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