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| "... dark shadows of hooded men pacing round the clearing ..." |
When he was sure the soldiers had gone, and the wood was silent once more, Banac rose shakily to his feet and scrambled back up the bank. Balor would still be waiting for him, alone and probably terrified out of his wits. He retraced his steps back to the tree where he had left Balor; but when he reached it his stomach knotted in alarm. The place was deserted. Balor was gone.
Panic gripped him, and for a horrible moment he imagined that Balor had been found and taken away along with the beremer. Then a hiss came from near his feet, and someone whispered his name:
“Banac? Is that you?”
Leaves rustled. A moment later Balor’s face emerged from the darkness under a bush; his cheeks were stained where he had been crying, and he was shaking uncontrollably.
“I thought you’d gone,” he said in stuttering sobs as he scrambled out to clutch at Banac’s smock. “I thought you’d left me ... and there was a lot of noise, and it hurt my head ... and ... and there were people here, but they didn’t have faces, so I hid, but you didn’t come back, and— and—”
It was too much. He burst into tears again, burying his face in Banac’s chest. “Why did you leave me?” he cried, over and over. “Why did you leave me? Why did you leave me?”
Banac held him tight, shushing him in the way he had seen Mother do, while Balor wept childish tears into his shoulder. But even as he comforted his brother Banac was conscious of the charge Father had given him: Don’t go back to the village ... He’s more important than all of us ... Stop them before they kill him like they killed the other one ... He was anxious to leave, to get to the beremer before it was too late.
“Listen,” he said softly, still holding Balor tight. “We can’t stay here now. I saw Father. I talked to him. He told me—”
“You saw Father?” Balor looked up with red eyes. “Where is he? Didn’t you save him?”
“I couldn’t. I tried but I couldn’t. He wouldn’t let me—”
“What do you mean?” Balor was bewildered and angry. “You said you were going to save him. Father wouldn’t stop you — he wants to be saved!”
“I’m trying to tell you!” Banac snapped, and Balor fell silent. “I tried to save him,” he explained patiently. “But he told me to save the beremer first. They’ve taken him. They’re going to kill him, and Father said I have to stop it happening. We have to stop it, you and me. There’s no time to get help. It’s just us, and we have to go now.”
But Balor shook his head. “I don’t want to go,” he said, tears welling up again. “I want to go home ... I want mama ... I want mama ...”
The sobs overwhelmed him, and he buried his face in Banac’s chest. For a moment Banac wanted to push him away, to get rid of his crying and moaning. But he couldn’t. It was not what Father would have wanted.
“Come on,” he said, patting Balor on the back. “It’s all right ... it’s all right ...”
As Balor wept into his body Banac looked into the darkness and wondered why nothing was going how it was supposed to. He was supposed to have rescued Father. They were supposed to be going home by now. That was his plan. They were not supposed to be stuck out here in the darkness, going after the galac-men, the very people he had tried so hard to get away from before. He was angry, and he was frustrated. This adventure was not going the way he had planned.
He gave Balor one last squeeze, then gently prised him away.
“Hey ...” he said, looking into Balor’s tear-stained face. “It’s going to be all right. I’m going to take care of you now. No-one’s going to hurt you. All right? But we have to get moving. We have to get to the standing stones, and we have to go now. Understand?”
Balor nodded miserably, and Banac smiled as best he could.
“Come on,” he said. “I don’t think we’ve got much time.”
* * *
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