ICE BURIAL: The Oldest Human Murder Mystery (The Mother People Series Book 3) (32 page)

Zena and Lief looked at each other, perplexed. How could that be? Had Runor’s health deteriorated that much in a few days?

Another thought struck Lief like a blow. Was it possible that Runor had only pretended to be
tired and
weak? But why would she mislead them?
It was not like Runor to be deceptive
- unless
she had a reason for wanting them to leave quickly, a reason that was so important to her that she would
mislead
them…

Abruptly,
he
understood
.
Runor
had known from Zena’s fears that Korg and the Leader were coming soon and she wanted to deal with them by herself. That was the pact she had made with the Goddess…

Zena
had reached the same conclusion at almost the same moment, and her eyes widened
in horror
. “Korg and the Leader!” she said suddenly. “That is why Runor pretended to be weak, made us go on.
Runor
knows they are coming…”

“Yes,” Lief agreed. “She wanted to get us out of the way.”

Zena was already
standing.
”
I
was right
!”
she
said urgently
, her face a mask of fear
. “Runor
is
in danger. We must go back!”

Taking time only to bid Niva a hasty farewell, she grabbed her pack,
charged
into the driving rain outside and darted onto the
path that led
to Runor’s village.
Lief followed at a run.

CHAPTER
SIX
TEEN

A
t first Korg did not worry when he returned to the hut and saw that Mordor was
gone
. They often went off separately to look for food or
wood for the fire.
Not until the rain became hard and steady did he begin to wonder, and then to be afraid. For
his brother
to stay out in
such torrential rain
when he could be in the warm hut was strange.
Mordor did not like discomfort.
Only a compelling
mission
would keep him out in weather like this, and the only one Korg could think of was Mordor’s obsession with ridding the villages of witches
.
What if Mordor had decided that Zena was a witch, had sneaked away to find her?

Terror seized Korg, a blind unreasoning terror he had not felt since childhood.
Mordor
had
no idea what
the villagers
would do to him if
they caught him.
He
simply assumed
that all people agreed
that
a witch could not be permitted to live. He would just walk into
Zena
’s
village…

No. Korg interrupted the horrifying images forming in his mind and forced himself to think clearly. That was not true. Mordor had never
acted by day
. Always,
he had gone
at night when there was no one to see
and had
left before anyone came.
He was clever enough
for that.
Still, he must find
his brother
and make sure. There should be time to get to
Zena
’s
village before night fell.

Korg ran most of the way
.
When he arrived, he
found a hiding place
with
some protection
from the rain, and peered into the village. If
Mordor was
here
he should be visible in the light of the fires, or perhaps the actions of others would provide clues.

Nothing looked unusual; no one spoke loudly or looked alarmed as they might if Mordor had
already
come.
He was more likely to
sneak in
at night, Korg realized, so he
settled down to watch. But Mordor did not come, nor did he see any sign of Zena, or of Lief. Toward dawn, he snapped out of an uneasy sleep to see three people - a man and two women, preparing for a
journey
.
The man was a trader called Hular who had come
to
Runor’s
village
with
Zena.
One of
the
two
women was Mara
, he saw with surprise
.
A
n
infant
so
tiny
it looked newborn
was strapped to her chest and an older
child
clung to her legs
– her child he thought, since it did not want to be separated from her.
Korg
frowned. He had not known of th
e child
.
If it was hers, s
he had hidden it well.

The second woman was tall and very straight, and Korg was almost certain she was Larak. He had seen her only once from a distance, but he remembered the way she carried herself. It had irritated him then and it irritated him now. No woman should look like that, as if she were in charge of herself and everyone else.

Zena
w
a
s not with the
m.
Had
she left already?
She must have. I
f she w
as
here she would be going on this journey with Larak and Mara.
So would the man, Lief.

Larak looked in his direction, as if studying the route
,
and Korg saw something else. She was worried, almost fearful.
Zena
? Was she worried about
Zena
? But how could she know what he knew,
that
Mordor
might
decide
Zena
was a witch?

Two other people
emerged and Korg saw with horror that
they were the girls
he had taken to Mordor
.
Was it possible they lived in this village? Surely not – he had found them in another area, closer to another village. They could have been visiting
there
, though
.
He had not thought of that. If they were from this village, then Larak would know that it was he, Korg, who had taken them, the Leader who had initiated them, only they would not call it that. Rape, they would say. Taken by force. And that meant they would be looking for him, looking for Mordor, seeking revenge…

P
anic poured into Korg, stronger now, impossible to dislodge. It was like the terror he had felt when his mother had grabbed him by the arm and dragged him
into
the forest and left him there in the darkness where anything could attack him and there was no way for him to be safe, no way at all. Even Mordor
had been unable to help him
then;
their mother
had
hauled
him away earlier, had left him out there
, too, somewhere
deep in the woods where it was too dark to see. The whole night would pass before Mordor
could make
his way back
. T
here was no one to help, no one at all; he would have to stay
out
there in the terrible blackness all by himself, waiting for the fangs, the claws…

Or the other boys. That was worse
.
They might have followed, might be waiting until
she
left to do horrible things to him, the things they had done before, touching him, pulling at him, reviling him…

Korg
began to tremble. His body shook so hard that he held his arms tight around his chest to
stop
it.
No, he told himself, he was not in the woods. He was here, not alone in the woods and the darkness, but here, where he was safe because no one had seen him. There were no animal
s
, no boys waiting to molest him…

The shaking did not stop.
Even if he
was not in the woods
pe
ople would be looking for him, people who wanted to hurt him.
All he could do was wait
for the terror to come, the terror he had held at
b
ay with the Leader, with the Great Spirit, only now they could not help him any more. Mordor was no
longer
the Leader
;
he was
another person now, the person he had been before who could not be trusted. Even he, Korg, was not
what
he had been before, when everyone had obeyed him. Now he would be hunted like an animal; people were filled with loathing for him, wanted to destroy him. Everything he had built was falling around him, the Leader, the Great Spirit
;
all of them were collapsing as if the earth had given way beneath them. They
had fallen
into the darkness below and no one could pull them up, no one; there was no
Leader, no
Great Spirit, only
the
illusion
he had created for Mordor to use,
that he too could use to make the people obey
.

Korg closed his eyes and groaned, an agonizing groan that he heard himself. The sound
roused him
, forced him to try to think. No one must know he was here. That would bring death as surely as the claws, the fangs…

With a vast effort he pushed the terror
away
and focused on the village again
.
The
three people
were
setting off on the path
that wound past him and then led to
ward
Runor’s village, Rofina’s village too…

Rofina! The name penetrated
the chaos in
Korg’s
mind
. Of course
!
T
hat was where Mordor
had
gone. Why had he not
realized that right away
?

Because he had
allowed
himself to
lose control; that was why.
Furious at himself
,
Korg
jumped up and retraced his steps.
The
trembling and his long vigil
had stiffened him
, and
his legs would hardly bend. He forced them to
move
. He
must hurry, must get t
o Rofina
’s
village
before Larak and the others. Had
Zena
gone there too? Korg shook his head, trying to clear it so he could think
.
T
hen he realized
that
it did not matter. All that mattered was finding Mordor. That was most important.

Un
caring of the
shaking that tormented his body
, his empty belly
or the rain that was still fall
ing in torrents, he loped ahead,
keeping well ahead of the three behind him but hardly caring now if they saw him. He was certain they could not catch him. His legs were strong and resilient from all the leaping and they would not let him down. His mind was harder to control. It kept going back to places he did not want to go, to his mother, surrounded always by men
. They were as
attracted to her full body as bees were to flowers. One at a
time
she took them into her hut, but sometimes she took two or three or even more, and inside the hut she laughed and groaned and shouted with pleasure; five of them she took in a night sometimes, if she could find them
,
but still she was eager.

“
Away!
”
she had screamed at him if he came near.
“
Away, or into the woods with you.
”
Her temper was as huge as her lust – and her thirst. She had loved the mead as much as Mordor
.

After a time she left his mind too, and then nothing was left but the legs that propelled him endlessly forward, the wet dirt beneath his feet,
and the
sound of the rain falling ceaselessly all around him. There was no meaning to anything exce
p
t the need to get to Mordor before it was too late. Only once did he turn to see if Larak and the others were keeping pace. They were far behind, he saw, and he felt a spurt of triumph
.
After
it
came anger, a
deep
invigorating anger
that spurred him on to
faster
and longer
strides. They were destroying him, these women,
Zena
and now Larak too, destroying everything he had built
with Mordor, with the Great Spirit. They were his creation
s, fashioned from
Mordor
’s
demons
, and no one had the right to take them from him…

He gritted his teeth.
Mara was one
of the
m
;
he
was certain
of it
now
. He had never trusted her. Even the old wise one Runor could still be one of them
, though he had
thought
she had learned her lesson
, had finally been cowed,
wh
en the Great Spirit had chosen both her daughters
.
First one,
then the other. She had
understood
who had done this to her, and why.
She had believed the threat he had made
about Rofina
, too
.
He had seen it in her face.

Did the others know
Runor’s secrets as he did
? Bu
t they could not; he was
sure
they could not.
Runor would not have
spoken,
would not
dare after the threat, and he certainly had not.
Not to anyone
would he
reveal what he knew of Runor.
His
knowledge was too useful
. Secrets were of
little use if
they
became known.