The Falcons of Fire and Ice (49 page)

I was suffocating in the steam. My fingers were so wet I couldn’t grip the metal. Isabela crawled away, and for a moment I thought she had given up, then she returned with a blanket pulled from the sisters’ sleeping pallet.

‘Use this to hold it,’ she said, pushing the sodden cloth into my hands.

I wrapped my fingers in the edge of the blanket and seized the hoop in both hands, and as I pulled I felt the iron band begin to bend.

‘Here,’ I said to Isabela, ‘take the other side, now brace your feet against my legs and pull backwards.’

We strained against each other as the hoop slowly widened, and then it shattered. The force of its breaking was so unexpected we tumbled over. There was a bellow of rage which cut over all the other screams and shouts in the cave. Beside me, Isabela had struggled to her feet, and she was staring out into the cave, her eyes wide and frozen with terror.

Eydis

Ramage
or
rammish
– a hawk or falcon which is wild and hard to catch, or an escaped bird that has fully returned to the wild and is extremely difficult to reclaim.

The draugr is fighting to break the iron band around Valdis’s waist. But he only has her hands to use. Bound by the iron, his strength is only her strength and her hands are weak, atrophied. But if Ari or the foreigner helps to break that iron before I can drive him out of Valdis, his strength will surge and I will not be able to prevent it. I must pull Isabela out of this time and take her to the place of the dead, before her iron circle is broken.

I catch Isabela’s arm. ‘Isabela, listen to me now as you listened in the forest.’

But I can see from her eyes she is too afraid to let me in. I will have to do this without her consent, and hope that she will understand and not fight me. I drag my lucet upwards and the long cord follows. Swiftly, before Isabela can move away, I wrap the cord around the three of us – Valdis, Isabela and me.

The black thread of death to call the spirits from their graves. The green thread of spring to give them hope. The red thread of blood to lend them our strength.

Instantly the white mist hangs still and cool. The shouts and screams are severed and there is silence. The three of us are alone. Isabela’s eyes are wide with alarm. She turns her head, trying to see something beyond the white curtain of mist, but there is nothing to see.

‘Where are we? Are we still in the cave? Am I dreaming again?’

I cannot afford to explain. We must act quickly.

‘Isabela, the bone you took from the grave, hold it and use it to summon the door-doom.’

‘I don’t know how … what to do. I can’t.’

I try to calm her. ‘You can. They are all bound to you now. Hinrik through the stone he gave you, the old woman whose mummy heals your burn, those shadows who followed you from the forest. I called you to me, and now you must bring them to us. It is time.’

‘You don’t have the power to call up the dead, little Isabela, Isabela,’ the dark voice snarls from my sister’s lips. ‘You know you don’t. You don’t even know how to begin.’

I try to make Isabela listen to me. I can see she is terrified of the creature which speaks through my sister, and fear makes us listen to fear.

‘You called Hinrik to you,’ I tell her gently. ‘He told you that you had called him. Take out the bone, then turn and look at them. They are already here. They are the shadows you are afraid to face. Face them now and let them come to you.’

‘This is just a trick to keep you here,’ the dark voice snaps. ‘She wants you to die in the cave with her, so that she’ll always have you with her. She is dangerous. She is wicked. Why do you think they chained her up in a cave? They don’t chain up good people, only evil ones. Only the wicked are punished. Only the mad are chained up. You know that, don’t you, little Isabela, Isabela?’

Isabela stiffens, her expression hardens. She rubs her wrist as if remembering something she has felt. He has made a mistake, something he has said to her has made her angry, and anger drives out fear. Her fingers move towards the leather pouch about her neck, and she pulls out a small yellowing bone, encircled by an iron ring.

‘Don’t do it, Isabela, Isabela,’ the draugr shrieks. ‘Don’t bring the dead here. They followed you because they are angry. You stole from them. You robbed their graves and disturbed their rest. Now they want to punish you for what you did. If you bring the dead here, they will drag you back into the grave with them. You will be buried alive. They will never let you escape.’

‘Silence!’ I command. ‘Turn, Isabela, turn and look at them. The dead are nothing to fear. You know them, you know what they have suffered. Welcome them and let them speak.’

She is trembling. Her eyes are closed. I know she is terrified, but I know too that she is willing herself to turn.

All around us the white mist hangs in the air, still and soft as if we were encased in snow. I cannot see them, but I sense they are there in the mist, waiting, just waiting for her to call them forth. Slowly she turns and lifts her head. She holds out the bone, gripping it so hard in her fingers that the knuckles blanch to the colour of the bone she holds.

‘Come,’ she whispers, her voice shaking.

‘Do not turn away,’ I tell her. ‘See them, know them.’

The mist stirs and Hinrik steps through it. His face is bloody and the noose hangs heavy from his neck. He stands, his hollow eyes fixed on her face. Isabela gives the smallest nod of greeting to him

The old woman, her cheeks hollow with hunger, shuffles out of the mist.

Valdis’s lips part beneath her veil. ‘Go back, Mother, Mother. I told you. I warned you. I will take you down into the grave with me. I will make you suffer without end. You too, boy, go back while you can or I promise you will die a thousand deaths and still live to die again.’

Both Hinrik and the old woman shrink back in dread. They will not stand against him, but just as I fear they are slipping back into the mist, another figure emerges from the mist. She too is old. Her head streams with blood, but she raises her chin defiantly.

‘I stood against men of evil while I lived, I will stand against them in death.’

Hinrik and the old woman edge back out from the mist. I know now that they will stay.

Others are stepping into the space. A man carrying a little boy, both covered with savage slashes. A little girl follows, with blue-black marks about her neck, then a woman holding a baby that has been almost hacked in two. The woman’s mouth is gaping, stuffed with earth, as are her eyes. She has been rendered blind and dumb. Two more men and a woman join them. They too are slashed and mutilated. Their clothes are faded and ragged, smeared with soil. Their eyes are dark, hollow pits. They say nothing, but silently join the circle of the dead around us.

Then, when I think there are no more to come, one last figure emerges from the mist. He is an old man. His clothes are burned almost away. His face and limbs are charred and blistered, the blackened skin cracked, the flesh gaping red-raw to the white bone beneath. His mouth is sealed with a leather gag. Isabela gasps in horror. Throwing her arms up as a shield, she backs away from the ghastly phantasm that is hobbling towards her. But he holds out his hand, palm upwards. And there are hundreds of words written upon it, in blue and scarlet, green and gold. Words that scurry across his hand and tumble from the tips of his burnt fingers to lie in heaps around his blistered feet.

‘Jorge!’ Isabela breathes.

He nods solemnly and takes his place in the circle.

Valdis’s head swivels round to look at each of the dead in turn. I feel the draugr’s agitation, but I feel something else too. Someone is trying to cut through Valdis’s band. The draugr knows it. We must make haste.

‘I bid you welcome,’ I say. ‘You have been summoned as the door-doom, the court which must pass judgment upon one of your own. Your word is law. Your decision is binding. This is the complaint I bring against him. That he has entered the body of my sister without her consent. I have healed his own corpse, but he refuses to leave and return to it. I ask the door-doom to order him to leave my sister’s body and return to his own.’

The grandmother from the forest lifts her battered arm and points at Valdis.

‘Speak, draugr, what have you to say in your defence?’

‘Valdis is dead. She has no need of her corpse, but I have great need of it. I have every right to it, since I was called out of my grave by one who is living. If I return to my corpse, Eydis will destroy it. She will destroy me. She will send me back into the grave. You know how we suffer in the grave, our bodies rotting in the darkness, our loneliness, our despair. I was called out, and now I have tasted life again I will not return. You cannot order me to my own destruction. You are my brothers and sisters in death, you will not suffer the living to destroy us.’

The grandmother nods. ‘We have listened to you. And you, Eydis, you who are of the living, what do you say?’

‘If he remains in Valdis, he will make a draugr of us both, for if he is freed from the iron, he will gather such strength to him that I will not be able to fight against it. Valdis and I are joined, as we have been since we were in our mother’s womb. What he does in her body, he does also in mine. He will rampage throughout the land, bringing terror and destruction, he will make draugar of those he kills and he will torment those already in their graves. All this he will do, in a body that he does not own.’

‘Yes, yes,’ the dark voice hisses. ‘But you are the dead. You know the suffering that the living have inflicted on you. Look at your wounds, and the wounds of your children. Don’t you want revenge for what they did to you? Come with me and you shall have it. You shall make them plead for mercy and you will give them none as they gave none to you. You will tear their children apart before their eyes and tear out their wives’ hearts while they still beat. Jorge, Jorge, you will hear their screams like the sweetest music in your ears and drink their blood like the strongest wine to fire your belly. Hinrik, my poor Hinrik, wouldn’t you like to see the Danes running in terror from you? Make them know how fear tastes?’

‘Enough!’ the grandmother says. ‘We have listened and we have heard. Now each must judge for themselves.

‘You.’ She points to the old woman. ‘Your mummy has healed his corpse, what do you say?’

The old woman lifts a quavering hand, glancing fearfully at Valdis, whose head turns towards her.

‘Speak,’ the grandmother urges. ‘We all stand with you. Say only what you think to be right.’

‘He must return to his own corpse,’ the old woman whispers.

A howl of fury bursts from Valdis’s lips.

But the grandmother ignores him, relentlessly pointing to each of the dead in turn, adults and children alike. ‘My son, speak. Must he return to his own corpse?’

Their hollow eyes all stare at Valdis, as each of them pronounces their verdict.

‘He must return.’

‘He must return.’

The woman whose mouth is stuffed with earth can only nod, but her gesture is emphatic.

Finally, only Jorge is left to speak, but the grandmother points instead to Isabela.

‘He cannot speak. You must deliver the verdict for him. You must utter what is in his heart, not yours.’

Valdis rolls her head. The words that emerge from her lips are soft, coaxing. ‘He wants revenge, little Isabela, Isabela. You know he does. Jorge suffered the cruellest death of all of us. He was innocent. He has a right to justice. You can give him justice. You know what is in his heart. You know he does not want me to be destroyed. You know what he wants you to say for him. Just say it and that gag that chokes him will vanish. Say it and his wounds will be healed. Your own mother betrayed him, but you can help him, Isabela, Isabela. You can put right the wrong that was done to him. You can free him for all eternity.’

Jorge gives no sign. He stands, gazing at Isabela from out of his charred, blistered face, but nothing betrays his thoughts.

Isabela turns to me, anguish on her face. ‘Is it true, can I help him? Can I release him from that?’

The grandmother speaks again, ‘Say what is truly in his heart. Speak the truth, only the truth.’

‘But I don’t know what he is thinking, I don’t.’

‘What binds him to you, Isabela?’ I ask her. ‘How did you call him?’

‘I don’t know. I keep telling you, I don’t know. He didn’t give me a stone. I didn’t take a bone.’

Jorge raises his hand and the green and scarlet words slide from his fingers, drifting to the ground like falling leaves.

For a long moment, Isabela simply stares at the words lying at his feet.

‘Stories …’ she murmurs wonderingly. ‘He gave me stories that I still remember. That’s how I called him.’

She lifts her head and turns to look at Valdis as the others have done.

‘Jorge does not want revenge. He wants you to return.’

There is a shriek of fury. Valdis’s body is lashing backwards and forward, her blackened nails are clawing at my face. It takes all my strength to hold us both upright.

The grandmother lifts her voice over the draugr’s cries. ‘You have entered a body that is not yours to inhabit. You have stolen a life that is not yours to live. It is the verdict of the door-doom that you leave the body of Valdis now.’

There is a great howl that tears through our bodies as if Valdis is being ripped from my side. A black stream oozes from between her lips and passes through her veil, forming itself into a great black shadow. The shadow grows and spreads as if the white mist itself is staining black. It is denser and darker than any smoke. It pours from Valdis’s mouth like black blood gushing from a wound. It rises higher and higher until it towers over us, swelling up like a great black leech, breaking open the circle of the dead.

‘I will not obey the door-doom,’ the dark voice thunders. ‘You have no right to sit in judgment over me. I am living. I am the life that will destroy the living and the dead. I will not be destroyed.’

Isabela is cowering terrified on the floor beside me, the bone still gripped in her hands. I reach down and tear it from her fingers. I raise my arms and feel the power of a falcon’s wings. I know the courage of it in my heart as it plunges down in a stoop. I feel the grip of its talons in my soul, a grip that will not relinquish its hold even after death.