‘There!’ Wayland shouted, pointing at a blocky silhouette perched on an outcrop along the escarpment.
‘Yes, it is the falcon,’ Glum said. ‘The nest is close, I think.’
Wayland forgot the perils of the ascent and hurried forward. He’d got halfway to the outcrop when the falcon launched off and disappeared around its sentinel rock. It wasn’t as large as he’d been expecting. ‘That must be the male,’ he said. ‘The tiercel.’
‘Wait here please,’ Glum said, and walked nonchalantly on to another prow. He anchored himself with his pick and leaned over, then hissed and made a beckoning motion.
Wayland’s heart beat fast as he picked his way forward. A ferocious updraught lifted him back on his heels. Eyes watering, he peered over the edge. The world spun. He drew back dizzy and afraid.
‘Take my hand,’ Glum said. ‘See, my axe holds me very firmly.’
Wayland entrusted his life to the boy’s grip and leaned over. The wind blew his hair back. The ship below was no bigger than a speck. He heard a creaking wail and out from an overhang to his left sailed the gyrfalcon. Wayland looked straight down on her, taking in her size and whiteness, her massive shoulders, the broad bases of her wings. She rode the updraught without effort and glided along the cliff face on slightly downheld wings, passing close enough for Wayland to see the highlights in her eyes.
He turned to Raul. ‘Pure white! As big as an eagle!’
‘The nest is below the overhang,’ Glum said. ‘It will not be possible to go straight to it. I will look from the other side to see if that way is easier.’
The falcon floated away, making height. Wayland’s blood tingled at the thought of possessing her offspring before the day was out.
Glum came back shaking his head. ‘This side is not so difficult, I think. Now we must find a place to fix the ropes.’
They explored the ground behind the eyrie. About fifteen feet back from the edge, Glum located a crack deep enough to sink the bar a foot deep.
Raul wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘Who’s going down?’
Glum looked at Wayland. ‘I think it must be me. It is not so easy for you.’
Wayland almost let him have his way. The prospect of descending the precipice made his heart quail and turned his legs to water. But when he looked into the void and saw the falcon patrolling her territory, he knew that his triumph wouldn’t be complete unless he took the eyases himself.
‘I’ll go,’ he said. ‘Show me the route.’
Glum led him out on to the spur and pointed down the face. ‘First you must descend to that ledge and follow it until you reach the rock shaped like a giant’s nose.’
Wayland saw a neb of rock sticking out from the face on this side of the overhang. ‘How do I get round it?’
‘There is a place to put your foot. Do you see? Step on it with
your left foot so that you can reach round the rock with your right hand. Once you are round, it is easy. You will see the nest above your head.’
Wayland nodded, too apprehensive to take it all in.
‘I will stay here and guide you. First we must tie the ropes.’
They scrambled back and Raul took Wayland aside. ‘Don’t do it. Let the kid risk his own neck.’
Nerves made Wayland tetchy. ‘You do your job and leave me to worry about mine.’
He stood like a child being dressed by its mother while Glum tied two ropes around his chest and slipped the basket over his shoulders. ‘I won’t be able to see you when you reach the nest, so you must signal by pulling with the rope. Tug two times if you want more rope. Tug three times to let me know you want to come up.’
‘What does one tug mean?’ Raul asked.
Glum’s smile came and went. ‘One tug means the rope has broken.’ He took one of the lines in both hands and drew it taut. ‘Do not hang all your weight on this. It is not so new.’
Raul studied Glum with one eye asquint. ‘How old are you, son?’
‘I am fourteen.’
Raul spat. ‘You ain’t going to make twenty.’
‘Perhaps you are right. There are few old bones in my family. Every day my life is interesting.’ Glum paid out the ropes, coiled them once around the bar, and handed the free ends to Raul. Then he escorted Wayland to the edge and placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Do not think about the height. If the cliff was only fifty feet high, you would not be so nervous, but if you fell you would still die.’
Wayland tried to smile. ‘The difference is that I wouldn’t have so long to think about it.’
Glum slapped Wayland’s arm. ‘Go now. The weather will not be good for long.’
Wayland lined up with Raul and backed to the edge of the drop. His gut felt hollow. He stirred at empty space with his right foot.
‘Lean back,’ Glum ordered. ‘Further. Look at the sky.’
Wayland sucked in breath, tilted over and began to walk himself down the face. Grit and lichen dislodged by his feet flew up and scratched his eyes. Raul wasn’t paying out the rope smoothly and the descent was a succession of jarring drops.
‘Keep leaning back,’ Glum shouted. ‘You’re nearly there.’
Wayland descended the last few feet to the ledge with all the elegance of a sack. He balanced and craned up. Only Glum’s head and shoulders were visible. The boy raised a thumb. Craning the other way, Wayland saw the rock he had to negotiate about thirty feet away.
A furious
kack, kack, kack
drowned Glum’s instructions. Way land heard a rush of air as the falcon stooped past him. He turned to see her looking back at him as she completed her run-out. She swung round, stroked the air and closed up into a wedge. Her bunched yellow fists shot past two feet from his head. She banked and turned, rising like a ship riding a swell, and he saw her take deliberate aim and fold up before tearing past with all eight talons extended. Again and again she attacked, and though Wayland told himself she wouldn’t strike, every pass made him flinch. She kept him pinned there until his legs begin to quiver with the strain.
He sidled along the ledge. His eyes and nose were streaming. The falcon had sheered off and his confidence began to grow. He came to the end of the ledge and spotted the foothold. Glum had told him to lead with his left foot, but the supplest contortionist couldn’t have stretched that far. By fully extending his right foot, he could just paw the socket without getting proper purchase. He’d have to jump, but even if he footed himself, there were no handholds. Half a dozen times he rehearsed the move, as mindless as an insect. He turned his head towards Glum. The boy gestured with his left leg, his shouts whisked aloft.
Wayland felt his will and strength draining away. He had the awful sensation that the mountain was pushing him out and he pressed his clammy face to the wall and clung on. He glanced down into the great gulf and saw the slow, sickening crawl of the tide against the shore. Faint shouts reached him. Glum had descended to a perilous stance and was miming a skipping move that seemed to involve jumping on to the hold with his right foot and immediately following with his left foot while simultaneously slapping his right hand around the outcrop. Wayland tracked the ropes angling up the cliff. If the effort failed, at best he would crash more than thirty feet along the face. At worst the ropes would break and he would pulp himself with plenty of time to contemplate his end.
Or he could give up. His calves were fluttering and his fingers had lost sensation. He gathered one of the ropes in his hand and prepared to give the signal. He took a last look at the outcrop and paused. Glum’s right, he thought. If that rock was only six feet above the ground, you wouldn’t think twice about it – launch off with your right foot, into the pocket, balance, follow with the left, a brief moment of weightlessness before pushing hard and slapping your hand around the edge of the rib.
Glum had stopped shouting. Wayland wiped his nose, filled his lungs, gathered himself at the end of the ledge, bent his left knee and jumped. A quick two-step and then a lunge for the steep edge of the rock. He hung mainly by friction, and when he knew he wasn’t going to fall, he brought his right leg round and groped for a foothold on the other side of the outcrop. Nothing at first, then he contacted a small projection. He didn’t pause to think. He put all his weight on the hold and shimmied around the rock.
He was only a step away from a good footing. Above him, fissured blocks whitewashed with droppings led like a ladder to the nest shelf. He pulled himself up, crooked his elbows over the ledge and hauled himself into the eyrie.
Three hissing eyases flung themselves on their sides and thrust out their talons. They were ugly, toad-like infants with feathers budding through dirty grey down. Their mother was still patrolling, unable to mount an attack because of the overhang. A freshly killed gull lay in the eyrie, fragments of its dark red flesh stuck to the eyases’ waxy ceres. The remains of other kills littered the eyrie and the ledges were plastered with feathers. Wayland sat on the midden as if it were a throne, enjoying his God’s eye view. He found himself noticing the golden lichen on the rocks, the silvery veins in the granite, a small pink flower quaking in the wind.
He came out of his reverie to find that he was very cold. He thought he heard voices and sensed that they had been calling for some time. The eyases were still rolled on their sides, warding him off with their talons. He shivered. The sky had clouded over and the surface of the fjord had darkened to slate. Time to go. He took hold of the ropes and pulled three times.
This time he traversed the rocky nose without hesitation. Not a moment too soon. Cloud had rolled in from the sea and fingers of mist
were groping up the cliffs. As soon as he gained the ledge, the falcon resumed her attacks. He ignored her and moved quickly until he reached what he thought was the line of ascent. He rested a moment then threw his head back to check the position of the ropes.
Something hit his forehead with stunning impact. He didn’t even know he’d been knocked off the ledge until he found himself hanging with the ropes biting into his chest. The pain was excruciating, as though someone had taken a blunt saw to his skull. Through pulsing red waves he realised that he’d been twisted round and was dangling with his back to the cliff. Sticky warmth flooded down his face, half blinding him and filling his mouth with salt sweetness. He wiped the blood from his eyes and raised his hand to find out what damage the blow had done. His skull was still in one piece but a pair of lips seemed to have sprouted on his brow.
The pain subsided to a sickening ache. Blood wormed down his neck. He paddled at the rock, trying to spin himself around. Somehow the ropes had worked around his back, leaving him leaning out from the cliff, unable to exert any leverage. To make his position worse, the basket was holding him away from the face. He felt for the straps and found that one of them had snapped. He struggled out of the other and dropped the basket into space. Blood was still running into his eyes. He reached for the ropes and that’s when he discovered that one of them had broken.
His blood-slicked hands couldn’t get a grip on the remaining line. He wiped his palms on his thighs and was about to try again when the rope jerked around his ribs and he felt himself scrape a foot or so up the face. Raul was trying to drag him up. Another violent heave and he heard the rope sawing against rock.
‘No!’
The movement stopped. He wiped his hands again and made another attempt to pull himself up. He had to reach behind him. The angle was all wrong. He tried a dozen times before giving up. He was weakening. His neck ached from the effort of trying to keep his head from slumping forward. Freezing fog streamed up past him. The cold had helped staunch his wound and his face was setting into a mask. The rope around his chest gripped so tight that he could breathe only in shallow gasps.
‘Don’t struggle. I’m coming down.’
It was Glum, not far above him.
‘Wayland, I’m on the ledge. You’re about ten feet below me. I’m going to drop another rope. Do you think you can hold onto it?’
Wayland half raised a hand.
‘Here it comes.’
The rope fell hissing over his shoulder. He snagged it at the second attempt. His fingers were too numb to tie a secure knot. He made two coils around his right wrist.
‘Put your weight on it. Then you will be able to turn and everything will be easier.’
Wayland gripped with both hands and strained. As his weight transferred from the rope pinned to his back, the pressure on his chest relaxed and air flooded into his lungs.
‘Turn to face the cliff.’
Wayland gave himself more breathing space before kicking off with his feet. He spun and smacked chest first into the cliff. He blinked up through a bloody veil and glimpsed Glum peering down from the ledge.
‘You are not strong enough to climb, I think. You must let Raul pull you up to me.’
Glum signalled by tugging on his own rope. Wayland felt himself borne upwards. Glum leaned down, gripped him by his tunic and hauled him onto the ledge.
‘That was good. Rest now until you have the strength to reach the top.’
The formal phrasing from a boy who hadn’t started shaving made Wayland laugh. It wasn’t normal laughter. He balanced on the ledge until his breathing steadied and he looked up through the dank updraught.
‘I’m ready.’
Raul dragged him up like he was a slab of meat. He crawled over the lip of the cliff and saw the German braced behind the anchor bar. As soon as Wayland stood on safe ground, Raul ran forward and caught him. He lowered him to the ground and took his face in both hands.
‘What happened? Did a rock hit you?’
‘It was the falcon. I don’t think she meant to strike me. I leaned back at the wrong moment and … ’ Nausea swept him.
Raul dropped to his knees and examined the wound.
‘We have to get you back.’
‘Is it bad?’
‘Put it this way, you ain’t going to be as pretty as you were.’ Raul realised that Wayland didn’t have his basket. ‘The falcons. Did you lose them?’
Wayland swung his head.
‘Don’t tell me the nest was empty.’
Wayland stuck up three frozen fingers. ‘Too young. Not ready.’ His bones seemed to melt and he sagged into Raul’s arms.