Free Fire Bringer by David Clement-Davies Page A

should get back too.’
    ‘Fine,’ said Rannoch angrily. ‘If you’re frightened I’ll go myself.’
    Rannoch turned and trotted off in the direction of the wood.
    ‘I’ll g-g-g-go with you, Rannoch,’ called Bankfoot.
    ‘You? You should get back to your mother’s milk.’
    As Rannoch ran he was sorry he had snapped at Bankfoot and he could have done with the company. But he was disappointed with Tain and Thistle, and the business of the berries and Braggle’s insult had suddenly made him smart with shame. He was an adventurous little deer but his instincts were always being held in check by Bracken.
    At least now I can go exploring, Rannoch thought to himself, and his spirits perked up a little as he stopped by a big oak. The great twisted tree stood just in front of the main line of the forest and its bowl was heavily furred with moss. It branches stretched wide above him and were thickly decked with yellowing oak leaves with their distinctive florid shape. Rannoch looked about him. Behind him the meadow was emptying of deer as the animals returned to the home herd to feed again before Larn. The sunlight was just beginning to fade and Rannoch could smell the evening on the breeze. He looked back past the oak tree and gulped.
    The line of the forest stretched right and left as far as Rannoch could see; a wall of mystery. But here the trees were set forward a little and, being mainly oak and elm, they were spaced wider than elsewhere, so that Rannoch could see quite a way back into the gloom. Through the dark webbing of wood and brier the great trunks glinted here and there in the streams of sunlight breaking through the canopy and the pools of colour on the forest floor made the darkness around seem all the more mysterious.
    The forest is a place that all young fawns dream about, especially when their herd, like this one, is a not a woodland herd and is used to grazing in the open. Rannoch was powerfully drawn to it as a place of enchantment, of danger and of wonder. The forest is said to be Herne’s home. With small fawns like Rannoch the hinds are careful not to let them wander in the forest on their own, for they know the dangers to a very young fawn if he should get lost in the treacherous shadows of the trees.
    But Rannoch was thinking of none of this now as he edged closer to a trail of trodden leaves that cut through a blackberry bush and swung into the wood. He had forgotten his mother’s strict prohibition and was thinking only of finding an owl’s nest. As his nose edged into shadow he paused again. His legs were trembling violently. Plucking up his courage, the little fawn disappeared into the gloom.
    Rannoch would remember that moment for ever. He had been into the trees before, but that was with Bracken. Now, all alone, he felt like he was stepping to the edge of the adult world. Suddenly the air was thick around him and the great tree trunks reared up like giant antlers. The fawn’s senses came alive as he drank in the strange scents of decaying wood, leaves and moist earth. He felt the ground damp and springy under his hoofs and the air rich and warm around him.
    He walked very slowly, knowing instinctively that he had to stay on the path and peering about him as his eyes adjusted to the dappled light. Around him he heard new and wonderful sounds and flinched nervously as a bird fluttered in its nest or a squirrel that had been watching him from under a branch shot round the top of it and darted up a trunk. It seemed as if the leaves on the forest floor were alive as the ground rustled and crackled with insects and animals.
    Then Rannoch froze as he heard it for the first time. The hollow, melancholy hoot of an owl high up in the branches ahead. The other fawns would be green with envy, thought Rannoch eagerly to himself as he pressed on down the path. He kept looking down as he went, to make sure that he stayed on the trail. Luckily the owl’s call was taking the fawn in the right