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

by JOAN DAHR LAMBERT

As abruptly as all the other changes, the fog thickened, as if a massive cloud had poured up the mountain to engulf them. Zena could hardly see her hands. She reached for Lief, but he was too far behind. She waited until she heard his faltering footsteps; then reached out again until she felt his fingers clasp hers.

  “Hold on and do not let go,” she shouted, and hoped he could hear above the noise of the wind. The answering pressure of his fingers told her he had. His left hand, at least, had some use, Lief thought gratefully as he held on to Zena’s fingers, though most of his arm seemed not to work because of the wound in his shoulder.

  Snow clung to their legs and faces, wet, heavy spring snow that made the rocks even more slippery and treacherous. It piled up quickly and soon they could not see what was rock and what was hollow. The wind was an endless, painful noise that made Zena want more than anything to put her hands over her ears, but she dared not let go of Lief. She would lose him in moments.

  And then she did lose him. With a wrench that pulled her to her knees, his hand was torn from her grasp. She thought she heard the muffled sound of something falling but it was hard to tell through the wind.

  “Lief!” she screamed. “Lief, are you all right?”

  There was no answer. Still on her knees, Zena began to crawl back, feeling with her hands, hoping desperately they did not encounter empty space where he had been. Except they had still been in the ravine; she was almost sure they had, and surely there were no cliffs in ravines...

  Her hands crept up a rock; beyond it, they felt nothing but cold air. She felt one side, then another, trying to peer through the haze, aching to hear some small noise, anything at all. “Lief!” she screamed again. “Lief, where are you!”

  “Here.” The voice was weak but she was sure she heard it. Zena’s whole body trembled with relief.

  The voice came again.” Wait. I will come up. The drop was not far.”

  Lief rubbed his head, vaguely aware that he had hit it hard. The new injury seemed to take his mind from the others. He wondered how he could climb with only one arm and an almost useless hand. He was so cold now that he could not feel much at all, so perhaps he could manage.

  “I will throw down a rope,” Zena shouted. “Try to find it, so it can guide you. I can pull you up if you tie it around you.”

  Tie it, Lief thought ponderously. I must tie it around me.

  Zena pulled out the rope they always brought when they traveled. One end she dropped slowly into the empty space, the other end she wound firmly around the rock to give her leverage. The rope disappeared into nothingness, and she waited. After a long time, she felt a gentle tug and then a stronger one that meant Lief wanted her to pull. Arms straining, she braced her feet against the rock and hauled the rope in slowly, hand over hand, glad that Lief was not a heavy man.

  Within moments she heard a scraping sound and then Lief’s head appeared. With one last hard pull, he slithered over the rock and collapsed beside her. For a moment unconsciousness claimed him; then the touch of her hand rallied him.

  “At least my legs are not sore,” he said faintly, wanting to know if he could still speak, but wanting even more to reassure Zena. “I am too cold to feel them.”

  Relief made Zena laugh. It was hysteria more than amusement, but the warmth of the sound seemed to Lief to create a protective cocoon around him, momentarily erasing his pain and the terrible coldness of his body.

  “We must find shelter,” Zena said when she regained control. “We can make a snow fort under a cliff and wait out the storm.”

  “First, we should get out of the wind,” Lief answered, hoping he had the strength to try. He wanted to say more, but found he could not.

  Zena said the words for him. “I think we are near the top now, and if we can get to the other side, we will be protected.”

  He nodded. So often that was the case in the mountains. On one side of a pass the wind could be relentless, freezing them quickly, but the other side could be calm. They could build a good shelter and he could rest, he thought with longing. Surely he would feel better as soon as he could rest.

  “It is worth a try,” Zena said, looking worriedly at Lief. His face was very pale despite the harsh winds that chafed it, and his legs seemed unsteady. He must have hit his head harder than she had realized. Perhaps that was why he was so weak.

  “I will tie us together with the rope,” she told him, but she had to blow hard on her fingers and tuck them under her arms before she could knot it around her waist.

  “But then I could pull you over if I fall,” Lief objected weakly.

  “We will have to take the chance,” Zena replied grimly, struggling to manipulate the stiff rope and get it tied around Lief. His fingers must be even colder than hers, she realized. He could barely make them work.

  “If I fall you would be pulled over, too,” she added. “Besides, I am not sure either of us can survive this storm alone.”

  Lief nodded reluctantly. She was right. Two bodies, two sets of furs made more warmth than one. And on this night, warmth would make the difference between life and death for Zena. For himself, he was not sure it mattered. Ignoring the faintness that kept threatening to overcome him, he followed her.

  For what felt like hours to Lief but was probably less, they half-walked, half-crawled up the ravine, feeling always with their hands to make sure they were still in it. Gradually the ground beneath them became smoother, no longer filled with the debris washed down when the snows melted, but more like alpine meadow.

  Abruptly, the wind rose into a fierce crescendo, pushing them so hard they dared not stand lest it topple them over. They inched ahead on hands and knees, gasping for breath, and suddenly they realized they were going down. Not up, but down.

  Cautiously, they crawled a little further until Lief was brought to an abrupt halt by the slack in the rope. Zena had stopped moving. Anxiety washed over him, and he peered ahead to see what was wrong.

  “The wind! The wind has gone.” Zena’s voice filled with wonder. “We must be over the top.”

  “Over the top,” Lief repeated, unable for a moment to think what the words meant. Then the meaning came, and he slumped down into the snow. “Yes. We are over the top.”

  Zena crawled over to him, frightened by his terrible exhaustion. For her, the ordeal was bad but for Lief, weakened by the illness in his belly, unable to move without pain, it must be almost unendurable. She was sure now that he had hit his head very hard, though he still had not spoken of it. Pulling him into her arms, she cradled his limp body against her own.

  “I will be all right,” he murmured. “I must just rest for a moment.” Breathing hard, he fought to stay conscious through a haze of pain.

  “Fire,” Zena said. “We must have a fire.” As she spoke she remembered the first time she had uttered these words to Lief, when they had gone together to save the infant, and Lief had shivered in the cold rain while she spoke to the women in their Ekali. It seemed a lifetime ago.

  She must take charge now. Lief was too weak, weaker than he should be, she thought with momentary panic. Pushing her fear away, she concentrated on the problem of finding shelter. Mercifully, both the fog and the driving snow were lessening without the wind, and she could see again, at least a little. There was a ridge jutting up just ahead, with another ridge behind it. If the hollow between the ridges was deep enough it would offer some shelter. They could go there, build a snow fort, or at least burrow into the snow and build up walls around them for warmth. Then they could start a fire.

  “Can you go as far as that ridge?” she asked, pointing. Lief followed her gesture and nodded, though he was not sure it was true. His mind seemed to be somewhere else now, and his body felt heavy and useless, as if it wanted only to sink down into the snow and never move again. He moved anyway, half-crawling to the depression between the ridges, shaking his head to throw off the dizziness. The effort buoyed him, made him feel as if he might be able to retrieve some strength after all.

 
; For a moment, he was even able to help Zena as she began to dig out a cave-like space under the highest ridge. His strength deserted him quickly and he lay down again, watching her. Zena made no comment but just kept digging. When the cave was deep enough to satisfy her, she brought out the tinder they kept in birch bark canisters, but the snow wet it so fast it was useless.

  “We must make a better cave instead of having a fire,” she said determinedly. “If we make it thick and build up walls, we can keep each other warm inside.”

  Lief watched helplessly as she piled the wet clinging snow as high as she could around the cave, and when that was finished, lined the bottom and sides with their grass capes. He crawled in after her, grateful to be able rest at last. Only then did she turn her full attention to him. Pulling off his fur cap, she surprised him by first examining his head. He had forgotten that he had hit it when he fell.

  Zena’s exploring fingers found a lump but she did not think it explained Lief’s terrible weakness by itself. His stomach ailment must be worse. That could make people very ill. She picked up his hand to comfort him and was startled when he winced. Her eyes dropped to the hand, saw the blood, the wound.

  “How did that happen?” she asked, horrified by the deep, jagged tear.

  “Arrow,” Lief mumbled indistinctly, feeling too weak now to lie.

  “Arrow? Did one of the arrows hit your hand?”

  “Yes,” he said, thinking that a wound to his hand would worry her less than an arrow in his shoulder. If she was to live, she must not worry. She must sleep if she could. “I pulled it out and it will heal,” he added.

  Zena looked more closely at the wound and rubbed it gently with snow to clean it. She suspected it was very painful, and pain too made people weak. Some part of her was not entirely satisfied with this explanation, but she did not question Lief further. What he needed now was to rest, to sleep if he could.

  “We will rest now and wait out the storm,” she told him, replacing his cap and covering him with furs. “Soon, the cave will seem warmer, even if we do not have fire.” They huddled together, and after a time, Lief realized she was right. The small space did seem to get warmer. He saw that the snow seemed to be slowing down as well, now that the light was fading. The pain was receding, too. Shock had made him numb, and now he hardly felt the fire in his shoulder. He was grateful.

  Zena pulled out some cooked deer meat she had saved and they both ate a little, or at least Lief tried. “It will keep up our strength,” Zena told him. “Then, as soon as the light comes again, we can go home.” She smiled at him and rested her head on his shoulder. He was relieved that she had chosen his good shoulder, and he put an arm around her.

  Snuggling against him, Zena allowed her eyes to close for a few moments. She felt Lief’s arm tighten protectively; she forced her eyes open again and stroked his wounded hand gently. As soon as she stopped, her eyes began to close again. She yanked them open, determined not to fall asleep lest he become worse without her knowledge. Surely, though, it would be all right just to rest in this way.

  Hours seemed to pass, and she thought Lief slept a little. Zena was glad, and vowed again to watch over him. For a time she succeeded; then, despite her efforts, sleep overcame her, the deep impenetrable sleep of youth and exhaustion. Later, she became aware that she was lying down and that Lief was lying beside her. She pulled him closer and pressed hard against his body so she could give him her warmth, and plummeted once more into sleep.

  Lief smiled, feeling the warmth radiating from her. Only warmth would keep her alive on this night. The thought lodged in his mind as he lay there with Zena cradled in his arms. More hours passed, and the thought was still there: only warmth would keep Zena alive. It went around and around inside him, seeming to meld with the dizziness, and making sleep impossible.

  He lay there thinking about the man who had attacked him, wondering who he was, and suddenly his mind became as clear as a mountain lake, and he understood. The man who had wrestled him to the ground and fought like a devil to kill him was the man with the scarred face he had seen all those years ago, the man who had spied on them and shot at them. He was the reclusive man who traveled with Korg and the Leader. They had been dressed as women that day, and the Leader was comatose with mead.

  Another revelation followed. The man with the scarred face was the real threat, not Korg and the Leader as they had always thought. He was dangerous still. He would kill Zena, kill all of them if he could. Lief did not know why, only that it was so. The knowledge came to him abruptly, without warning, in the same irrefutable way he had known long ago that Zena would one day be important in his life. He knew too, that the man was still alive. The fall had not killed him. He could feel rage emanating from the huge man, as strong and vengeful and implacable as before.

  Why had he never realized these things before? And what had been in the sack the scarred man carried across his back?

  Panic struck Lief. He must warn the others, warn Zena, quickly, while he still could. Lips stiff with fear and cold, he spoke urgent words into her ear, about the man with the scarred face and what was in the sack he carried, about the danger that was still all around them, but the dizziness had come back forcefully and he was not sure he said them aloud. Perhaps they were just in his mind. He forced the words out again, desperate now, but the howling wind blew them away and he did not know if she had heard. He spoke them again and then again, or he thought he did.

  Another shock came, suddenly, irrevocably. He would not live through the night. He was too weak, and he could feel the weakness growing, spreading through his body and mind, sucking the life from him. He would not live, but Zena must. While he still had the will, he must do what he could to keep her alive. That was all that mattered now: Zena must live.

  Zena must live. Over and over the thought resounded through Lief’s mind as he summoned the last of his strength to do what had to be done. Moving carefully so he would not wake her, he stripped himself to the waist and covered her sleeping form with his clothing. The movements were strained and difficult with his maimed hand and shoulder, but Lief hardly noticed. He just kept tugging until the job was finished. His cap went over her head, his fur cape and the extra furs above him were tucked around Zena instead. When he was certain she was wrapped as warmly as possible, he lay above her to protect her from the snow and to give her the last of his body’s heat. He looked down at her face, but the night was utterly dark, and all he could see was a pale oval. Closing his eyes, he remembered it instead. He saw her lips curve into a smile, saw doubt encompass her features, and then strength, the strength she had not known she possessed. Now she was intense, serious, as she spoke for the Mother, now she was looking up at him, her eyes filled with love.

  Above him, the snow changed to freezing rain that pummeled his naked back and head, and the winds shifted direction again to whistle across their cave, but Lief did not notice. There was nothing for him now but Zena’s face, the beloved face he would take with him to the stars. He was almost there now, beginning to fly as he and Zena had flown so many times together. For a moment anguish filled him because this time she could not come, but the sorrow quickly passed. It did not matter that he should go alone. What mattered was that Zena would live and would go on living and that no harm would ever come to her. He knew that was so because he would always be with her, watching from the stars. However difficult the challenges she faced, however far she journeyed, he would be with her, helping her, loving her, making sure she was safe. Always and forever, he would be there.

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  Zena woke in the night; feeling Lief’s weight above her, she drifted back toward sleep. He must be sleeping, too. Still, she should check, make sure he was all right. He had been so weak. She opened her eyes to look at him but the night was too black to see his face. Snow was all around them; that much she could see, and she thought the wind must have shifted again because she could hear it howling above them. It was good that they had made the ca
ve so deep, she thought sleepily. They were well protected here. She whispered Lief’s name and touched him gently, but there was no answer and she decided to let him sleep on.

  When she woke again, the sky had a faint lightness and she knew dawn must be close. She was very cold. Lief must be even colder above her. Both of them should get up and move around to bring warmth back into their bodies.

  “Lief,” she said softly. He did not answer, and a prickle of alarm raced through her. Lief always woke at the slightest noise. She tried to move a hand up to touch his face, visible now as a pale oval, but her arms were pinned between them.

  “Lief,” she called again, loudly this time, but there was still no answer. Fighting panic now, Zena struggled to shift his weight and free her arms so she could touch him. “Lief,” she said sharply. “Lief, please wake up and tell me you are all right.”

  One hand came free and she touched his face. It was cold, terribly cold. She reached out to shake his shoulder to force him awake. Shock hit her so hard she had to fight to breathe. His shoulders were bare, and his back... There was nothing on them, no tunic, no furs, nothing, only snow.

  Gasping, she pulled furiously at the tangle of furs wrapped around her. What had he done? Where were his clothes? She looked down at the cocoon from which she was struggling to emerge and saw them. They were there, all around her, not on him but on her.

  “Lief, Lief, what have you done?” she cried, as if he could hear, not wanting to know, not yet, that he could not. She could not know this yet...

  Sobbing, she finally pulled herself out from under him and watched in horror as he fell face first into the hollow that had enclosed her a moment ago. His body was stiff; it did not bend at all as he fell, not even his arms, which had been outstretched to embrace her and were still out-stretched. A scattering of snowflakes flew into the air, disturbed by the motion, then settled again on his rigid form.

  There was frost on his back, and snow. She brushed it away, saw blood, dark red blood, frozen into the snow, and there was something else...