Where the World Ends: Chapters 16–19

Rather than attract the attention of a handful of fishermen or a passing frigate, had their bonfire summoned up the storm instead?

Trident lightning jabbed and stabbed at it, but seemed only to goad the dragon to an even greater fury.

Over on Hirta, the storm would be flaying away the white sand beach, the thatch from the houses, the turf from the mountainsides.

There were no longer spaces between lightning and thunderclaps, but one single, incessant concatenation.

On the peak of Warrior Stac, it drowned the rock slopes under cataracts of icy water, washing dead petrels away into the darkness, washing lime-streaked rocks back to blackness.

“No! No! The rain’ll wash it away! I have to find it!” And Davie crawled away, out of the lee of the little stone turret, searching for a fishhook, on a mountainside, in the pitch dark.

Facedown, belly pressed to the rock, ungainly as a seal come ashore, Quill wormed his way across the ground, discovering each dip and rise and crevice without aid of light.

Davie was such a weight—such an agonizing weight—that even the wind could not manage to lift Quill and hurl him to perdition.

All night the wind howled and prowled around the turret, like wolves scenting carrion.

An army of petrels were huddled inside the cave. Mechanically, without thought, Quill went in among them, like a man harvesting carrots, plucking them up, cinching them under his belt, exhorting Davie and Murdina to guard the doorway and turn back any that tried to escape.

The birds beneath Davie’s head became suffused with red, as though they were turning into robins.

It might have been the rust-colored oil expressed from their oleaginous little souls, or blood from the back of Davie’s head where it had smashed into the rock face.

The rain outside hissed its derision.

He implored the Warrior of the Stac to preserve the life of all Kilda men. He prayed to those angels squabbling over their crumpled maps to shift themselves and come to the rescue.

They scattered across the flanks of the Stac, calling and whistling, as if to fetch wayward sheepdogs to heel.

As he and Quill descended, strange, inchoate noises burst from the man’s throat, which might have been sorrow or exertion or pain.

The younger boys promptly insisted on a funeral feast of storm-petrels cooked in their own oil, and while the meal cooked, they filched items from the pile of Davie’s clothing.

Quill slithered and slipped his way over to the body, ostensibly to arrange the limbs in a more dignified repose, but in fact to push the bent-nail fishhook back into the keeping of that rigid little hand.

Quill slithered and slipped his way over to the body, ostensibly to arrange the limbs in a more dignified repose, but in fact to push the bent-nail fishhook back into the keeping of that rigid little hand.

“Sevenfold blessings to our friend Davie, and the strong rope in time of.need,” he said loudly, and threw a look of venomous reproach at Murdo.

Catching them is a magic trick—sleight of hand.

As they settle and fold their pied wings, a hand creeps out from under the white cloth and takes one by the throat.

Besides, it was spring, and spring engenders hope in every creature, from the tide line to the mountain peak.

Calum remarked affably, “Still, John is fourteen or some such; she surely does need a husband.”

Kenneth, seeing he had blighted his own chances, set out to skewer the chances of his rivals.

Her rough red hands were hidden under her thighs, and she was torn between outrage and excitement at being the focus of attention. From time to time, she flicked her eyes in Quill’s direction and smiled wanly.

Murdo wrung his hat between his hands and approached John, stooping, because of the lowness of the roof—which made him look a suitably abject suitor.

A hail of bird bones pelted Kenneth but he seemed impervious.

To his great satisfaction, Kenneth shrieked like a blackback and went on shrieking, while everyone recoiled from the din, and stared at him, trying to guess what new ploy this was.

And when Don fetched out his chipped knife and whetted its short blade against the wall, they felt nothing but horror and sympathy.

Before bandaging, Farriss used their last drop of fulmar oil to disinfect Kenneth’s maimed feet. Euan, returning from the Bothy terrace, saw this and nodded approvingly. “Jesus anointed the feet of his disciples,” he said.

Before bandaging, Farriss used their last drop of fulmar oil to disinfect Kenneth’s maimed feet. Euan, returning from the Bothy terrace, saw this and nodded approvingly. “Jesus anointed the feet of his disciples,” he said.

There were no stories left in Quill’s head—none that would solace Kenneth, none to explain what had become of Niall.

Between gabbled nonsense, Niall’s face froze into a rictus grin, lips drawn back off bared white teeth.

Rising to his knees through a hail of punches, he wrapped both arms round Niall, pinning the boy’s hands to his sides, and pulled him upward just as a seventh wave broke with prodigious force against them both.