“Nothing. But I believe it’s well-named. It’s not a canny place, and you’d do well to avoid it.”
“Thank you for warning me,” Percy said.
“You’ll not be going down there?”
“I’ll consider what you’ve said.”
“Mr. Percy,” Angus Donnan said, “you know I’m a saving man, though not a grasping man, but I swear I wouldn’t start down that cleft for a thousand pounds. That’s how seriously I take it.”
“Then I have to take it seriously too.”
Harry was going to take it seriously. Though not the way Donnan meant. Obviously the Pass of the Dead was more dangerous to climbers than it looked, had been even before the slide.
Percy checked his equipment in his room and when he left the Black Bull, inside his jacket he had a 150-foot-coil of nylon rope slung over his shoulder, and his mac draped over one arm to hide his climbing pack.
To his right Ben Skraig brightened. By the time Percy reached the headland that concealed Bealach a’ du Mairbh, the quilting of purple-brown heather, pale green grass and dark green bracken was shining under a cloudless sky, and he had to recant his earlier doubts; on a day as clear as this North Uist was not only visible, but seemed nearer than it was, except for the dark blue miles of the Minch between. A perfect day for rock climbing.
Despite his eagerness, he took his time descending the cleft on the chance that he might see something he’d missed in the rain and dimness last time. And just before the cleft opened out, protected by the overhang, and even on such a bright day, half-hidden in the shadows, he found and sketched an incised spiral design. When he reached the stone at the bend of the trail below he stopped to sketch the “cup and ring” carving.
At the break in the trail he advanced cautiously, uncertain of the edge’s solidity. The descent didn’t look bad: no overhangs and the traverse back onto the trail at the bottom wouldn’t be far. About sixty feet down, but he measured it with the rope to be sure. It should be a smooth climb back; from here he could see at least one safe route.
There were no trees to anchor the rope, and the only rock was too sharp, so Percy drove three pitons into the rock and connected them with slings. Seat harness with brake-bar secured, belt, sling with carabiners and pitons, holstered hammer, pack, gloves. Enough equipment for an American, but then he was climbing alone. He left his mac folded beside the anchors, put the rope through the slings, snapped it into his brake bar and around his hand, and backed off the edge.
His last sight of his mac folded so small and lonely there gave Percy a wry twinge; if he never came up Angus Donnan would be telling solemnly how all they ever found of the sasunnach who went down Bealach a’ du Mairbh was his coat and the pitons.
The face was clean, with no loose rock or overhangs, but not too smooth; there should be no difficulty climbing back. Johnson or whatever his name had been might have been inexperienced. Though what about the three before the slide? But it was a steep trail.
The sun was still bright on the rock; as he started the traverse to the trail he could see every pebble and boulder of the scree below.
When he arrived the rope was his first thought; he barely glanced down the continuation of the trail before he started pulling one end of the doubled rope, and coiling it as it dragged out. One thing at a time. The free end dropped past, and he finished coiling it and put it over his shoulder. No bad frays.
When he was done, he had a good look; the trail was narrow and tortuous, but that only made it interesting.
After the first steps he came to a stop. Nothing had changed; the sun still shone, the waves of the Minch were still rich blue, but Percy found himself trembling, half-paralyzed with terror. Once before, when exploring the earthworks of a causewayed camp, he had felt this same objectless dread, but nothing had happened. He went numbly on. He was palpable, as if the air had thickened till he had to force his way through—or was it as if he were being pulled in?
It was hard to think, the edges of things wavered before his eyes. That boulder that seemed to crouch, that bleached and twisted log? But how could there be driftwood so far above the surf?
Then the log straightened, began to stand up, the boulder uncrouched.
Instinctively Percy’s hand reached for the piton hammer at his side, and when he touched its head he saw them as they were. Gasping inarticulately, he jerked the hammer free and hefted it, backing away.
Not a log, but bleached bones and tendons, what had once been a man. And the croucher was clothed in sodden rags and still had a face, though shriveled back, exposing the long teeth in an eternal grin. And behind others were stirring, more than four.
In a spasm of repugnance, Percy swung at the first two as they closed on him. Though neither was touched, the hammer passed within inches of the bleached one, who shrunk back and emitted a moan of so desolate a timbre as to nearly rob Percy of volition.
He forced himself to move against that tide of despair, and fled. At the break he was too busy finding handholds and footholds to look back. What made it more terrible was the muteness of his pursuers; all he could hear were soft slitherings and the rattle of pebbles.
When he was several yards up he glanced back. His route had led him out onto the face, and the bleached one was crawling lizardlike up a parallel rib, while the others were scrabbling out below, the nearest peering up and grinning through tangled hair and beard, once red but now like dried seaweed.
Climb!
When he looked across again, the lean one was almost level with him, trying impotently to find a way to him around the smooth bulge of a spur.
And then Percy was stopped; no matter how he groped, he could find no handhold. But there was a crack. He unclipped a piton and pounded it desperately in while the scrabbling below came closer. The piton rang solid, and he pulled himself up, and then there was another foothold and another handhold.
They sounded near, too near to take time to see.
Then he heard the desolate moaning again and looked down. The bearded creature was just below the piton, its hand extended toward it. As Percy watched, the claw recoiled, the creature stopped and began to retreat, the others shifting below him.
When he looked down again they were coming again, but using routes bypassing the piton. On the right the tatter-bearded thing was ahead, further down on the left the one in dark rags led his own file of spidery horrors. At least the lizardlike one that had been climbing the parallel rib was stopped, baffled by an overhang.
Against all training Percy looked up. Only fifteen feet!
Less than his own length from the top he had no handhold, and had to drive in another piton. Between hammer blows he heard the scrabbling coming toward him on the right. This time the piton would not retard pursuit.
He dragged himself up, found another handhold, got his foot on the piton, up and up, and began to drag himself over the edge. His hips were over. Just ahead were the three pitons and the sling with which he had anchored his rapel.
He grasped the sling, pulled himself forward, found the head of a piton with his other hand.
At the same moment something closed tenaciously on his ankle and began to pull him back. Percy hung on for dear life. But the pull was inexorable, untiring. And he was tired. The piton dug into his palm—
The piton! They had avoided the one below. And then a line out of his boyhood reading flashed into his mind: “Cold Iron is master of them all,” and he let go with his right hand and groped back, while the grim pull stretched his other arm till the shoulder seemed half out of its socket. He slid his piton hammer out, and reached down toward his ankle with it, but stretched as he was between his left hand clenched on the sling and the pull on his ankle, he couldn’t quite reach; he could feel the hammerhead against his calf.