walk reassured him. Such of the men as they passed acknowledged him openly enough, and while he could feel the tension in the air he inclined to Dessane’s judgement that it was mainly due to the men shaking off the fear they had experienced at Garren’s farm.

Even so, it had been a long time since he had felt anything quite so disturbing and he knew that, inde-pendent of Rannick’s condition, all under his command was not yet as it should be and he must watch his back more than usual. It came to him as he walked along beside Haral that Rannick’s conspicuous use of the power had sent a profound shock deep into the souls of all who had been there, and that many strange impulses could be expected from the resultant resonances. Mud had been stirred that had perhaps been better left undisturbed. He resolved to watch for these conse-quences, not least perhaps within himself, and to harness them to his own ends where appropriate.

Haral led him across the courtyard. Here it was the sound of the stabled horses that predominated, still badly unsettled by the day’s events, though there were small groups of men standing around here and there talking agitatedly in the flickering torchlight.

As they ran up the steps to the top of the wall by the main gate, an anxious looking sentry came down to meet them.

‘Is it…?’ Haral asked softly.

The sentry nodded, his eyes wide.

‘What the…?’ Nilsson began, but Haral raised a finger to his lips for silence and motioned him to the parapet. Nilsson moved forward and rested a hand on the wall. Carefully, Haral leaned over and peered into the darkness.

‘What is it?’

Nilsson found that he was whispering, still affected by Haral’s command to silence.

He was about to repeat the question more loudly when the presence struck him. Instinctively he stepped away from the parapet.

It was the creature. There was no mistaking it. He had not realized how deep and awful an impression it had made on him when he had sensed it at his first meeting with Rannick, but it was quite unmistakable.

‘There!’ Though Haral’s voice hissed quietly through the darkness, it raked jaggedly across Nilsson’s suddenly heightened sensibilities. With an effort he forced himself to the parapet again and leaned over, following the direction of Haral’s pointing hand.

The rain had stopped and the sky was clearing, but clouds still hid the moon and little could be seen of the ground below. Nevertheless, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, Nilsson caught the vague impression of a movement.

‘I’ve no idea how long it’s been there,’ the sentry volunteered. ‘I felt something… queer… then I thought I heard something… sniffing, like… then I saw it. Pacing up and down, up and down.’ He shivered.

Nilsson raised his hand for silence. Slowly he breathed in deeply in an attempt to stay calm. Fear was the last thing he needed to be showing with his men in the state they were, but this damned thing seemed to be reaching inside him. He felt the knowledge that prey knows when a predator has its scent and when the only escape lies in heart-stopping flight.

He forced his mind to give him reassurance. He was safe where he was, high on the battlements. It was only an animal, after all. Murral alone knew what kind of an animal, but an animal nonetheless.

‘It’s that thing out of the forest, isn’t it, Captain?’ the sentry said, his voice trembling. Nilsson looked at him sharply. He was one of the survivors of Yeorson and Storran’s patrol. ‘I can feel it,’ he went on, his fear mounting. ‘Like it’s come after me.’

The man’s fear dispelled some of Nilsson’s. He took the man’s arm. ‘It’s just an animal,’ he said, forcing his own reassurances into his words. ‘It can’t get in, can it? And if it did, it’s not on its hunting ground here. There’s spears and arrows enough to kill a score such creatures, and open space in which to use them.’

The sentry fingered his bow nervously. ‘Should I take a shot at it, Captain?’ he said.

Nilsson leaned over the wall again and searched for the dim, pacing shadow.

It had gone.

Then he was aware of it streaking towards the wall. He tried to jerk away, but some force held him mo-tionless. The shadow leapt and Nilsson felt a scream forming inside him, but still he could not move. Only when he heard the scrabbling of claws against the stone wall and the heavy thud of the creature landing was he able to step back from the edge. His legs were shaking almost uncontrollably, and he was grateful for the darkness which he knew was hiding a face that was white with terror.

He was safe on top of this high battlement, he told himself again. The creature’s leap had been prodigious but it had fallen well short of the top of the wall. Even so, he found little comfort in the knowledge. It seemed that nothing could truly protect him from the malevo-lent intent and the demented, frustrated rage that had washed over him as the creature had reached the peak of its leap. And the paralysis that had seized him as it had tried to close with him chilled him utterly.

Yes, yes, kill the damn thing, his mind screamed. Get the men up here, shoot every arrow we have into it. But no such order reached his mouth. Instead he merely shook his head. ‘No,’ he said to the sentry. ‘Leave it alone. Dealing with the likes of that is the Lord’s province, not ours.’

The sentry stopped fidgeting with his bow with undisguised relief.

Abandoning the battlements, Nilsson made his way back to Rannick’s room. He arrived as Dessane was helping Avak and Bryn to their feet. Neither seemed disposed to continue his earlier complaints, but Nilsson still sensed some defiance in their manner. With the creature’s blood-lusting intention reverberating through him, he had to fight down an almost overwhelming urge to draw his knife and slay these two where they stood.

In the wake of this urge, however, a subtler device came to mind.

‘If you want to leave, leave,’ he said, his tone unex-pectedly bland and expressionless. ‘But you go now, this minute, or you stay and reaffirm your allegiance to our new Lord and never seek to leave again except at his express wish. Is that understood?’

The two men looked at one another and then at him, searching for the treachery that they knew must surely lie in his words.

‘Now or never,’ Nilsson repeated, flatly.

Bryn reached his decision. ‘I’ll stay, Captain,’ he said. ‘I wasn’t thinking straight before. It was just the heat of the moment. I’ve always been with you and I’m with you now. And if you follow the Lord Rannick, then I do too.’

Avak glowered at him. ‘You’re a fool, Bryn,’ he said, wincing and rubbing his jaw where Nilsson had struck him. ‘Take this chance while you’ve got it. That Rannick’s not the man the Lord was by any measure. There’s nothing but death here for anyone who follows him.’

‘There’s nothing but death waiting for us anyway,’ Bryn replied. ‘At least with Lord Rannick we’ll maybe get a chance to die in comfort. I shouldn’t have listened to you.’

Nilsson ended any further debate. ‘Dessane, take this man to the gate and throw him out,’ he said curtly.

Dessane gave him a brief puzzled look. Such a thing had never happened before. Men left the group only one way: dead. He did not linger, however, but motioned Avak forward.

‘No supplies, Captain? No chance to talk to my mates?’ Avak sneered.

‘You’ve got no mates here now, Avak, and you’ll find everything you need outside,’ Nilsson said. ‘Get out of my sight before I change my mind.’