Hawk Quest

by Robert Lyndon

  He lapsed into silence and Wayland assumed that he was thinking about the ill-fated colony. But when he spoke again, he pointed north.

  ‘I’ve seen a skraeling in Greenland — at the furthest end of the northern hunting grounds. I’d been hunting seals out on the pack ice. I returned in the evening and found footprints around my camp. I took my bow and followed them. I climbed over a snow ridge and there he was. At first I thought he was a blind bear because he was dressed head to toe in fur and had white discs where his eyes should be. He saw me at the same time and drew back his spear. I had my arrow aimed at his heart but I didn’t shoot. I don’t know why. He held up his hand and I raised mine and then he began to back away. Nothing could have prepared me for what happened next.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He jumped on a sledge and eight white wolves bore him away.’ Orm looked fiercely at Wayland. ‘God’s word. That was three years ago and ever since I’ve been wondering how he came to be in that place so far north, living with tame wolves where we Greenlanders can’t survive for more than three months of the year.’

  ‘Perhaps he came from the West Land.’

  Orm stabbed his forefinger. ‘You’ve got it, boy! That’s what I tell my people, but they laugh and say how could skraelings who don’t have ships, who know nothing about iron, who live in houses made of twigs and leaves — how could such savages cross the icy sea to Greenland? You’ll see, I tell them. Where one has come, others will follow. Then where will we be?’

  Glum gave an urgent cry on the other side of the ship. His father ran over and they both leaned over. ‘Come quick,’ Orm shouted.

  The whole company gathered. Under the hull passed a school of fish or whales with pallid, mottled bodies and spiral lances sticking out of their heads.

  ‘Corpse whales,’ said Orm. ‘Some call them sea unicorns. Forget falcons. Catch one of those and you’ll be rich for life. I’ve heard that in Miklagard the value of a narwhal horn is measured by twice its weight in gold.’

  ‘How do you catch them?’

  ‘They swim into the fjords to calve and we harpoon them in their breeding bays.’ Orm leaned out along the course taken by the narwhals. ‘It’s a good omen, lad. They’re heading for the fjords where the falcons nest.’ He pointed towards the coast. ‘Red Cape. We’re nearly at the hunting grounds.’

  Wayland looked along the golden path laid by the midnight sun and saw that it ended at a colossal escarpment separating two ice-carved valleys.

  On a dying wind the crew rowed towards the immense red prow. Hundreds of seals bobbed in the waves, watching them with limpid curiosity. Acres of eider drakes parted around the ship, only shifting when the bow was almost upon them. Giant auks as tall as geese with wings no bigger than a child’s hands waddled to the edge of a skerry and flopped in. Underwater they flew as gracefully as swallows. ‘God forgot to grant them wits the day he made those boobies,’ Orm said. ‘A man can stand in a flock of them and club them all day long.’

  From the same islet ungainly leviathans with down-turned tusks and coarse moustaches humped forward on flippers and slid into the swell. ‘Walruses,’ said Orm, and stroked his own whiskers to make Syth laugh. From the cliffs above came a steady roar. Every ledge and gallery was packed with auks and gulls and God knows what other kinds of fowl. The cliffs loomed so high that the birds flocking around the upper heights looked no bigger than gnats.

  ‘Falcons nest in both fjords,’ Orm said. He indicated the precipices plunging into the southern sea-arm. ‘One of the eyries is up there.’

  Wayland’s gaze panned up from the ice-littered channel to the summit crags, then back down again. The cliffs fell sheer to the sea or dropped to talus slopes pitched at sickening inclines. There was no coastal shelf, nowhere to put ashore.

  Raul had a finger pressed thoughtfully to his lips. ‘We ain’t going to climb that.’

  ‘Not from below,’ Orm said. ‘There’s a path to the top on the other side of the cape. Glum will lead you up it. From the summit you can climb down to the nest. You won’t be able to see it from above. I’ll take the ship up the fjord to mark the spot. First we must make camp.’

  They rowed on with the sun behind them, water falling like blood from their oarblades. Around the north side of the cape was a foreshore of tumbled boulders. The skeleton of a whale lay on the strand like the frame of a wrecked ship, each vertebra occupied by a cormorant holding out its tattered black wings in an unholy cross. Orm steered between bluffs enclosing an inlet and brought Shearwater to rest. Wayland jumped ashore into the stink of guano and the din of squabbling birds. A sea-eagle with wings the size of a tabletop glided close to the tenements, chased by a mob of gulls. Beneath the rookeries, blue foxes sat waiting for the drizzle of eggs and nestlings that fell or were pushed from their nurseries.

  Orm’s base camp was a shieling built with granite slabs. The roof had collapsed under winter snow and the company’s first task was to make it sound. Then they carried their equipment ashore and stowed it away. Orm proposed a meal and then rest, but Wayland knew that Greenland’s summer smiles were fleeting and insisted on climbing to the falcon’s nest straight away.

  ‘Syth and the dog had better stay with me,’ Orm told him. They sorted out the equipment. Glum slung two coiled ropes and an iron bar over his back. Raul carried another pair of ropes. Wayland strapped a wicker basket over his shoulders.

  The sun had moved south and they climbed the boulder field in dusky blue shadow, jumping from one ankle-jarring stance to another. They laboured up a scree slope until they reached the foot of a diagonal rift in the escarpment. Between vertical crags fanged with icicles, an ice gully rose in a succession of steep chutes and steps.

  Raul’s jaw dropped. ‘Orm said a path.’

  ‘Use your ice axes,’ Glum said. ‘In the steep places I will cut steps for you. There are some difficult parts where you must use a rope.’

  ‘Difficult parts,’ Raul repeated.

  Glum set off at an easy pace, chopping toeholds with his axe. Wayland stepped on to the ice and realised how tenuous his grip was. He hadn’t climbed more than a few feet before he slipped. He would have fallen if he hadn’t managed to claw the point of his axe into the ice.

  Raul struggled up beside him. ‘This is the stupidest thing I ever did in my life.’

  Wayland looked up at Glum’s foreshortened outline. ‘Go back if you want.’

  On he went, considering each step. Glum was approaching the top of the icestep by the time he reached its base. He surveyed the treacherous cascade. Looking down through his feet, he could see Raul’s head and shoulders and the slick couloir falling away to the bottom of the cliff. If he slipped now, he would carry Raul away with him. Splinters of ice skipped past. Glum hauled himself out of sight over the step.

  Use the steps I cut.

  Wayland waited for Raul to reach him. The German’s teeth were gritted in terror.

  ‘You’d better lower the rope,’ Wayland shouted.

  Down it came. ‘You trust him?’ Raul gasped.

  ‘More than I trust myself.’

  Up he went, his feet skidding on the cobbled ice. At the top he found Glum wedged behind rocks at the edge of the gully. Wayland’s gaze shot up past him, hoping to find that the ascent became easier. Instead, there was another cascade of ice even higher than the one he’d just scaled.

  ‘You should have told us how dangerous it was.’

  Glum regarded him calmly. ‘If I had, would you have come?’

  Wayland climbed most of the next pitch on the bare rocks at the side of the gully. One awkward manoeuvre involved shuffling around a pillar that had split away from the face and fractured into blocks. He was fully committed, gripping the stack with both hands, when he felt it begin to sway outwards. Somehow he got round without it toppling, but then he heard a scraping sound and saw as if in slow motion the cap of the pillar slide and fall. The rock was twice the size of a man’s head and it shot down the gully towards Raul.
Wayland jammed his fist into his mouth, and that’s what saved the German. If he’d shouted a warning, Raul would have looked up and been struck full in the face. Instead, he was concentrating so hard on his next hold that he didn’t hear the rock coming until it crashed in front of him and bounded over his body. It flew over the icestep and Wayland heard it shatter on the walls and go clattering away into the depths. Shocked rigid, he waited for Raul to join him.

  The German groaned and collapsed against the crag with his head lolling back and his eyes closed.

  ‘I won’t hold it against you if you go back,’ Wayland said.

  ‘Too late. It would be as dangerous to go down as to go on.’

  He was right. A grim fatalism overtook Wayland as he climbed the next icestep. If he fell, he fell — a swoop of terror as he lost his footing, a smashing impact, then oblivion.

  Above the third step the gully widened and the going became easier. Wayland was able to climb without the use of his hands. A blue skylight opened and he staggered on to the summit plateau. Raul thrashed up behind him and turned and pointed down the gully as if it were the throat into hell. ‘I’m not going back down there. You hear?’

  Glum was coiling the rope over his shoulder. ‘Yes, you must. It is the only way.’

  The climb had taken them most of the morning and the sky was beginning to skin over. From up here they could see the vast polar desert that covered Greenland’s interior. A cold wind from the icecap stung their faces as they plugged over the plateau, the ground curving away on all sides so that they could see nothing but snow and sky and their footprints dwindling behind them. The slope began to descend and the snow cover grew patchy, exposing fields of frost-shattered rock. Wayland saw the ice-ribboned clifftops on the far side of the fjord, and then the edge of the plateau came into sight — broken columns and buttresses connected to the face by knife-edged ridges. Glum made his way out on to one of the projections. Very vulnerable he looked on that lofty promontory.

  He made a slow overarm gesture towards his left and they trudged on into the wind.

  ‘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 h
im 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.