Mother wandered in and out of the house distractedly, growing more and more agitated as the light failed. Balor watched her from his place by the fire, feeling the same agitation gnaw at his own breast. Father was the only one who was not alarmed. He sat by the door with a pipe in his hand, blowing smoke into the gathering dusk.
“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he said. “You know Banac — always running off for one thing or another.”
“But he looked upset! Didn’t he look upset?” Mother glanced outside again. “And Elred said he’d been out of sorts all day. Can’t you at least go and look for him?”
Father reached out and caught her by the hand, holding her still. “If he doesn’t come back in an hour or so, then we’ll go and look for him.”
“But it’s dark already! He could be anywhere!”
“There now.” He stroked her back gently. “You’ll frighten Balor. Come. Sit a while. Have something to eat. Try not to think of it. He’ll be back before long, you’ll see.”
But Banac did not return that hour, nor the next. Eventually Father went out to talk with Elred and the other men, and ten minutes later a group of them set off up the hill, bearing torches.
Balor stood in the doorway with Mother and watched them go. Briefly he wondered whether he should say something about the standing stones and the torc. But then they would know it was his fault that Banac had gone out so late, and then he would be punished.
And besides, Banac would be all right. Banac was always all right.
* * *
Banac did not know when he lost the path. All he knew was that he was suddenly in a part of the wood that was trackless and empty, where only dead leaves and crawling plants covered the ground, where scratching branches clawed at his smock every which way he turned and unseen creatures scuttled in the undergrowth.
He was not afraid. Uneasy, yes. Nervous, maybe. But more than anything he was annoyed: annoyed that he was not in his soft bed by a warm fire with a bowl of hot soup, annoyed that he had let Balor get to him. For the thousandth time he cursed Balor in the worst ways he knew as he looked around, trying to think what to do. In the stories the hero always stumbled across some hidden path or helpful companion, like Tiran meeting Naedoras in the Teor Forned. But here there was no-one. Just trees, and darkness, and endless miles of trackless forest.
Muttering more dire words under his breath, he picked a direction and started walking.
*
Two hours later he was no closer to knowing where he was. If anything, he was more lost than he had ever been. He was cold, and tired, and the annoyance had dulled to a general simmering resentment. He slumped down beside a tree, his legs weak with exhaustion, and buried his face in his hands. For all he knew he had been walking away from the village all this time. Even when morning came it would do him no good — the canopy here was too thick for the sun the penetrate, so he would not be able to tell which way was east and which was west.
He had just resigned himself to the fact that he would definitely be spending the night in the dark, uncomfortable forest, when he saw something that made him sit up — a light, burning through the darkness a little way off, red and flickering. It was followed by another, and another: a line of torches moving slowly and steadily through the forest towards him. The resentment melted into relief. Finally, a search party from the village come to find him!
Banac got to his feet, ready to shout out to let them know where he was. But before the words could come out the torch-bearers came into view, and the relief died as if it had been doused with cold water, and he shrank back into the undergrowth, his heart racing.
The torch-bearers were not from the village. They wore long brown robes that reached down to their feet, and they held aloft fiery brands, sweeping them this way and that as they made their way through the trees; their arms were bare to the elbow, and their hands were stained with red dye; but not a face was to be seen among them. Every figure wore over his head a heavy leather hood with a leather flap attached that covered his face like a mask. The flap had two square holes cut where the eyes should be, and a thin strip for the mouth — but nothing more. They were faceless apparitions emerging like ghosts from the night, and the very sight of them was enough to strike Banac dumb. He could not have cried out even if he had wanted to.
He crouched down further, hiding himself in the undergrowth, trying to make himself as small as possible. His heart pounded; he could hardly breathe. He had stumbled across something evil — he knew that as surely as he knew that fire burned and steel was sharp — and he knew just as surely that he must stay hidden at all costs.
The torch-bearers were much closer now. They made no effort to be quiet, but shoved their way through the trees, confident, unafraid. Banac counted ten of them at first, but even as he watched more lights flared up, and more, until there was a great line of them moving steadily through the woods towards him.
He crouched where he was, frozen with the thought that they might come upon him, but to his relief they did not. Instead they bore off to one side, the end of the line passing by some distance from him. As he watched them pass and recede into the darkness Banac turned and watched them go, weighing up his options. He could turn around and try to find his way home, and forget what had just happened; or … his hand brushed against the torc, and the touch of the cold metal on his skin made up his mind for him. Something was going on, something to do with the beremer and the torc, and he knew he had to know what was happening.
He rose to his feet and followed the lights at a crouching run.
* * *
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