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“We’re on the brink of the archaeological find of the century, and you’re going bird-watching?”
    â€œIt wouldn’t be so bad if they were birds without feathers, would it,” David put in, with a wan smile.
    Craig just laughed. “You guys have your passions, I have mine.”
    Alan glanced over the glen towards the high crags where the bird nested. “Passion isn’t the word for it. You sure you’ll be able to get there and back in time?”
    With a flourish, Craig zipped his sack up. “Dunno. Got to suss it out first. Can’t do that from down here, of course.” He glanced sideways at David. “You still tagging along?”
    David nodded. “Mmm.” He looked at Alan and yawned. Up close, he was bug-eyed from lack of sleep. He rubbed wearily at what was probably a stiff neck.
    â€œNever had you down for an ornithologist, Dave,” Alan said.
    He shrugged. “I’m not, but what else is there to do? I’ve been awake all night, picking bloody pine-cones out of my spine. Anything’s better than doing that for another three hours.”
    Craig stood and brushed a few needles from his knees. He then gave David’s ‘street-corner’ clothing a dubious once-over. “I hate to say this, but you’ll not get far up in that gear.”
    â€œI’m not going up , don’t worry.” David’s tone implied that the idea alone was ludicrous. “Once we get off the flat, I’m leaving you to it. Support from below is my remit.”
    Craig looked at Alan and shook his head. “Support from below … I ask you.”
    Alan chuckled.
    â€œCome on then, Sherpa Tensing,” Craig said, setting jauntily off, sack on back.
    David grinned sleepily at Alan. “It’s great here, isn’t it.” He wandered off in pursuit of Craig. “I’m having about as much fun as a one-legged man in an arse-kicking contest …”
    Alan continued chuckling as he set about clearing the cold debris of the last fire, then gathering a few dry sticks and sprigs of fir to get the next one going. After that, he went for a walk. Perhaps inevitably, he found himself heading back towards the dig.
    As he strolled, he thought only briefly about the odd dream he’d had. Vivid as it had been, its details were already fading in his memory. He could still feel something of the emotions it had inspired within him, however: a raw love of the wild; a fearlessness of Nature and a oneness with the savagery of its moods. He glanced up and breathed deeply of the fresh, heather-scented air. Craeghatir might have its own micro-climate within its secretive interior, but the sky above it possessed that vast, pale emptiness of the north Atlantic. There was a harsh brightness to the light here, a relentless ferocity about the seas heaving around the coasts, about the sub-Arctic winds howling over the high, gorse-laden crags.
    When he got back up beside the barrow, it was everything he’d expected it to be. The view from the cliff-side was incredible: the awesome, rolling wastes of the northern ocean, the way the surf rose up in fountains from the occasional rocks and skerries. The sun was high and hot, yet up here it barely registered in the strong northerly breeze. Despite the Vikings’ atrocities, it was difficult to hate anyone who had spread the hand of conquest over so wild and uncharted a portion of the world as this. All kinds of wonderful stories abounded about how the Northmen had mastered this most hostile of environments, breaking out from the ice-bound fjords of their homeland by following the paths of whales or hacking compasses from the magnetic cores of fallen meteorites; or by navigating rivers into the deepest wildernesses of Europe and Asia’s continental interiors, and, inspired by their ferocious gods, battling and defeating anyone who came against them, no matter how superior the numbers. At the time