Within the Ice

by LaPolla, C. J.

  In the morning Asvald approached looking grumpier than ever. Koll had awoken him with his foot and Asvald rose striking out. He had slept through the entire event somehow, even after his tent and equipment all around him blew away. He had managed to actually remain in one spot and continue his slumber through it all. Hrodny and Koll had kept him the remainder of the night, Devyn was not sure what they had discussed as for some unknown reason he was pulled out of the close council of these men. Perhaps they remembered that he was only a slave to this army. He was not here by choice and would look for any opportunity to try to escape to his family. The thought of them caused a pain to form deep within his chest, the storm had destroyed their camp of cloth and wood. Did the storm also leave this strange place and assault Northspire in the same way. It seemed unlikely but he wished he could make sure they were not harmed. Northspire was three days away, and the storm seemed very small, Devyn felt confident they did not even know this event occurred.

  Devyn stood lost in his thoughts when a dark eyed, tall Asvald approached. His long, thick, black beard contained a biscuit’s worth of crumbs. He chewed as he spoke, spitting crumbs out. “Listen up men. Our dear friend Devyn here has volunteered us to go find Thorolf’s group which never returned in the night. We go to find them and help them if they are still alive. Pack up your gear, we leave here in ten minutes. Devyn, Dorm, given that you so happily assigned us to this duty, you take the lead.”

  Devyn hauled his gear over his shoulders and tightened it with straps wrapping around him and saw Dorm looking at him.

  “What? It’s better than digging.” Devyn responded to the stare.

  Dorm shook his head and eventually nodded. “You’re right. A few members of that crew are from Northspire. I would hate to see them lost in a cave on this forsaken block of ice.”

  Devyn assisted Dorm with his gear to make sure it was snug for their journey and they took the lead of the crew and walked towards the cave that Thorolf and his men never escaped. The wind storm had broken off pieces of the mouth of the cave making it look as if it had teeth. Not a man among them ignored the fact that it appeared they were entering the gaping maw of a monster. Just as Devyn was about to enter the monster’s jaws he looked back at the camp and caught sight of Koll staring at them as they entered. Devyn understood Koll’s pain, in a world of war it was difficult to find someone who would not be dead the next day or to find someone who was not vying for power that you had. Thorolf and Koll were close friends, and a close friend was hard to come by while you were on campaign as these two were. Sometimes all a soldier had was the few friends he managed to scrounge from the group. And when those men died it was a devastating event that one almost never survived.

  Torches were struck as the darkness of the cave swallowed them with Devyn and Dorm taking up the lead. This cave was different from the cave that they had entered before, it was less clean and the edges were not clear. The cave walls were rough and broken, Devyn wondered if the storm had broken this cave or if it had always been so different. The men strode forward looking for any signs that the crew had gone this way, the clear marks of the boot spikes could be seen in the ice, but the winds must have blown away most of the evidence.

  The deeper they entered the cave the more they saw signs of the crew and even when the cave split off into two different caves it was clearly marked which way they went. The scorch marks of the band’s precious few torches was clearly evident on the ceiling of the cave and Devyn and Dorm followed those lines.

  After hours of hiking through the cave, Devyn and Dorm both stopped causing Eskor and Munin to bump into the back of them as they had long given up paying attention to what was in front of them. Far ahead the dim shadows of the torch light appeared, as if the walls were broken as tumbled ice blocks were scattered across the ground. Devyn lifted an arm to halt the team and immediately the heavy boot steps of Asvald could be heard crunching forward.

  “Something?” Asvald shouted which echoed deep into the gaping hole that seemed to go on for infinity in front of them.

  “A cave in ahead.” Devyn said much more quietly once Asvald stood next to him.

  Asvald took a few steps forward and strained his eyes against the torch light. He turned back to Devyn and Dorm. “Well scouts, go check it out. We’ll await your word its safe.”

  Devyn and Dorm exchanged glances and marched forward slowly checking the ground in front of them before finishing their step. It was very slow going as they worried about bringing more of the cave down with their weight.

  From behind the echoing shout of Asvald broke the deafening silence of the cave. “Get a move on!”

  Devyn flinched at the sudden sound and looked back to see Asvald holding his hands at his sides angrily.

  With a sigh of frustration Devyn began to walk without thought for himself and could hear the very subtle cracking sounds all around him. They were not loud and they could have been nothing but his own mind creating them, but if they were not this entire cave could collapse. They both approached the gaping hole in the ground and could see the tracks of the team cease here. From the looks of it none of Thorolf’s men continued past the hole and a pick ax could be seen laying in the debris below. The collapse was deep enough so if three men stood on each other’s shoulders they could reach the top, too far for the men of Thorolf’s group to make it out on their own. Devyn waved for the other men to approach and winced every time another crack was heard from the ice below him.

  Asvald approached and looked down the hole and gave a satisfied noise. “There’s the culprit. Devyn, Dorm, Eskor, Munin, down with you. We’ll haul you down on a rope.”

  Devyn wasn’t surprised or disappointed, he knew what this trip would hold and he knew every dangerous deed would be his to own. He only felt bad for the men that he had dragged along with him to suffer at the hands of Asvald’s childlike and unwarranted wrath.

  Hermund removed his tightly wound rope from his pack and untangled it quickly. They tied the end of the rope to an ice spire that stood near the opening and the rest of the rope was fed down the hole. Devyn looked down the gap with trepidation, why weren’t the men just sitting here waiting for the rescue party? Why did they move further into the cave?

  “Devyn first.” Asvald barked.

  Devyn looked at the nine men standing around and put his two fingers his forehead in a mock salute and grabbed hold of the thick rope. The men who were to remain above, except Asvald of course, held the rope tightly as Devyn placed his feet firmly on the edges of the broken wall. He gave the rope a white knuckled grip as he slowly leaned back over the gap, ever so slowly he began to inch his way down towards the cavern floor. It was not a far fall, if he did fall he would survive but he may have a fractured back in the end. He relaxed his grip, with his feet still firmly planted upon the broken wall, his decent continued very slowly. It was only a few minutes of time before Devyn was firmly planted on the floor of the cave below, but sweat trickled down his back and off of his forehead. With the constantly cracking ice and the ever present fear of the cave collapsing, the journey down had felt like hours. He wiped the sweat that had begun to freeze to his skin away quickly.

  Devyn drew his sword instinctively and watched the dark hall behind him. The only light he had was the light coming from above, the cave before him was pitch blackness. He looked up at the sound of a scuffle when Dorm began the decent he had just completed. His friend was quite a bit more shaky than Devyn had been, and after a slightly longer span of moments, Dorm planted his feet on the ground as well. They both eyed the darkness before them with an edge of fear. There was no torch light and there was only a slight line of torch marks on the ceiling of the tunnel ahead that they could see. The team had been here and had moved out quickly. The thud of Eskor’s boots on the tunnel floor broke Devyn’s concentration as he lost himself in the inky darkness beyond and he was able to pull himself away from the endless abyss.

  Munin was the last to hit the floor and the men above tossed dow
n three torches. The light was a welcomed sight as the tunnel before them opened up to reveal nothing. Devyn had been sure for a long time when finally the darkness was lifted a beast would be waiting for them in the darkness. But there was no beast, nor any sign of the crew beyond the scorch marks of their torches on the ceiling above.

  Asvald called out to the men from above much more loudly than Devyn would have liked. “Don’t return until you have some evidence of their demise or their survival.”

  Munin, Eskor, and Dorm carried the torches while Devyn stood ready with his weapon drawn. This was a simple rescue mission from a cave in, why did he feel the need to carry his sword bare through the caverns? He did not know the answer to this but it felt necessary and so he did it. Devyn took up the lead as Dorm and Munin stood side by side behind him with Eskor bringing up the rear. The light shined differently down here than it did above, it didn’t seem to stretch as far before the darkness swallowed it whole. It made the entire experience that much more creepy and Devyn could feel a jitter in his chest at the unknown in front of him.

  A random assortment of items one would see within a spilled backpack littered the edges of the walls of the cave. Pick axes and rope and other items stood out as signs of a retreat, but when the group found the sack on the ground they began to grow concerned. Devyn reached out and plucked the sack from the ground and opened it. When he opened it his initial concern became realized, this was part of their food supply.

  “What sane man would abandon their food in this cave?” Munin asked.

  Devyn looked up from inside the sack with his eyes falling on a shadowy Munin. “A man who is running for his life.”

  Eskor jumped in. “As much as we would like for this to be the evidence we need to leave, I do not think Asvald will take this. We have to find some sign of their bodies or them. Let’s go.”

  Devyn handed the sack to Dorm so he could stow it in his pack for him. There was no reason to waste perfectly good food. The soft sound of dripping echoed through the cavern as they walked. The torches barely cut through the inky darkness, the trek was made even more eerie by the constant dripping sound that grew louder as they approached.

  “We haven’t heard dripping like this before have we?” Eskor asked.

  The shadowy form of Devyn in front of him shook his head. This was a new sound, and after the terror of the previous evening, Devyn was tired of new events. More gear was strewn across the cave as they continued until they noticed the cavern begin to shrink. In front of them the ceiling of the cavern began to shrink towards the ground, it was still passable but not without hunching over to get by. Devyn squinted his eyes trying to see if he could make out anything beyond the odd patch of the cavern but the torch light stopped at what appeared to be a small tunnel.

  “Now what?” Eskor asked.

  “I’ll squeeze through, you can all follow behind.” Devyn stopped and grinned at Dorm. “If I scream, don’t keep following.”

  Dorm pushed his friend in the direction of the small entrance and waved his hands at him. Devyn reached out his hand to take the torch from Dorm and he held it out in front of him as he hunched over to enter the cavern opening. He squeezed into the small section of the cavern and began to feel the press of the mile of ice above him. The rough surface of the rock-like ice scraped against his back and his legs began to ache from the strain of hunching over. His body had still not recovered from the previous day’s activities and now adding more climbing and walking would only make it worse. Heat from his torch licked his face in the cramped corridor, the dripping became more intense the further he squeezed his way through the passage. He knew he would need to be cautious entering here, it could be a sink hole or another cave-in just waiting for his feet to trigger the catastrophic event. With his upper body straight forward from the hips and his knees bent at ninety degrees Devyn finally reached the dark entrance to the cave. He pushed the torch forward but the light from the torch and the darkness beyond made it impossible to make out any detail.

  “Going in, keep behind me.” Devyn said softly back to the men who were making their way behind him.

  Devyn made one last push through the small opening to the dome shaped room before him. Devyn knew something was amiss as soon as he entered the room and instead of the accustomed crunch of ice that he was so used to feeling beneath his boot spikes he felt a soft squish. When the light hit the walls and he took in the scene his jaw dropped. The little food he had within his stomach roiled wanting to lurch out of his body. No battlefield had ever prepared him to see the carnage that lay within the room. He was so aghast he did not have enough time to warn the men behind him before they entered in and saw the sight themselves. The torch light kissed the walls and illuminated the red crimson that covered everything. Body parts lay strewn across the ground along with a few faces that Devyn remembered. The dripping noise was quickly identified as the walls where the blood and gore were covering appeared to be melting. Devyn kicked his foot frantically trying to remove the soft organ he had stepped on. He cringed as he had to pull it with his hand off of the spikes on his shoes.

  “What… who… How… What’s going on here!?!” Shouted Eskor.

  They all had the same look upon their face. Thorolf’s team, not only did they suffer at the hands of the glacier, something had found them. Something that none of the team members here could understand found them. The four men stood for a long time aghast at the horrors that had befallen Thorolf’s group, but Devyn quickly began the grisly task of assuring every man was there and they could safely say there was no one left alive. The other three men looked at Devyn in horror as he walked around the room systematically and took a mental account of the recognizable body parts.

  “Five.” Devyn proclaimed at last after he continued his grisly duty. “There are only five of the men here and Thorolf is not among them. And there are foot prints heading off a small side cover over there.”

  “We are not going to go searching for them after this!” Munin stated with no attempt of trying to hide his terror. “Whatever did this to them could still be around here and could easily do the same to us!”

  Devyn stopped listening towards the end as something caught his attention in the corner of the room. “I saw something move.” Devyn interrupted Munin’s terror strewn comments.

  The four men approached a small rocky ice formation in the corner of the domed cavern. Each man had a different expression on his face as they approached the icy outcropping. Devyn had long since passed his horror at the scene and held an inquisitive and questioning look. Dorm’s face spoke volumes of how he’d rather be anywhere but here. Munin openly weeped for what his eyes had to witness. And lastly, Eskor wore a mix of confusion and anger. The ice was a deep gray color and looked almost rock like but they could all hear a light scuffling behind it.

  The tension built as Devyn slowly leaned over to see what it was. Immediately he jumped back and fell to the ground shuffling his hands and feet in the gore attempting to get away. The men who were staring at him as he performed his gory dance had their doubts destroyed when the whithered, bony gray hand inched its way from around the rock and towards them. It was not the hand of a man, the finger bones were too long, and the skin was a deep gray with wrinkles that sunk deep into the flesh covering it. It moved with a slow and pulsating rhythm as it inched closer and closer to the men. Eskor let out a wail and Dorm reached out a hand to help Devyn up. Munin pulled his sword and struck the hand leaving a deep gash in it causing it to flip upside down. The men stopped as the ring of the steel still hung in the air from Munin’s blade. They stood in horror as the hand twisted and flicked its fingers until it had righted itself and began its movements back towards the men, this time with a hard gash through where the hand meets the ring and fore fingers.

  The hand was the last piece of the puzzle to break the men’s resolve. Each one of them began running for the small entrance and one at a time they escaped the macabre scene behind them. Each shuffled on hands and
knees out of the small tunnel even though they could stand, they burst out into the wider cave collapsing with their chest heaving from exertion. They were terrified, none of them had ever seen anything like that. Legends told of creatures of the world that were what one would call magical but they were only legends and never a part of the lives of men.