The Falcons of Fire and Ice

  I looked down into the white mist. ‘Come on, Isabela, climb up now and we’ll pull you out.’

  I heaved myself over the edge of the opening, gasping at the shock of the night air after the heat of the cave. I felt as if I’d been plunged into an icy river.

  A distant cry rose up from the hole below. Shivering uncontrollably in the cold, I peered down into the pit. But all I could see was swirling white steam.

  ‘Isabela, are you hurt? Have you fallen? Are you able to climb …? Stay where you are, I’m coming back down for you.’

  I was already scrambling back over the lip of the entrance again when I heard another anguished cry ring out from somewhere deep within the cave.

  ‘Marcos!’

  I leaned over, staring down the shaft into the steam-filled passageway far below me. For a few moments I could see nothing. Then I began to glimpse fragments of something dark moving through the white mist. Someone was heaving themselves up the ladder of rocks towards the opening.

  ‘Isabela!’ I called. ‘Come on, you’re nearly at the top. I can see you. Reach up to me. Take my hand and I’ll pull you out!’

  I stretched down through the slit as far as I could, trying to grasp her. Then I snatched my hand back as if it had been stung. For the face that was staring up at me from the dark pit was not Isabela’s. It was Vítor’s. He was clinging to a rocky ledge in the shaft, just an arm’s length below me.

  ‘Where’s Isabela?’ I yelled. ‘What have you done with her?’

  ‘Me?’ Vítor was panting hard, gasping for breath. ‘I’ve … done nothing. That man … has taken her down into the cave … nasty temper … she won’t be troubling us agai …’

  His voice broke off in a cry of fear as the ground began to shake violently. He flung his arm up in a desperate attempt to grab the rim of the slit and haul himself out, but he never got the chance. For just as he made to grasp it, his other hand slipped from the juddering rock, and with a scream, he fell backwards, crashing down into the passageway below.

  I jerked my leg out from the hole just as a great billow of steam shot up from it, and I lost my balance and found myself rolling backwards down the steep hillside in a hail of small stones and dirt. I tried desperately to stop my fall, but only succeeded when my body crashed into a boulder. I lay there, winded, fighting to force the air back into my lungs. With a frantic effort, I finally managed to draw breath.

  The ground had stopped shaking though stones were still trickling down. I heard my name being called over and over again, softly in the night sky. But I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to. It was over. Isabela was lying dead, buried somewhere deep beneath me, and though I had never shed a single tear for Silvia, I suddenly found that I was crying, howling into the night, and I couldn’t seem to stop.

  Eydis

  At hack – when a falcon is left to fly free for a few weeks to improve its condition, returning to the hack board twice a day to be fed by the falconer.

  It has been so many years since I have breathed the cold fresh air, or seen the purple clouds in the black sky, swollen and silver-edged, where the moonlight touches them. Time has flooded back into my life as swiftly as once it had drained from it. Here was night and in time … in time there would be dawn and day, sun and sunset, winter and spring. I stand transfixed, gazing up into the vast arch of stars, and drinking the sharp frosted air that tastes as if it is squeezed from the sweetest berries.

  A groan from Ari makes me glance down. He is struggling to sit up, rubbing the lump on the back of his head.

  ‘How did I get out here?’

  I look round for Heidrun, but she has vanished. I smile to myself. I knew she would not stay to be thanked.

  ‘The nightstalker … did it get out?’

  ‘No, thanks to the girl, he did not.’

  ‘Isabela … where is she?’ Ari tries to peer over my shoulder.

  Unnur crouches down beside him, anxiously feeling his limbs and head, as she would if one of her own children had taken a tumble.

  ‘I am afraid she is still down there, Ari,’ she whispers.

  Ari struggles up. ‘I must go back, find her.’

  Unnur tries to hold him down. ‘No, Ari, you have a bad bruise on your head, suppose you become dizzy again and fall.’

  But he pushes aside her hands and clambers to his feet. Steam is no longer pouring from the entrance. The slit is dark and still. Ari leans over.

  ‘Isabela! Isabela!’

  We listen, but there is no answering cry beneath us. Ari slips one leg over the edge, feeling around with his foot for the outcrop of rock on which to stand.

  This time it is me who holds him back. ‘If the draugr is still alive down there …’

  ‘Then I shall fight him. I will not leave her corpse down there for him to torment her spirit as he would have done yours. I have to bring her body out. That is the last thing I can do for her … But I can’t feel the ledge. It’s gone. It must have collapsed. What –’

  I press my fingers to his mouth. ‘Listen. I hear something.’

  We all stand and hold our breath.

  Ari shakes his head. ‘It was just the wind blowing over the hole.’

  The voice is faint, but this time we both hear it, a cry for help.

  Ari hastily pulls his leg out and leans as far as he can into the crack.

  ‘Isabela!’

  Ari lifts his head from the hole. ‘The rocks inside the tunnel fell and blocked off the cave. That must be why there’s no more steam coming out, but some of the boulders have fallen from the entrance too. She can get up part of the way, but she can’t reach the opening.’

  ‘We’ll have to find something to pull her out with,’ Unnur says.

  ‘I have something,’ a deep voice says behind us. We turn to see Fannar clambering up the last few yards towards us. Unnur and his daughters race towards him and throw themselves into his arms. He hugs them fiercely, examining each face in turn, anxious to assure himself they are well.

  ‘I saw the steam rising from the mountain, and felt the ground shake. I was so afraid …’ His voice is gruff with tears, but he coughs, striking his chest vigorously as if it is just the cold night air that is catching at his throat.

  ‘Did I hear you say the foreign girl is still down there?’

  He shrugs a thick coil of rope off his shoulder and begins to fasten one end around his waist.

  ‘I thought we might need help getting you out, Eydis, so I borrowed this from one of the farms. The owner doesn’t know, but I will repay him the worth of it someday. Here!’ He tosses the other end to Ari. ‘Make a loop in it and drop it down to her. We need to make haste – if the earth shakes again, the whole passageway might collapse.’

  They work as swiftly as they can, Ari and Fannar hauling together, but still it seems to be a lifetime before we glimpse the whiteness of a hand emerging from the hole. Unnur lies flat on her belly and grasps it. But just as Isabela’s fingers close around Unnur’s, there is another great shudder beneath our feet, a dreadful rumble of rocks crashing down below. Ari and Fannar both lose their balance and fall. The rope goes slack, but Unnur does not let go of Isabela’s hand. Fannar manages to haul himself up on to his knees and with one last great heave, Isabela slips out of the crack and lies panting and sobbing with relief on the hillside, Unnur crooning over her and Ari standing beside them both, beaming.

  We all crouch on the ground, trying to recover our breath, fearful to stand in case the mountain trembles again.

  Unnur clutches her two daughters to her. ‘The wounded man, you had to leave him?’

  It is Ari who answers. ‘He was not a man. I know now that he was a nightstalker. I should have left him to die again on the road when those Danes overpowered him, but I would not believe it. After you and the girls got out, he rose up and tried to attack Eydis in the cave … all of us.’ Ari ruefully rubs the lump on the back of his head.

  Fannar whistles through his teeth. ‘A draugr … is it possible? I have hear
d of them, my own father told me about one who plagued one of the neighbouring farms for many years, but I have never encountered one. Who raised him?’

  Ari glances at me.

  ‘From what Ari tells me,’ I say, ‘I am sure it was the Lutheran pastor who buried his companions. It is my belief he was to have been sent to one of the families the pastor suspected of still holding the Mass. Ari said the man was wearing a crucifix. The Danes thought he was a Catholic. He would have taken work with one of the secret Catholic families, and they, thinking he was of the same faith, would in time have invited him to one of the secret Masses.’

  ‘Ari found him on the road to my farm,’ Fannar says gravely.

  I nod. ‘Doubtless he was raised to use his strength to kill all those at the Mass by bringing the place crashing down on them or else burn it with them trapped inside. A draugr often destroys with fire. But the pastor did not know the strength of the creature he was raising. His power was far beyond anything the pastor could control.’

  Unnur clutches her two daughters tighter to her, shuddering. Memories of what the Danes had done to her home haunt her face.

  For a moment or two Fannar is silent, but where the moonlight catches the side of his face I can see his jaw clenching in anger. ‘And the two foreign men?’ he says finally.

  ‘Marcos escaped safely,’ I tell him, ‘but he tumbled down the hill when the mountain stirred. He may be hurt or unable to find his way back. We must search for him.’

  Ari crouches down beside Isabela who is now sitting up, her legs drawn up to her chest, hugging herself against the cold. ‘Vítor?’

  She points down at the crack, and shivers.

  Fannar leans over the hole and calls several times in his deep, booming voice, but there is no reply. ‘If he was still alive, he would have called out. If he was crushed by those falling rocks, there is no hope. Let him rest there in peace. There is no sense in any of us risking our lives to bring up a corpse, only to bury it again.’

  ‘But he will not rest in peace if the draugr lies down there,’ Ari protested.

  Fannar crosses himself. ‘I am sorry for it, but I will not risk the draugr taking you too.’ He seizes the hand of his younger daughter. ‘We must get away from here. If the ground shakes again it might dislodge other boulders, and steam may blow out through other vents. I’ve seen it happen before.’

  We pick our way down the mountainside. I balance the cold body of my sister in the crook of my arm. I am unused to walking on grass. I slip several times. Long ago, Valdis and I wrapped our arms about each other’s waists and ran blithely down slopes, laughing if we tumbled, and rolling over for the sheer joy of it. Now I am tired and afraid; these legs which once easily carried us both now feel weak and leaden, as if poison is slowly creeping into them. They can no longer bear the weight of two.

  I feel a warm arm about me, and Valdis’s weight is lifted from my arm. Ari is walking next to her, helping me to hold up the sagging body. It takes courage to embrace a corpse, and a good measure of kindness too.

  We find Marcos towards the bottom of the slope or rather he finds us, by the stones we dislodge as we scramble down. He seems unharmed, though no doubt bruised, but judging from his heavy tread, and the sagging of his shoulders, he does not rejoice that he is alive. He barely glances up as he approaches us.

  ‘Marcos?’ Isabela steps out from behind Fannar.

  Marcos’s head jerks up and he gapes at her open-mouthed, as if her ghost has just risen up from the ground. He stands transfixed for a moment, then he rushes at her, his arms wide as if he is going to hug her. But at the last moment he lets them fall, and stands mumbling something, staring at his hands.

  Fannar leads us through the pass into a high valley. We rest then, making a hasty meal of some dried meat he has also stolen, holding the fragments in our mouths, sucking them until they are moistened enough to chew. Above us tiny clouds are drifting away as if on a tide and the bright white stars prickle above us in the dark sky. I marvel at them once more. I had forgotten how many there are up there, like a black pool teeming with shoals of little silver fish. The stars blur into one as tears swim in my eyes. I wish Valdis had lived to see them too, just one last time.

  ‘It’s not safe to trust to the deep caves while the mountains are stirring,’ Fannar says at length, ‘but there is an old abandoned farmstead I know of, a day’s journey from here. Most of it is in ruins, but the badstofa was built far back into the hillside and the floor dug deep. If we can get in through the entrance, the hall should be sound enough to shelter us, and if the place seems ruined, so much the better. As long as we are careful with the fire, we should be able to hide there for the winter at least.’

  ‘But how will we feed the children?’ Unnur wails. ‘Everything we put down for winter is gone, the beasts too.’

  Fannar squeezes his wife’s shoulder. ‘First we find shelter, then we worry about food. I am becoming an expert thief, though it is not a skill I ever thought to master, and I was good at catching birds when I was a boy, no doubt I can do it again. There’ll be a place of honour at our fireside for you, Eydis, of course, and the foreigners too.’

  ‘You are a good man, Fannar,’ I tell him. ‘But I will not be coming with you. We must part now. My sister is dead, and I swore I would lay her to rest at the river of blue ice. I must find it. I have been away from it for so long. I was only a child when I was brought into the cave, but the mountains don’t change. I will find the way again. As for Isabela, she seeks the white falcons. She must not rest until she finds them, for the lives of many depend upon it. She has done all I have asked of her, and with courage. Without her, the draugr could not have been defeated, and no man, woman or child on this isle would be safe. I vowed that I would help her find what she seeks and I will not break my oath to her.’

  Ari nods gravely, then turns to Fannar, biting his lip.

  ‘Fannar, I’m bound to you for the season, but I beg you to release me from that, or at least give me leave to depart for a while. I’ll guide Eydis to the blue river and then help the girl catch the white falcon. She can’t do it alone, and Eydis …’ He breaks off awkwardly. I know he is thinking that I will be of little use when it comes to climbing cliffs.

  I smile. ‘No, lad,’ I say. ‘Fannar needs you now more than ever. It will take both your strengths to see this family safe through winter, and if he should fall ill, Unnur cannot manage alone. If they are to build themselves a new life, you must be as a son to them. You cannot desert them now; they have been good to you. I will be led to the river of ice and I will guide Isabela too. I will always be there to guide her.’

  Ari sighs, but he does not protest. I know he still blames himself for the draugr and will do anything he is commanded to do to make amends. Fannar and Unnur exchange looks of sheer relief at the news that Ari is staying with them, though I know Fannar would have willingly let the boy go if I had told him I needed him.

  ‘But Eydis,’ Unnur says, ‘your sister is joined to you. How will you lay her to rest in the river? Can she be cut from you?’

  I smile beneath my veil. ‘When the time comes, the way will be shown to me.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was discovered that a parish priest was keeping a gyrfalcon in his barn. It was a bird of such great value that not even his own bishop could dream of owning such a prize. Everyone was certain there was only one way a poor man like him could have obtained such a bird: he must have stolen it. For a priest to be guilty of stealing was bad enough, but this was no ordinary theft. If he had stolen a horse or even a silver cup, as a man in holy orders he would have escaped with his life, but the white gyrfalcon must surely have belonged to no less a person than a prince or even a king. To steal from royalty was nothing less than treason, and not even the Church could protect a man accused of such a terrible crime.

  The priest was found guilty and sentenced to be burned to death. The gyrfalcon was taken from him and securely tethered until it could be sent to the k
ing. Then the priest was led to the stake and there he was bound in chains to the post and the pyre was lit. But just as the flames took hold and leapt upwards, the gyrfalcon managed to escape its leash and flew straight towards the burning pyre. It perched on the top of the stake, spreading its wings protectively to cover the head of the priest. When the people who were gathered in the square saw this, they cried out, ‘It is a sign from God. The priest is innocent.’ At once they pulled away the burning wood and doused the flames. Then they released the priest from his chains and set him free.

  Isabela

  Pounces – the claws or talons of a falcon.

  Eydis heaved herself to her feet and hauled up Valdis’s limp body, settling it against her shoulder. Her bare back gleamed like white marble in the moonlight. I was wearing the thick woollen dress that Unnur had given me the first night in the farmhouse and still I was shivering in the cold night air. Eydis must have been freezing. She had lived most of her life in the warmth of the cave, and now she was suddenly outside in the bitter wind, with nothing more than a cloth bound about her breasts to keep her from the cold. Unnur took off her own shawl and tried to wrap her in it, but Eydis gently pushed it away, shaking her head.

  With her free hand, she beckoned to me and to Marcos, pointing down the valley.

  ‘Komdu.’

  She began to walk off in the direction she had indicated. I assumed that Fannar and the others would follow, but though they rose to their feet, they made no move to go after her.

  ‘Where’s she off to?’ Marcos said, looking bemused. ‘Do we go with her or stick with them?’

  I didn’t answer, but instead lifted my skirts and ran after Eydis.

  ‘Falcons! You promised you would help me find the falcons. Please, I must find them!’

  I pointed up at the dark sky and tried to imitate their call. I could barely see her in the darkness, and certainly nothing of her expression beneath the veil.