The Falcons of Fire and Ice - By Karen Maitland Page 0,91

the top, I could see from the protruding tangle of roots above me that even if I could stand up, the top of the gulley would be a good two or three feet above my head.

Vítor rose and took another pace towards me. I cringed and grabbed the branch he had discarded, prepared to defend myself as best I could, but he stepped over me and felt his way along the gulley.

‘The sides are much less steep at this end and not so high,’ he called back. ‘This is our best way out.’

I heard his shoes scuffing through the leaves as he returned. Then without warning he slipped his arm around my back and I felt the fingers of his other hand sliding under my legs.

‘Don’t touch me!’ I swung the branch at him.

He leapt back and held up his hands as if to show me he meant no harm. ‘Forgive me, Isabela, I was only trying to lift you up. I’ll have to carry you. You can’t walk.’

I stared up at him. Just minutes before he had been standing over me with a branch preparing to smash my skull open. Now he was offering to carry me?

‘Get away from me. I can walk and I will!’ I dug the end of the branch into the ground and tried to lever myself up. He proffered his hand which I ignored. But though I leaned heavily on the branch I couldn’t manage to raise myself more than a few inches before I sank back down on to the leaves again. He offered his hand once more and this time I was forced to take it. I managed to drag myself to the end of the gulley, using the branch and his arm to steady me. But though the wall of the gulley was indeed less steep there, the top was still level with the top of my head and there was no way that I was going to be able to scramble over it.

As we stared at the bank the rain began to fall. Hard, heavy drops falling fast and furiously. Desperately I reached up to pull myself out, but found myself holding only a handful of slippery wet leaves. I groped through the leaf mould, trying to feel for a tree root that I could use to haul myself up, but I could grasp nothing solid except chunks of earth which came away in my hand. The rain was blinding me and I was on the verge of tears from pain and desperation.

Vítor grasped my wrist as I scrabbled frantically through the sodden leaves.

‘It’s no use trying in this rain. We may as well stay here until it’s light. Then I can find a way to heave you out. At least it’s sheltered from the wind down here.’

He swung me up in his arms and by this time I was too weak to resist. Every step he took jolted my knee and sent stabs of pain shooting through me so violently they exploded in white lights in my eyes. I allowed him to carry me back to the higher end of the hollow. There he set me down gently against the side of the gulley, removing his own cloak and wrapping it round me, though it was already soaked through. He scraped piles of wet leaves over my lap and legs to keep out the cold, before settling down to sit beside me. The rain beat down upon us. I knew I should offer to wrap the cloak around the two of us, but I couldn’t bear for him to touch me for I was in too much pain, and besides, I still didn’t trust him.

‘It was foolish to wander so far from the cottage and the beach,’ he said.

It was too dark to see the expression on his face, but I could hear the accusation in his voice. He blamed me for us both being out here. How dare he?

‘No one asked you to follow me. I could have found my way back. I wasn’t lost until that shriek startled me.’

‘Shriek? What shriek?’

‘You must have heard it. Anyway, you didn’t answer the question I asked you before. How did you find me?’

‘I heard something crashing through the bushes and I followed the sound.’

‘Rather foolish thing to do, wasn’t it? It might have been a wild boar.’

He snorted. ‘I can tell the difference between two legs running and four.’

I was still firmly grasping the branch. I lifted it a few