‘But it opens on the other side. The hinges are rusted.’
‘They’re on their way.’ Ethan stopped next to her and watched while she ran her hands over the gate. ‘What are you doing?’
‘He didn’t go through the gap in the rock. He went through the gate. The gate opens, Ethan.’ She tugged and pulled and the whole structure came towards her. ‘Ugh. Spiders. I hate spiders.’
‘Kyla?’ Fraser’s voice came from below them. ‘I feel funny.’
‘In what way funny?’ With Ethan’s help, Kyla opened the gate far enough for an adult to pass through. ‘Talk to me, Fraser.’
There was a long silence and for a hideous moment she thought he’d lost consciousness. Then his voice came again, this time much weaker. ‘Sort of swimmy-headed. And sick. Just not well. I wish I’d never come here now. I want Mum.’ The childlike plea for protection went straight to Kyla’s heart but before she could act, Ethan moved her bodily and handed her his torch.
‘Hold on, Fraser.’ His voice was deep and reassuring. ‘I’m coming down to you.’
‘You can’t do that.’ Kyla caught his arm but he shrugged her off.
‘I have to. We don’t know what his injuries are. He’s afraid and on his own. Someone needs to be down there with him.’
‘You can’t just jump, Ethan. It’s too far. You’ll break something.’
‘I’m not jumping.’ He removed his coat. ‘There are enough handholds in this place to climb down.’
‘Are you kidding?’ She eyed him with incredulity. ‘The wall is completely smooth.’
‘No, it isn’t. Stay there for a moment and then hand me the torch when I say so. Fraser?’ He raised his voice and wriggled his body through the gap in the gate. ‘I’m coming down to you. Just hang on.’
There was no answer, only the hollow plop of water, and suddenly Kyla felt sick herself. She ought to stop Ethan doing something so rash but she knew now that Fraser’s life could be at stake. Why wasn’t he answering? Was he unconscious?
Ethan gave a grunt as he anchored himself and held out a hand. ‘Hand me the torch.’
‘But you won’t have any hands to hold on, and—’
‘The torch, Kyla!’
‘All right.’ She bit back the impulse the tell him to be careful. They were all way past the point of being careful.
He took the torch in his mouth and started to descend with a smooth agility that astonished her.
And then she remembered the way he ran in the mornings. He may have been brought up in a city, but there was no doubting his physical fitness. Still, physical fitness was one thing. Climbing down a wall into a long abandoned dungeon was quite another.
Fifteen minutes, Kyla calculated, feeling the thump of her heart and the dampness of her palms. That was how long it would take Nick and a rescue team to reach them. Would that be fifteen minutes too long for Fraser?
They had no idea about the extent of his injuries.
All they knew now was that he wasn’t responding to their questions.
She didn’t dare flash the torch in case she distracted Ethan from his task. Instead she sat and forced herself to breathe steadily, braced to hear the sound of his powerful body crashing to the ground.
‘I’m down, Kyla.’ His voice echoed up to her from the bowels of the dungeon. ‘Can you shine some extra light down here? It’s pitch dark.’
She did as he’d asked, hugely relieved that he’d made it that far without injury to himself. And then she heard noise from above her and realised that the rescue party had arrived. ‘They’re here, Ethan. Have you found him? Is Fraser OK?’ Suddenly she wished she’d been the one to go down the shaft. She felt so helpless, just sitting at the top. If she hadn’t been holding the torch, she would have bitten her nails down to the quick.
‘He has a nasty laceration to his forehead and some bruising, but I don’t think anything is broken. He’s OK. Conscious. Just a bit weak.’
And extremely frightened, Kyla was willing to bet. She could hear Ethan talking to the boy and then there was a crunch of footsteps behind her and she turned to see Logan standing there, along with Nick and two other members of the coastguard.
‘We’ve brought ropes, and there’s more equipment up top.’ A light shone from the helmet on Nick’s head. ‘Give us an update.’
‘Ethan is down there so it shouldn’t be too hard to get him out,’ Kyla said, moving onto her hands and knees so that she could get a better look over the edge. ‘Ethan?’
‘Drop a harness on a rope?’ Logan turned to Ben. ‘We can bring him up that way.’
Ben nodded agreement. ‘That will certainly be the quickest way if the boy is up to it. Is he conscious?’
‘Yes, I think so.’ Kyla supplied the information they needed, and Ben frowned.
‘How the hell did Ethan get down there?’
‘He climbed down.’ And Kyla was still wondering how a man who dressed in suits costing thousands of pounds could so skilfully negotiate a sheer and slippery face.
‘Without a rope?’
Kyla heard the disapproval in Ben’s voice and threw him an impatient glance. ‘Fraser stopped talking. We were worried about him. If you were the one sitting here, would you have waited for a rope?’
‘Probably not.’ Ben gave a faint smile of apology. ‘Good decision, then. Brave guy. That’s another free pint I owe him. All right. Let’s get on with this. The weather’s getting worse and if he needs a lift to the mainland, it’s going to have to be soon.’
Logan was shouting down to Ethan, trying to assess the medical situation and how best to extract Fraser. ‘I still think the best way is to drop a harness. He’s conscious and Ethan has dressed the wound on his head. He can use his feet to keep away from the side. We’ll have him out in minutes that way.’
‘Let’s do it.’
After that everything happened quickly. They lowered the rope to Ethan and minutes later Kyla saw the top of Fraser’s head appear over the lip of the dungeon. She breathed a sigh of relief and suddenly realised that her hands were shaking.
She’d been so afraid for him.
His face was streaked with dirt and blood and although he had a sheepish smile on his face, she sensed that he was struggling with tears.
Logan lifted him clear of the gate and sat him carefully down on the damp floor of the tunnel.
‘You are such a brave boy.’ Kyla took one look at him and wrapped her arms around him. ‘If the Celts had had you on their side, those Vikings never would have stood a chance.’ She could feel him quivering and cuddled him close.
His teeth were chattering. ‘My mum’s going to kill me.’
Ben nodded as he slipped some warm layers over the boy. ‘Very probably. But then she’ll be relieved you’re OK. He’s bleeding through that pad. Logan? Kyla?’
‘I’ve got it.’ Kyla gently lifted the pad on the boy’s forehead and studied the wound under the torchlight. She could see that it was deep and the edges were jagged. ‘I’ll put a firm dressing on it for now just so that we can get you out of here, Fraser. Then one of the doctors