The Ice King

by Michael Scott Rohan

  From the wings of shadow an immense figure came striding out to stand between him and the fire. Paul gasped at the sight of him, a massive shape wrapped in a robe or cloak of thick fur over which, like some feral crown, rose a high helm of gleaming, sculpted metal, a writhing, slithering mass of serpent patterns that gripped and clawed and throttled at each other, writhing upwards as if to escape. Out of the helm rose two high, twisted metal tubes in the shape of immense horns, but tipped with gaping dragonhead finials. The dragonhelm bent and tossed like an angry bull, and the dancers cheered raggedly.

  The horned figure swung around to face the dancers. He spoke. ‘This is the young bear. This is him we offer. Let your eye see him, your choice be on him. Let your spear strike for him, your shield shelter him. Let your gates open for him, your meat fill him, your mead fire him. Let your ravens fly at his shoulder, your wolves feed from his hand – and your steed bear him.’

  The hands jerked Paul to his feet and hauled him staggering back, right to the base of the ash tree. His bare heels scraped painfully against a rising edge of rough stone, and he scrabbled to find a footing on it. As he stood there swaying, he heard a sudden rustle in the branches above, looked up, and saw a rope flung over and come twisting down toward him. On the end of it was a noose.

  He cried out and tried to struggle, but the dragonhelm was suddenly thrust right into his face. Its front was a mask, and behind it he saw eyes he knew, blue and glinting with chilly amusement. ‘Shut it, kid!’ hissed a voice. ‘Think we’d do this for real? Feel that rope – let him feel it, Charlie! See?’

  Paul twisted it confusedly in his fingers. The noose was roughly plaited out of what felt like dry grass. ‘Easy with that!’ hissed Colby. ‘You’ll break it! It’s about as strong as a daisy chain – this is just a ritual, get it? You’ve got to go through the ordeal – like Odin in the Edda story – you’ve read that, remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ mumbled Paul, ‘he hung on the tree – speared –’

  ‘Okay,’ whispered Colby. ‘A sacrifice to himself, doubling his power. We’re sacrificing you – but not for real. We spear you with the blunt staves, pull you up – then the noose breaks an’ you’re through. You’re our brother. But you mustn’t flinch, got that? Got it – no flinching?’

  ‘Sure, Jay,’ said Paul giddily. ‘Got it …’

  The helm swept up and away from him, the hands let him go, and he stood there alone on a high flat stone under the tree. One end was stained, by moss or lichen perhaps; he couldn’t make out its colour in the firelight. He saw Ashe and Kingfield join the circle, and heard Colby’s shout. The dancers echoed it.

  One by one they clapped their staves together in an X shape, a sharp fusillade of sound that echoed deafeningly between the walls. As each man clapped his staves he swung to the left, and the circling began again, slower and yet more dizzying. The dancers were moving now like stalking animals, circling each other in pairs, staves held out at arms’ length, upright, threatening. It was a weird echo of the Odd Dance as he’d seen it, but infinitely more beautiful, more terrible, fierce and tense. Now the dancers were half man, half animal, growling deep in their throats, their movements more instinct than skill: each in turn became hunter and hunted, staves in play like stabbing spears, a rhythm of alternate life and death. All the weighty clumsiness had somehow drained out of the dancers; they leapt and spun and flickered like creatures without weight or substance – or was that their shadows he was seeing, echoing the ritual, carrying out their own strange dance with fluid intensity, amplifying it to serve their own dark purpose?

  The spear-staves rattled and clashed, faster and faster – until one pair of dancers on the far side of the fire fell away, spun, and with a single wild cry came leaping right across it and towards him, the stave-spears stabbing at his throat. He froze – and they clashed, hard, blunt and harmless, against his chest. The dancers reeled aside – and another pair came yelling, leaping. Again the impact, hard enough to shorten his breath, bruise a little, no more. Only his shadow – skinny, attenuated, absurd – was transfixed. Three more pairs came, struck, fell back, and he was proud, he hadn’t flinched once. What now? The wisp of noose tautening?

  But the dancers were falling back, and again the horned man stood before him. Colby had cast aside his cloak, and now wore only a short kilt of fur. The firelight glinted on his tanned skin, stressed the heavy muscles with shadow. In his left hand he held a thin rod, like a barked willow withy; Paul could see it flexing. In his right hand was a staff like the others – except that metal glinted at its tip. Slowly, steadily, he extended it until the sharp blade touched Paul’s chest. The slight touch of chill seemed to clear Paul’s mind for a moment; he suddenly thought ‘I must look like Saint Sebastian or something …’ and almost laughed. But the spear point kept on coming, slowly, steadily, until there was a sudden sting of pain. Then the point swung away, a faint touch of red at the tip. Paul felt the warm trickle running down his chest, and sagged with relief. But as he looked down he saw the face under the helmet, the cruel lines of the mouth, the half-smile tense, twisted with appetite, and began to glimpse something about Colby he’d been too blind to see before. But then the tall man was gone, charging away around the fire, the dancers leaping and shouting behind him. The sea wind gusted in through the crevice, lashed the fire to frenzy. Now the horned man stood, facing him through the flames.

  Overhead the leaves began to rustle, to chuckle with the things that hung among them. Two branches scraped slowly against each other, the rasp of staff on staff. The flames leapt up, the shadows went scuttling back as if to shelter behind the horned figure. He swung the spear back above his head, stood poised for an instant – then hurled it forward with all his strength. Paul gasped involuntarily – but the spear never left the throwing hand.

  He saw the light glint on it as it fell safely away from him, hypnotic, eye-catching, compelling. The moment of fear was washed away. The blunt wand came lancing forward, launched high in the air, arcing over the flames – the only motion in a world fallen suddenly silent. The flames, a curtain risen in the wind, hung motionless. The horned man did not move. The shadows were still, waiting. Only the staff quivered, spun, as it glided towards him through the dead air.

  It spun – and as it touched and entered the flame curtain, it writhed and twisted like a tortured snake. It changed.

  The flames glittered on a red-gold tip, on a shaft laced with bronzed serpent patterns, stiff embodiments of tormented energy, heralds of agony.

  He opened his mouth for a cry of fear – but there was no sound. His tongue was as slow, as leaden as the world around him. The light of the unmoving flames traced out patterns on the spearblade, rich intricate markings heavy with meaning in his mind. And in answer to the summons he saw there, two new shadows joined the dance.

  Forward they plunged from the night beyond, and it was as if it had poured into them, swelled them, made them solid. On either side of the horned man they came, towering higher even than he, long limbs dark-sheened, hands stretched out spider-like in the blazing light. Strands of darkness swept and tossed across their faces, like seaweed over the drowned, lank matted manes overhanging, overshadowing their eyes. Silent their coming, silently they stood … and watched …

  Something touched his chest, a cool, betraying touch like a finger that pressed hard into the skin – a sharp, sharp fingernail that pressed slowly, infinitely slowly down, parted flesh from flesh, probed deeply, irresistibly through fat and muscle, that cut a channel and let in the frozen flame. Chill, searing pain lanced deep into his chest, drew in his breath in a single shrieking gasp, while all the time his mind cried out against it, against the impossibility of it, against the slicing thrust of a stave he had seen was light, blunt, harmless. Then the wind yelled in the tree above him, and lashed the branches upward, and his own unbelieving cry was cut off by a whipping pressure on his throat that swept him up and off the ground with his feet kicking vainly for a foothold. In a wrenching haze of ago
ny he saw the two great shadows advance, and a small figure that shrieked and ran headlong between them, plunging helplessly out into the dark with a falling wail of terror that echoed even through the roaring in his ears. Pain bent him rigid like a bow; the shadows swept down among the dancers, blotting the horned figure from his fading sight. Then explosively, silently, the taut cord of agony snapped, and the world fell inward into darkness.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘EARLY THIS morning it was they found him,’ said Ridley. His face was as grey as the drizzling sky beyond the window. ‘Couple of blokes after shellfish at low tide. Looked like a floater, our Mr Kingfield – as if he’d drowned, I mean. We soon realised he’d come off the cliff, though – roman-candled.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Don’t ask. Like parachutists when the chutes don’t open. Call it violent compression on impact. He was a long way out from the cliff – as if he’d been pushed. Or thrown. Could have taken a running jump, even. So we searched the cliff top, the paths, and we found this cleft, clearing, I don’t know. Hidden by bushes once – all trampled flat now. Christ, what a bloody sight! WPC found it first, tough little biddy, but she was heaving her guts out. Had to haul her off to hospital first – shock.’ He shook his head. ‘They were all dead in there. Dead or dying.’

  ‘Paul?’

  ‘Him. And the others.’

  ‘What others?’

  ‘Those fucking bikers, who d’you think?’ snarled Ridley, then caught sight of Hal’s expression, as horrified as his own. ‘Sorry. Sorry, Prof. Thought you’d have worked that out. Dear God. Like after a bomb. Just – broken, spilled. Dismembered. Two or three still alive, but no chance, not after the big freeze last night. Two died before we could get ’em out, third one – well, he won’t be hanging around long.’

  Hal poured out some more coffee. There was no one else in the pub’s little dining room, which was just as well. Ridley’s eyes were haunted by what he had seen, and Hal was struggling to come to terms with his own responsibilities. He’d seen the boy every day at the dig, talked to him once or twice, but never really noticed him as a person. Yet every single digger was supposed to be in his care, and the volunteers most of all. In his trust – and how had he repaid it? Letting Paul get mixed up with …

  He started, almost overbalancing the coffee-pot.

  ‘The bikers? You mean those friends of Jay’s? So where is he? Is he –’ he fumbled for the right word ‘– is he involved in this as well?’

  Ridley looked up. His face was unreadable, but set hard under its fleshiness. ‘He wasn’t one of the casualties, if that’s what you mean. But he was seen with them yesterday evening, and the lad was with him. That bloody great bike of his was parked with the others on the cliff road. He didn’t come back to the digs, he’s not on the dam, and he’s nowhere bloody else we can get our hands on him.’

  ‘Herre Gud,’ said Hal. It came out as a dry whisper. A wave of guilt washed over him, and another feeling he couldn’t quite understand – or wouldn’t, because it was too strong and he didn’t trust it. He daren’t think out the implications, not yet, not without knowing more. ‘But – what was done to them? A – a bomb, you said?’

  ‘No I bloody didn’t say. Just made me think of Brum – Birmingham. I was in uniform then, helped sweep up. Present from the fucking IRA. Ordinary pub, ordinary people, just drinking, having a good time …’ He snorted contemptuously. ‘This? No comparison. It wasn’t ordinary or anything bloody like it. Drugs – evil stuff. God-awful costumes – Nazi rubbish, that kind of thing. The one who’s still ticking – thick little lout, Charlie Boot they call him – he may talk, may not. May not live long enough. But no explosions, nothing like that. Just force. Sheer physical force. Somebody did all that with their plain bare hands. Except for the b …’ He hesitated.

  Hal caught his breath. ‘Except for the boy? For Paul?’

  Ridley’s face was bleak. He didn’t seem able to go on.

  ‘Listen, Inspector, it is my responsibility to contact the boy’s parents, to tell them what has happened. What must I tell them, then? How did he die?’

  ‘All right! The bastards hanged him – strung him up on a tree full of rotting meat with some kind of leather thong! And he had a bloody great stab wound in his chest – right through him, as though he’d been harpooned! That enough, or d’you want the bloody path, lab to give you chapter and verse?’

  ‘That will do very well,’ said Hal tightly, moving to get up. ‘We had better go. You will want me to identify him, I suppose …’

  ‘Aye, if you’ve done with your breakfast.’

  ‘You imagine I have any appetite now? Paul dead, Jay missing …’ And then he stopped and sat down again, hard. ‘One moment. Hanged. And then stabbed. What with? What did they use?’

  Ridley stared at him. ‘What the hell has that got to do with anything?’

  ‘Just tell me, please.’

  ‘Don’t know. Haven’t found it yet. There was a spear of sorts – painted broomstick, throwing knife bolted on the end. Even blood on it –’

  ‘And that was the weapon?’

  ‘No. Couldn’t possibly have made that wound. Wrong shape – too small. Just what’s eating you, Hansen?’

  Hal didn’t seem to hear him. ‘Stabbed,’ he muttered, ‘stabbed and hanged. From a tree.’

  ‘An ash tree. So –’

  ‘Yes, it would be an ash.’

  ‘So this means something to you?’

  ‘I – cannot be sure. It may not be important.’

  ‘Christ, you academics drive me up the wall! This isn’t a bloody doctoral thesis; there’s no time for poncing about and writing fifteen bloody drafts! I’ll decide what’s important, Hansen, and if you’ve got ideas, any ideas at all, you bloody well spill ’em. I don’t give a damn how crazy they are or who they drop in the clag. We do happen to be talking about mass fucking murder!’

  ‘Yes, yes of course. But I find it crazy myself. This hanging from a tree – the spearing, too. It is a rite the Vikings used: a sacrificial rite.’

  Ridley’s eyes widened. ‘Sacrifice? Like at Fern Farm?’

  ‘Exactly like. Mostly animals, but sometimes humans – slaves or captives, as a rule. All sacrifices to Odin, the god of battle. They used to call the hanging tree Odin’s horse …’

  ‘That so?’ Ridley bit his lip. His anger seemed to have been overtaken by a mood of cold, bitter calm. ‘Sounds like someone’s been getting ideas. Look, you’d better have a shufti at some of the stuff – forensic crew’s still working up on the cliff, but we’ll drop by the station on the way back from the hospital. If you’ve got time, that is.’

  ‘For this? Of course. We had better go.’

  The mortuary drawer creaked and clanged shut behind them. Ridley nodded sombrely. ‘Thanks, Prof. That’s all. Unless …’

  ‘Unless?’

  ‘You’ve probably seen all you can take, but the other – casualties – are here as well. Still in those bloody costumes. You might see something – something important …’

  ‘Yes, yes.’ The high tiled room was clammily cool, but Hal could feel sweat prickling his forehead and neck. The image of the boy’s face, relaxed and empty in death, haunted him. His fault. His responsibility …

  Ridley gestured to the hovering assistant, a skinny young man who counted off the tiers of drawers with a wagging finger before seizing one and hauling it out with a ringing crash.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ said Ridley weakly, ‘can’t you be a bit more bloody careful with – that? You can see the state it’s in.’

  ‘Ey, sorry,’ said the assistant cheerfully. ‘It’s them drawers – bloody antiques they are, weigh a ton, an’ who’s got to oil ’em all? You ’ave to yank, see, it’s the inertia. No lightweight, is ’e? That okay?’

  ‘Fine, thank you,’ said Hal, leaning over to look inside. For a moment he said nothing. His face might have been carved in stone.

  ‘This is just Hell’s Angel rubbish – Nazi
trash. Satans, what do they see in it? But he has one of the replica bracelets from the Museum Shop, and – what is this?’ The thing’s head lolled on its left shoulder, obscuring the mark with a ragged fringe of red beard. Without a moment’s hesitation Hal reached down, grasped the beard, and pulled the ruined head free. Bone grated and flesh made soft liquid suckings as it turned. ‘Look here, Inspector – on the shoulder. You see the tattoo?’

  ‘I see it,’ said Ridley between clenched teeth, leaning closer because he was a hard copper and not a soft college type. ‘Means something?’

  ‘I don’t like this,’ said Hal, releasing the head. It settled back with a squelch. ‘This survivor – he is conscious? He has spoken? I need to see him – cannot say more until I have. All right, you can put this one back now. I can wash my hands somewhere?’

  Ridley stood by while Hal scrubbed with disinfectant. ‘How come that didn’t bother you? How d’you manage it, all of a sudden?’

  Hal stared at his hands as he slowly and methodically dried them. ‘I thought of him as a specimen. As something I might find on the site. I cannot think of Paul Harvey in that way.’

  The doctor who emerged from the little hospital’s intensive care facility was a gangling, olive-skinned young man with an unidentifiable foreign accent. He was rubbing his hands with an air of horrid gusto that made Ridley want to strangle him.

  ‘Inspector? I am Dr Lehmann. The lad’s just regaining consciousness, but I’m afraid he’ll slip back into coma before long. Your sergeant’s talking to him now. We’re patching him up, making him comfortable – lovely neat job, but even a respirator won’t do much good now. Abdominal injuries on that scale, it’s only a matter of time, though chances are the brain damage will do the trick first. Depressed fractures, you leave them too long, all sorts of nasty things happen underneath –’

  ‘Thank you. Sure you’re right,’ mumbled Ridley, and plunged through the swinging door.

  It was hardly an escape. The room assaulted their nostrils, and not only with the normal hospital smell. Over it there hung a taint of vomit, blood, and something worse that Ridley tried hard not to think about. Curtains screened out most of the room, and the light around the only occupied bed was dim. A frame held the sheet high over the twisted shape inside. Harshaw levered his bulk off the steel chair by the bed as they came forward, carefully avoiding the few thin tubes that threaded out from under the cover to the laden trolley nearby.