Dúngal picked up the torch.
‘We’ll be wanting this ourselves,’ he said.‘To warm up.’
He led her across the grass. She was vaguely aware of him piling up sticks, lighting a fire, wrapping his wet cloak around her shoulders. But she couldn’t stop shivering. He squatted on the ground by her side, took her hands, and held them towards the heat.
‘Does that feel better?’
Better? She could never feel better. Oddo was drowned. Drowned.
‘It’s my fault, isn’t it?’ Dúngal said. ‘My fault he’s drowned. My fault he got stuck as a stupid bird. If it wasn’t for me, he’d never even have done a shape-change.’
She couldn’t answer. She lay down, but the uneasy rumbling of the earth pulsed against her ear, reminding her over and over of the flood pounding down the slope and sweeping up Oddo’s helpless body. When she closed her eyes she could still see the endless flow of silver under the red glare of the flames.
In the morning, she was so stiff she couldn’t move. Clouds of smoke still billowed from the glacier, and the draining floodwaters had left waves of thick grey mud across the ground. Glistening blocks of ice, half-submerged, poked from the mire among the twisted shapes of broken trees.
Dúngal was asleep, his head pillowed on dead leaves. He was covered from head to toe in fine grey ash and there were tear streaks running down his cheeks. He rolled towards her and his eyes opened.
‘We have to . . . go and look,’ she said huskily.
He nodded and held out his hand.
Silently they crossed the grass. The glacier was still smoking. As they drew closer, they found themselves treading in a thick layer of warm ash that puffed around them in grey clouds. The air filled with a stench like thousands of rotten eggs.
Dúngal held his nose, but Thora marched forward, her jaw stuck out, her eyes stinging with tears.
The cove came into sight and Dúngal’s grip tightened on her hand.
Thora stared at the desolation. Even the beach of sparkling black pebbles had disappeared. There was nothing now but a thick layer of dull grey sludge. There was no sign that Oddo or Hairydog had ever been there. She stepped forward, the mud sucking at her feet.
A frenzy of ecstatic yipping broke out overhead. Thora threw back her head and saw, poking from the cliff, a familiar muzzle.
‘Hairydog! ’ Tears blurred her eyes and laughter bubbled in her chest. Next moment, she was running and stumbling through the ooze. ‘Hairydog, Hairydog!’
She reached the cliff and stretched up on her toes, but she could not touch the ledge where the dog was standing.
‘Come on, girl, jump!’
Hairydog turned and vanished into a cave behind her, whining and barking.
‘Come on, it’s not far.’
Dúngal joined her.
‘The silly dog won’t jump. She must have scrambled into that cave when she saw the flood, and now she won’t come down again!’
‘Maybe she’s still frightened.’
Thora glowered at the crumbling rock face.
‘Well, I can’t climb up to her,’ she said, exasperated. The foot of the cliff had been carved away by the force of the flood.
‘Try this, then.’ Dúngal began to build a heap of stones and mud. ‘Stand on that and see if you can reach her.’
Thora placed a foot on top of the pile, grasped a jutting rock and pushed upwards. Her eyes came level with the ledge. She could see Hairydog, and behind her, in the darkness, something lying on the floor of the cave. She strained forward, trying to see what it was. Hairydog gave it a nudge and it rolled over. An arm flopped into sight.
Thora felt her strength drain away. She stumbled off the rocks to the ground.
‘Dúngal,’ she gasped. ‘Dúngal, there’s . . . there’s someone . . . inside!’
Thora was shaking so much she could hardly stand. She wrapped her arms around herself as Dúngal leapt onto the pile of stones and hoisted himself up to the ledge. She heard him scramble forward. There was a hollow yell from inside the cave, then his face popped out again, pink and excited.
‘It’s Oddo,’ he yelled, ‘and I think he’s alive!’
Thora sat down with a plop in the mud. Oddo wasn’t drowned! Hairydog must have dragged him into the cave. He was here. He was safe. And now—
‘The fire!’ she gasped. ‘I’ll fetch the fire.’
Gathering her muddy skirts in her hand, she flew back to the meadow. A few wispy flames still danced among the blackened sticks. Thora puffed frantically till they flared up, seized a burning willow branch and carried it to the beach.
Dúngal was waiting in front of the cave. Eagerly, Thora held up the torch. He took it, then hesitated.
‘What’ll I do with it?’
Thora stared. She had no idea. She looked around wildly, as if the cauldron might suddenly appear again.
‘Maybe . . . just hold it near him,’ she said at last.
Dúngal crawled back into the cave, and Thora climbed onto the heap of stones and peered over the ledge.
The interior of the cave was a confusion of leaping shadows and glowing orange light. Behind the black shape of Dúngal’s crouching figure, she could see the top of Oddo’s head and his sprawling legs.
He wasn’t moving.
Thora clenched the edge of the rock and held her breath.
