ICE BURIAL: The Oldest Human Murder Mystery (The Mother People Series Book 3) (46 page)

“
No! We must get him now. He
needs help right away,
”
Zena
protested
, weeping again.
“
Lief
needs help. He is so stiff, and he would not answer...

“
The arrow; there is an arrow in him…
”
On and on her voice babbled, or she thought it did but she could not be sure, telling them of
Lief
and what he had done, how he had been covered with snow and so cold, so stiff...
”

“
We will get him next,
”
the voices soothed.
“
We are almost there,
Zena
, almost there now. Larak is waiting.
”

Larak. Larak was waiting.
Zena
’s
body relaxed and the sounds stopped coming out of her. Larak would understand.

Her eyes closed and she stopped trying to think, let the haze close over her again. When next she became aware, she was lying down and there were warm furs  around her. She snuggled into them, then remembered
Lief
, still so cold on the mountain.

“
Lief
!
”
she
c
ried
.
“
We must get
Lief
.
”

“
They have gone to look for him already,
”
someone told her, and
Zena
was sure that this time it was Larak. She stared up but the face above her was only a pale blur that would not resolve itself into Larak
’s
features.

“
But do they know where to look?
”
Zena
asked fearfully.

“
You have told them he is near the pass,
”
Larak replied. Her voice was calm, infinitely soothing.

“
Near the pass,
”
Zena
repeated.
“
Yes. He is just below the pass. They can bring him here and then he will be all right. Surely he will be
–
he said
the arrow only hit his hand, just his hand...
”

And then she remembered his back, covered with blood, the stub of an arrow in his shoulder…

H
er eyes filled with tears.
“
He said I must live even if he did not,
”
she whispered finally.
“
Only the day before he said that. But then I did not think, did not know...

“Why did he not tell me that an arrow had hit him in the back?” she howled in agony. “Why did he not tell me, so I could have made him better, and then he would not be dead…
”

The tears spilled down.
“
He was so weak, so very weak
, but I did not know..
. And then so cold... But we can warm him...
”
H
er voice trailed off helplessly.

Larak took
Zena
’s
hand and stroked it, understanding. To accept the reality of death was hard. It did not come all at once.

“
Lief
was a very brave man,
”
she told
Zena
gently.

“
V
ery brave.
”
Zena
turned away.
“
He gave me all his clothes,
”
she
whispered, looking up
piteously
at the lump that was Larak.
“
Everything he had, but I did not know. He waited until I slept, so I would not know.
I was so tired…

“Why did I sleep?
”
she
moaned
. “That is why he died, because I slept, because I did not watch over h
im
, keep him alive…

“
I want him back!
”
she
burst out
.
“
I want him back! How can I live, knowing
that he died because of me
?
”
Sobs shook her body.

Larak did not answer, only held her as she wept. There was no answer. There never was an answer for questions such as these.
There was no way of knowing who had
shot
him and why
, either
.
That might prove hardest of all.

Not until she was certain
Zena
had cried herself out and fallen into a deep sleep did Larak rise and go to the entrance to the hut to see if the searchers had returned. Had she been right to let them go? That
Lief
was dead she did not doubt, but to bring him home was still important. The burial, the ceremonies, would help
Zena
to mourn and then go on, as she must. But was it important enough to expose others to danger? The snow was even harder now, she saw, but finer, as if it meant to keep going, and the winds near the pass must be terrible. Never could she remember
snow coming
so
late
in the season
, and so fiercely.

Larak shuddered and turned away. In weather like this, the searchers
’
task was almost impossible.
“
Bring them back safely, Great Goddess,
”
she prayed silently as she stirred the fire.
“
Bring them back, for I should not have let them go.
”

As if in answer to her prayer, flares appeared
at the edge of the clearing and a moment later
the searchers entered
Lar
a
k
’s
hut
. They did not speak but shook their heads slowly.
Sorlin
went to look at
Zena
, to make certain she was fast asleep
;
then leaned close to Larak to answer her unspoken questions.

“
The snow was too deep for us
,
and the wind is terrible near the top,
”
she said quietly.
“
The fog, too, so we could not see.
He would be buried by now
anyway
. We will try again in the morning when it clears. Surely, the snow will stop by then.
”

But t
he snow did not stop. All day it
continued to fall,
fine and light in the morning, heavy and wet in the afternoon. The next day came freezing rain, so that the meadows, the hills and the fierce thrust of the mountains were covered in a thick blanket of ice. To walk was difficult, to climb impossible, but even had they been able to, no one could have probed beneath
the
frozen layers to find a body.

As soon as full summer comes,
the people told themselves,
we will look again.
But even in
mid-
summer the ice
on the mountain
did not melt that year, nor did it melt the next year or the next, or for many thousands of years thereafter. Instead, as the snows continued to pour down and freeze and harden and pour down again, the icy layers
on the high pass
became thicker and thicker, until they were impervious
to
even the strongest sun. And during all that vast period of time,
Lief
lay undisturbed in the high ravine where he and
Zena
had taken shelter.

Then, warmed one year by billions of particles of sand blown from the distant Sahara desert, the great Alpine
glaciers
finally began to thaw. All through that summer, the sand-heated layers shrank further into the encroaching rock until one day, more than five thousand years after his death,
Lief
’s
body lay exposed. The eyes that first stared at him, wondered at him, had no way of knowing who he was or why he lay there, half-naked, with his pack of tools and herbs beside him, his knife in his hand, his bow and arrows unfinished, his precious axe propped ready for the hand that never grasped it again. Nor could they know the depth of grief that poured from
Zena
as she mourned him in the months that followed, or how deep was the love that had flourished between them, the love that impelled
Lief
to give his life to ensure that
Zena
would survive.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Gurd
did not move
for a long time
after his fall from the mountain
. Then his heavy head came up and his eyes opened. How had he got
to this place
? He could not remember. He must get out of the storm
; t
hat much he did know.
But where could he go? He coul
d not remember that either. His mind did not seem to work, and his
body
felt heavy, useless. He forced
his legs
to move, then his arms. Pain shot through
him, and
he felt blood running down his face, saw it on his
thigh
. He ignored it. He could move
his legs
and that was all that mattered.

Instinct pulled him into a half-crouch, sent him reeling down the rest of the slope into the thick trees where the wind was not so savage. There was a hut
in the woods
; that he did know.
He had made it a long time ago.
He must go there.
Forcing
himself forward,
he took
o
ne step, then another
,
until he
was rewarded by the sight of the
familiar
structure.
There was wood in
side
it
, dry wood, and a large barrel.
Another
memory returned, suddenly
, horribly. The barrel held mead. He had
made
that
too, made it for the Leader, only the Leader was dead.

Gurd
began to sob, deep choking, disbelieving sobs like those
of
a
lost child. Furious with himself,
he forced the
grief away.
He had no time for that
now
.
If he was to avenge the Leader, he
must get
warm
so he could
do what he had sworn to do.
Though he seldom drank it
,
he swallowed some
of the
mead
in great gulps, knowing it would
heat his body
and
give him strength. His frozen fingers struggled with the tinder, the flint,
finally
created flame
for a fire
.

He held out his
hands
as t
he wood began to smolder and
wept again, this time with
the pain of the warmth that gradually came into
his
fingers
,
but even
more
with
the knowledge that the Leader was dead
, torn to
pieces
like
an animal mauled
by predators
. He wept with
helpless rage, too, because
so many of the
people who had killed
the Leader
were still alive
.
They should all be dead by now
, but the only ones he had killed were the man
who had
seen him and the man who had
taken the
girl who belonged to the Leader.
He had been lucky to find that one on his way north. The memory of his arrow piercing the man’s
chest
, the stillness
denoting
death that
had
followed,
brought a savage smile to Gurd’s lips.

Those two at least were dead
, he thought with satisfaction. Then he frowned. Was
the man who had seen him truly dead?
He had moved after the arrow hit him, so p
erhaps he was not
.
He was
badly
wounded
though
, of that
Gurd
was certain. The
fierce
smile came again as
he
remembered
the arrow thump
ing
into the man’s back.
And if
he was not dead now, he
soon
would
be
, Gurd reassured himself
.
N
o man
with an arrow in him
could live through a storm like this at the top of a mountain.
The woman
who had taken the infant
would
die too. The cold, the wind, the icy wetness would kill her
by morning.

U
nexpectedly, anger
filled him. That was wrong. It was
his
job to kill enemies of the Leader
,
and the storm should not take them instead.
Springing to his
feet
,
Gurd
threw
his steaming cloak across his shoulders
and
pulled on his
still frozen boots
. He must go up the mountain again
and
finish
the job
he had set out to do.
A
nger turned to rage
as he
imagined
pushing his knife into the man again and again, the woman too, before the cold could take them. But where was his knife? It
had fallen from his hand
on the mountain. He would find it there and if he could not, he would take the man
’s
knife from his fingers and use that.

Determination
sent
Gurd
tramping back into the deep snow, supported him as he began his trek
. The thought of revenge pushed grief away, and he was glad. Raising his
fist in triumph
, he shook it into the snowy air
.
The icy sleet slicing through his cloak to batter his skin made no impression, nor did the fact that his toes and fingers had lost all feeling. He marched on regardless, aware of nothing but his intent. He would kill them. The storm would not cheat him of that.

He
did not
notice
either that
his feet were taking him in the wrong direction. As if led by an instinct too strong for
resistance
, they plodd
ed not toward the mountain but
along the familiar path he had taken so many times before, toward the village where he had last seen the Leader, the village in which he and Korg and the Leader had lived for so many years
and
where the Leader had died
. It had all begun
in that village,
he thought confusedly when he finally recognized the path
, so p
erhaps t
o go there
was right
.
Now it would end
there
as well.

Hours passed, and all thoughts
receded
from
Gurd’s
mind except the need to put one foot in front of the next
so he would get to the place he
wanted
to go. What that place was, and why he was going there
often
eluded him. Then memory
would return with a jumble of images
of
killing
the old woman
who lived there
and those who were with her. That must be
right
, must be why he was here
. He was
going to do
what he needed to do, to
a
venge the Leader’s death
. He
stumbled on, feeling nothing,
not the
hot throbbing in his leg
or the fever
building
in his body or
the wetness of still falling snow
.
He knew only that he must get to that place.

He walked
for
a long time before he fell. This, too,
Gurd
barely noticed.
He simply lay there until he was able to rise again, forced to his
numb
feet by an instinct that would not let him rest, that knew he must keep moving to stay alive, but even more to do what he had sworn to do.
Blood
ran
freely from
deep
scratches on his face
a
nd an even deeper
gash in his thigh
made by
a
sharp rock on the mountain
.
The icy wind kept his face from healing, and the jagged wound at his thigh
reopened with every step.
It festered, grew
rancid
and swollen, but
Gurd
paid no attention.
His leggings and his frosted beard turned red.

Two days and nights passed in this way and he simply
kept walking, never resting
long enough to freeze
to death, never eating unless he found a dead animal
to gnaw at
, scooping snow into his mouth sometimes for moisture. His feet and hands were grey with frostbite.
Each time
he
fell
,
he hauled
himself to his
numb
feet again
, only to fall
again
,
r
i
se again
.
Then
, finally, his body rebelled and he knew no more.

*************************

For many cycles of the moon after Lief’s death, Larak feared that
Zena
, too, might die, not so much from her body’s ailments as from a sickness of the spirit. She had known that
Zena
and Lief cared deeply for each other, but she had not realized the strength of the bond that had formed between them, or how deeply
Zena
would be affected by its loss.
Zena
could not seem to get over her grief; worse, she blamed herself for Lief’s death. It was her fault that
they had decided to walk the mountain route instead of traveling with the others, her
fault that she had not realized how
ill Lief was even when they started out. Nor had she known how
badly Lief had been hurt, that the arrows had penetrated his back as well as his hand. She should have made him tell her that
,
should not have allowed herself to sleep, should have made certain he was warm, at least. Over and over, she berated herself, and to argue with her was useless.

Zena
’s grim trek through the s
now to find help
had also taken a terrible toll. Her eyes took a long time to heal from the snow blindness, and her toes and fingers were so bad that Larak was afraid
at first that
she would lose them. But she did not, and as
summer
passed,
her body slowly returned to health. Her spirit was harder to heal, and Larak began to wonder if she would ever fully recover, ever be the real
Zena
again.

Zena
was not sure herself. If only she could find Lief and bring him back for burial, she thought despairingly, she might be able to recover and live again, but until the ice melted it was impossible to look, or even to tell where he lay, and the ice did not seem to be melting this year as it had in the past, at least not on the mountain where Lief rested.

If only she had not lost Teran, too! Oh how terribly she missed Teran right now
.
Why, why, had she lost both of them? If she could just find Teran,
Zena
thought, she might be able to bear the loss of
Lief, even of his
body
.

And so she kept looking for any smallest sign of him.
Day after day, she trudged up the hills as far as the ice would permit and stood staring at the summit, but she could not even see the ridges that had enclosed them during the storm. Snow had filled all the crevices and then frozen, leveling the terrain. Each day as she realized anew that her search was hopeless, she felt grief return, and guilt, as bitter and unyielding as before; each evening she stumbled down again, knowing that she would never see her beloved Lief again, knowing, too, that she would never cease to blame herself for his death.

She might never know why he had been attacked, either, and that too was her fault. Lief had been trying to tell her something that night; she remembered his lips at her ear, speaking to her, but she had been too deeply asleep to absorb the words. That knowledge was the most painful of all, that she had let Lief down doubly, by not knowing that he was wounded and near death, and by not listening when he tried to tell her why. Day and night, the question
of who had killed him and why
pounded
at
Zena
’s
exhausted
mind. Sometimes a glimmer of an answer tried to make its way through the fog
of memory
but she could never grasp it.