Hostage (7 page)

'You weren't kidding,' said Alex, his voice weak and trembling.

'Sorry,' said Paulo again.

Amber brought Alex a hot drink and some painkillers to take, and at last the pain dulled and he slept.

'That is good,' said Paulo. 'That is what he needs now. We shall build up the fire and wait—'

'Shhh!' interrupted Li. She had heard something. As they all listened, it came again, drifting across the frozen landscape. It was the long, mournful howl of a wolf.

The sound made all the hairs on the back of Amber's neck rise in a shivering line.

'Is that what I think it is?' she asked, gazing wide-eyed at Li.

'A wolf?' asked Li. 'Yes it is.'

'Oh, that's just great,' quavered Amber.

'But that wolf, he is very far away. Yes?' asked Paulo.

Li nodded in agreement.

'So, there is no danger—'

Paulo broke off as another, answering howl trembled through the cold air. This one was closer. A lot closer.

'I knew I was right to hate this place,' muttered Hex, searching the darkening skyline.

'Don't worry,' said Li. 'A wolf pack hunts by picking off the sick, old or wounded animals from a herd. They won't go for a group of humans unless—'

'Unless what?' demanded Amber.

'Unless they're desperately hungry – and that's not very likely right at the start of winter.'

Amber relaxed, then tensed again as she heard something on the frozen river. Her eyes widened as she identified the sound. It was claws scratching on ice. The scratching grew louder, accompanied by loud panting and the occasional yipping bark. The pack was racing along the frozen river and drawing closer by the second.

Without a word, Amber, Hex, Li and Paulo each picked a flaming branch from the fire and moved into a protective semicircle around Alex. They waited, hoping against hope that the pack would carry on down the river and pass them by. That did not happen. The scratching of claws changed to a scrabbling as the beasts swerved up on to the bank, and a second later the leader surged over the top of the bank and raced towards them, closely followed by the rest of the pack.

Amber screamed at the sight of the glinting teeth and lolling tongues. Then she screamed again as she saw a much bigger beast coming after the pack.

'It's OK!' shouted Li, suddenly realizing what she was seeing. 'It's not wolves! It's a dog team and sled.'

Amber sagged with relief as the driver shouted, 'Whoa!' at the same time as slamming his foot down on a steel claw between the runners. The claw dug down into the snow, the team slowed and the sled came to a halt. The driver stepped down from the back of the sled and walked towards them, loosening the drawstrings on his fur-trimmed hood.

Hex stiffened and raised his flaming branch again. It had just occurred to him that this man might not be friendly. He scanned the man's clothes for any sign of an Usher Mining Corporation logo, but there was nothing to be seen. The man pushed his hood back to reveal a round, friendly Inuit face, split in a smile.

'We thought they were wolves,' explained Amber, lowering her own branch.

'There is some wolf in 'em,' said the man, waving a mittened hand at his team. 'Some husky. Some other breeds too. They're a real mixture.'

'We heard a wolf howling,' said Paulo. 'It was very close.'

The man shook his head. 'It was much further away than it sounded. Those wolf howls can carry ten miles or more.'

'What do you want?' said Hex, still suspicious.

'Saw your fire,' said the man. 'Stopped off to say hello. My name is Amaruk.' He turned to Amber with a mischievous glint in his eyes. 'It means wolf.'

Amber smiled. 'My name's—'

'Amber,' said Amaruk and he laughed when her mouth dropped open in surprise. 'Am I right?'

'How did you know that?' squeaked Amber.

'I'm a friend of Papaluk's,' explained Amaruk. 'She told me you'd be heading my way this week, so I've been keeping an eye out for you.'

'You know Papaluk?' asked Li, stepping forward.

'Yeah. I'm heading out to the bay now, just to make sure she's OK. I heard there's been some kinda trouble there. The supply plane pilots found a body or something.'

Li and Hex shared a look but Amaruk didn't see it. He had spotted Alex, lying in front of the fire, with his bandaged shoulder sticking out of the sleeping bag. 'Hey, is he hurt? What happened here?'

'Amaruk,' said Li quietly, 'I have some bad news.'

She took Amaruk to one side to tell him about Papaluk. Amber, Hex and Paulo remained by the fire, watching as Amaruk's shoulders slumped and Li rested a hand on his arm. The dogs seemed to know something was wrong. They had been lolling in the snow but now they sat up and looked towards their master, whining and yipping.

When Li and Amaruk had finished talking, they returned to the fire. Amaruk was no longer smiling. 'Sounds like you've all had quite a time of it,' he said, squatting by the fire. 'Papaluk said you were into extreme sports, but what you've just been through is so extreme, most folks would be dead by now' He looked at each of them in turn, and his gaze was shrewd and considering. 'Who are you kids?' he asked quietly. 'And what's really going on here?'

'What do you mean?' asked Hex, returning Amaruk's gaze with a bland stare.

'OK,' said Amaruk. 'If that's how you want to play it. Just give me a minute, will you?' He stared into the flames for a long time. Finally, he roused himself and stared up at the threatening sky. A cloud bank had rolled in overhead and the wind was rising.

'Storm on the way,' he said briefly. 'I can't help Papaluk now, but I can help her friends, whatever you're up to. Come on. I'll take you back to my village. It's on the banks of the river, not far away. The mine you were looking for is just a bit further on. A lot of the guys in the village used to work there, before Usher took it over.'

As they created a bed for Alex on Amaruk's sled, the first snow began to fall. By the time Alex was strapped securely in place, they were in the middle of a blizzard. Mean, hard pellets of snow were blowing almost horizontally on a rising wind.

'Maybe we should camp up until this is over!' yelled Hex.

Amaruk shook his head as he strapped a headlamp around his forehead and clipped the battery pack to his belt. 'We need to get Alex here into a warm bed as soon as possible.'

'But you can't see more than two metres in front of you in this!'

'Don't need to,' said Amaruk, ruffling the thick fur of his lead dog. 'I've got Boomer.' He looked down at the dog and it gazed back adoringly, leaning in against his leg. It was a big male with black, tan and white markings and a tail that curled over its back like a question mark. 'Boomer's short for Boomerang, because he always finds his way back. We've been together a long time, me and Boomer. He's brought me home through much worse than this.'

'What if we come across another suck hole?' asked Amber fearfully. The terrifying experience of falling into the ice funnel was still fresh in her mind.

'If you'd been travelling with dogs,' said Amaruk, 'you would never have fallen in. They would've taken you right around it. They can sense weak ice or open water.'

Amber looked admiringly at Boomer. What she had just heard reinforced all her prejudices about using machines for transport. 'I could really get to like these guys,' she grinned.

'Stay close on my tail and keep your eyes on this light,' said Amaruk, turning his headband round until the lamp sat on the back of his hood.

'Don't you need to see where you're going?' asked Amber.

'I have Boomer,' said Amaruk simply, slotting his mukluks into the rubber footprints on the back of his sled. 'Headlights on and stay in single file. Follow the sled tracks exactly. The dogs know the safe ice. And keep a check on one another to make sure no-one falls behind.' Alpha Force nodded, pulled their hood drawstrings tight and clambered on to their machines, with Amber and Li sharing the third one. Amaruk tightened his own fur-fringed hood until only his eyes were showing, then pulled the sled brake out of the snow and yelled to his dogs, 'Let's go!'

They followed Amaruk's bobbing lamp through the whirling snow for twenty freezing minutes before the dogs began to yelp with excitement. Li peered through her snow-covered goggles and saw the faintest glimmer of lights. They had arrived in Amaruk's village. Boomer had guided them home.

'It's a proper house,' said Amber a few minutes later, as she followed Amaruk up the steps and into a warm, wooden-floored hallway. Through an open doorway she could see a family living room with a sofa and chairs, prints and photographs on the walls and two children sitting in front of a television in the corner.

'Yeah, well, we tried getting all our furniture into the igloo, but it wouldn't fit,' said a slim, pretty Inuit woman, emerging from the kitchen. She had dancing black eyes, high, flat cheekbones and thick, black hair done up in two plaits.

'I'm sorry,' said Amber, squirming with embarrassment. 'I only meant—'

'And I'm only teasing,' smiled the woman, turning to give Amaruk a kiss on the cheek.

'This is Kikik, my wife,' said Amaruk.

Li staggered up the steps and ripped off her goggles. Her left eye was closed and she had to use her fingers to prise it open. Her eyelashes had frozen and stuck together like glue. 'I've never known cold like it!' she stuttered through stiff lips.

'It's the wind chill factor,' said Kikik.

'It can get a lot worse than that,' boasted Amaruk. 'I've known it so cold you could spit and it would freeze in mid-air and bounce when it hit the ground.'

'Mind your backs,' grunted Hex as he and Paulo staggered into the hallway, carrying Alex. He was sitting between them on their crossed and linked arms, still bundled up in his sleeping bag like a caterpillar.

'This is Alex,' said Amaruk. 'He fell through the ice.'

Kikik thumped Amaruk on the chest. 'Standing there chatting! Why didn't you tell me?'

'I just did,' said Amaruk.

Instantly Kikik was all seriousness, leading Hex and Paulo through into a bedroom at the end of the hallway, then shooing them out again once Alex was laid on the bed.

'Don't worry,' said Amaruk, as they all stared anxiously at the closed bedroom door. 'Kikik is a nurse. Now, come and meet my boys, Pungar and Ohoto.'

Two young Inuit boys, aged five and seven, immediately turned off the television and scrambled to their feet to greet their guests.

'Would you like some akutug?' asked Ohoto politely.

'Akutug?' repeated Amber.

'It's Inuit ice cream,' explained Amaruk. 'A traditional delicacy.'

'Oh. OK,' said Amber, and the two little boys ran giggling from the room and came back a few minutes later with four bowls of what looked like fluffy sorbet topped with red berries.

'This looks good,' said Paulo, taking a bowl. Amber, Li and Hex all took a bowl too and, with the boys watching their every move, they popped a big spoonful of the sorbet into their mouths. The boys could barely contain themselves as they watched their four guests struggle not to show how bad the taste was. Paulo and Li swallowed their mouthfuls down in one gulp. This was an Inuit delicacy and they did not want to insult their hosts. Hex thought about swallowing his mouthful, but his stomach heaved at the idea. He looked from side to side like a hunted animal and spat his mouthful back into the bowl. Amber froze with her cheeks bulging and her eyes growing wide, then she opened her mouth and scraped the stuff off her tongue with the spoon.

'OK. Joke over,' smiled Amaruk. 'Time for bed. It's a school day tomorrow.'

The boys ran from the room, shrieking with laughter.

'We are sorry,' began Paulo.

'Don't be. It's fine not to like it,' said Amaruk. 'Inuit ice cream is a bit of an acquired taste.'

'What's in it?' shuddered Amber, pushing her bowl as far away from her as she could manage.

'A mixture of seal oil, caribou fat, sugar and water,' grinned Amaruk.

'Yummy,' muttered Hex.

'Do your boys like it?' asked Li.

'Hell, no! Ben and Jerry's is their favourite. They just like to torment our guests from the south. I run a tour business, you see. Arctos Tours. We fly the people in here, then take them out on the sleds for a couple of weeks. They learn how to drive the teams, fish in the frozen lakes, camp out in the wilderness and breathe a bit of clean air for a change. Most people love it. Apart from the Inuit ice cream, that is. Years ago, they used to call it Eskimo ice cream, but that's kinda frowned upon now.'

'Why?' asked Hex.

'Well, Eskimo is a Cree Indian name for us. It means, "eaters of raw flesh". It used to be a pretty accurate description, I suppose. My people used to eat all their meat raw because it saved on fuel and it was a valuable source of vitamins. That was important when the only other sources used to be a few berries and roots in the summer. Nowadays, we get our vegetables flown in and we all have generators in our houses. We still eat raw meat dishes sometimes, on special occasions, but we prefer to be called Inuit now. It's our own word. It means "the people".'

Kikik came into the room and smiled around at the four members of Alpha Force. 'Alex is going to be just fine,' she said. 'His temperature's nearly back up to normal already and there's no sign of frostbite. As for the shoulder, the swelling isn't too bad at all. No lasting damage. I've strapped it up and given him some anti-inflammatories and painkillers. He's sleeping now.'

'Was it good?' asked Paulo hesitantly. 'What I did for his arm?'

'You did a great job, Paulo,' smiled Kikik. 'Now, would somebody like to tell me what's going on?'

Amaruk took his wife by the hand and looked up into her face. 'Papaluk has walked upon the land,' he said softly. He was referring to the old Inuit tradition of walking out into the snow when you were too old or sick to live usefully any more. It was his way of breaking the news of Papaluk's death gently.

Kikik's eyes filled with tears and she cried for her friend. Amber cried too, but Li sat stony-faced, waiting for the right moment to ask her question. As soon as Amaruk had finished explaining what had happened to Papaluk, Li jumped in.

'Amaruk, you said the mine wasn't far from here.'

'You can reach it in a morning's travel.'

'Why do you want to go there?' asked Kikik.

'Papaluk had proof that the mine was dumping cyanide into the river. That's why Daniel Usher had her killed. He doesn't know we're on his trail. If we can get into the mine while he's feeling safe, the chances are we're going to find enough evidence to put him away for a good long time.'