Embers of the Raven: A Christmas Story from Greenland (The Christmas Raven Book 1)

by Paton, Chris

  Asiaq nodded and smiled with brilliant teeth. She stopped then upon the ice and regarded the shaman with a frown. She pointed at the dark polar sky. The shaman smiled. Asiaq pointed once more and frowned. Tulugaq nodded. The woman dropped her arm and then held a perfectly manicured nail to her full lips. With a mischievous twinkle in her deep brown eyes, Asiaq placed two fingers in her mouth and blew.

  ҉

  Amâgaiat was sleeping when Mikissok entered the cave. The amauten was leaning against the cave wall. There was little movement from within the rotten sack. Mikissok looked about him and froze as Amâgaiat sniffed violently, his unfamiliar scent disturbing her slumber. The troll coughed and rolled onto her massive side, the dwarf’s scent forgotten. Deep, cavernous snores began to resonate around the cave as Amâgaiat relaxed. Mikissok stole carefully across the cave floor until he stood by the side of the amauten. The stout dwarf flexed his stubby muscles. This was going to be a challenge, he thought to himself. Steeling himself, the dwarf took a good grip of the amauten. As soon as his fingers grasped the sealskin sack it squealed in alarm. The piercing shriek that echoed about the cave woke the troll in a flash. Mikissok gripped the sack and threw it over his knotted shoulder. He rushed out of the cave, the sack squealing and shrieking as it was dragged over the rock-strewn floor. Amâgaiat roared and lunged after the sack but Mikissok was far too quick and he barrelled out of the cave and into the deep snow. The troll was just a step or two behind him and she would have caught the sack and the dwarf in her long arms had the raven not attacked her eyes the moment she burst out of the cave. Amâgaiat roared again and tried desperately to seize the raven but to no avail. As the troll and the raven fought behind him, Mikissok reached the crest of the hollow and plunged down the mountainside towards the sea ice below. Faintly, from within the amauten came the cries of children, almost lost in the squeals of the shrieking sack. Mikissok stumbled and they slid a long way down the mountainside, landing in an uncontrollable heap. The amauten opened and the dwarf peaked inside. Beneath the bodies of two adult Greenlanders, Mikissok found the children. They were bruised and half-starved, they smelt rotten, but they were alive. Mikissok dragged them out of the amauten and buried them roughly in the snow.

  “Stay here,” he shouted at them. The children were too frightened to do anything else. As the dwarf gathered up the amauten and fastened the sack containing the dead Greenlanders, the troll launched off the lip of the ridge and lunged down the mountainside towards him. In her great, clawed hands, she grasped a wild thing, flapping and biting at the troll’s long arm and crushing fingers.

  “The raven!” Mikissok gasped, and then he ran.

  The dwarf reached the sea ice first and flung himself through the lumps and boulders of uneven ice where the sea meets the land. Amâgaiat was moving quickly behind him. Mikissok fled across the ice, the amauten bouncing upon his shoulder, he gave little thought to the dead Greenlanders inside. The dwarf ran.

  Tired of prying the raven’s beak from her fingers, the troll paused to dash the bird’s head upon the diamond-like surface of a small iceberg locked in the ice. As the blood of the raven spattered upon the glacial ice, the troll dropped the bird and hounded after the dwarf with hands and feet clawing at the surface of the ice to give her more purchase upon the slippery surface. Amâgaiat howled behind the dwarf. With the howling of the troll and the shrieking of the sack, Mikissok grew hopeful that their flight might yet be noticed, and that his plan might yet succeed.

  Indeed, so intent was Amâgaiat in her pursuit of the dwarf she did not notice the broad sledge racing along the ice to her left. Two qajaqs were lashed to the long, broad sledge. Nissimaaq raced alongside, his whip snapping and slapping upon the ice as the two hunters perched on the sledge held on for fear of being left behind. The sledge dogs raced with an energy that belied their years. Tongues lolling, half forgotten, they steamed along the ice, their breath evaporating in the warm headwind that rolled in to meet them. In the distance Nissimaaq spied a curious smoke evaporating in the air and a lone figure dashing and leaping between breaking floes of ice crashing and splintering into one another in deadly abandon.

  The twilight of the polar day grew that little bit brighter as the moon waxed into the beginnings of the night sky. Mikissok was at once illuminated as he sped across the ice, but Amâgaiat was almost upon him. Glancing behind him Mikissok dropped the amauten in the hope of checking the troll’s pursuit. It made no difference. Amâgaiat leaped over the amauten and snapped at the heels of the dwarf. Mikissok stumbled and slid into a small boulder of ice frozen to the surface. Amâgaiat slowed to a prowl. She circled the dwarf. The cracking and heaving of the ice in the near distance before them did not distract the troll, nor did the sledge that sped past her. Mikissok caught the movement of the sledge and noticed the hunters cutting the qajaqs free and leaping with them onto the ice. The sledge veered from the encroaching sea and turned towards him. Mikissok breathed a sigh of relief. The hunter was coming.

  A slap across the dwarf’s face shocked him back to reality as he eyed the troll before him. Another slap and a thunderous crack happened at the same time. As the troll slapped the dwarf’s face from right to left, Mikissok saw a huge lead of turbulent sea water cut off any hope of relief. Nissimaaq stared helplessly from the other side of the lead as Amâgaiat continued to abuse the spent dwarf. Mikissok waved bravely before another slap caused him to pass out.

  The dwarf was afforded little reprieve. He awoke to a horrible choking as frigid sea water was forced into his lungs as the troll plunged him repeatedly into the arctic waters. Satisfied that he was awake the troll cast the dwarf back onto the shrinking ice. Mikissok scrabbled into a sitting position, spitting and coughing into consciousness. More loud cracks around them and the sudden shift of the ice beneath them gave both Amâgaiat and the dwarf a moment’s pause. The troll smiled a grim smile at the dwarf. Mikissok spat and steeled himself for the inevitable. He took one last look at the polar sky but it was black. It seemed that even Nissimaaq assumed the worst for the Northern Lights were absent.

  As Amâgaiat drew back her hand for one final slap, a crack and a shriek rent the polar air and she was suddenly still. The troll turned and beheld the shrieking sack on an ice floe of its very own now detached from the sea ice connecting it to the land. The dwarf forgotten, Amâgaiat leaped at once from floe to floe before she landed heavily upon the ever decreasing plate of ice that bore the amauten. The floe tipped, the amauten slid into the sea and Amâgaiat followed it instinctively. With one clawed hand she snagged the amauten and followed it down to the depths from which not even Amâgaiat could ever return.

  ҉

  Mikissok was not sure for how long he had dozed. The slight tipping of the ice upon which he lay roused him and he felt unfamiliar hands, women’s hands, bumping him into the bottom of the umiaq skin boat. Mikissok pushed himself upright and staggered to a standing position in the bottom of the boat. He could barely see over the gunwales. Cautiously, he spoke.

  “I need to get back over there,” he pointed towards the land. “Take me to that iceberg.”

  The women looked nervously at one another before changing direction and paddling towards the land, in the opposite direction of their winter camp. As they neared the iceberg Mikissok could see that it was not yet free of the ice and that the wild seas had abated. As they drew alongside, as near as they could land, the dwarf scrambled out of the umiaq, nodded his thanks and trotted off in the direction of the iceberg. He would not see the women ever again. In fact, he vowed never to see any Greenlanders ever again. The flight and fight upon the ice floes was forgotten as Mikissok neared the towering iceberg and beheld the spatter of crimson across the base, below which lay the dark, broken form of the raven. Mikissok knelt and wept. He prodded at the raven before clasping it to his breast.

  “Silly bird,” he cried. “Such a silly, silly bird.” Mikissok carried the raven to the shore and, with the last of his kindling and what material he could find, he lit a m
odest fire on the snowy beach.

  As the fire reached its peak the dwarf placed the raven upon the flames and whispered goodbye before turning for home. Mikissok was without kindling, in need of shelter and missing his friend.

  ҉

  The unseasonable break-up of the ice had confused the land and it seemed it snowed all the deeper and froze all the harder in the days approaching the turn of winter. Mikissok was out foraging under the black polar sky when he heard the tinkling of small bells and the grating of ice beneath a sledge in the distance. He turned to see the hunter approaching and, despite his grief, Mikissok was glad at the sight. As the hunter approached the dwarf saw he was not alone. Upon the sledge sat another man and a small child. Mikissok sighed. He did not wish to have anything more to do with humans. Setting aside such feelings, Mikissok turned to greet them.

  As the sledge ground to a halt the child leaped off and ran towards him, the man hurried after. Nissimaaq smiled and took his time with the dogs before walking after the Greenlanders. The child, a girl, was the first to reach the dwarf. She said nothing. Instead she reached out a tiny naked hand within which she held a bunch of twigs. Mikissok held his palm beneath hers and smiled as she dropped the twigs into his hand.

  “Thank you,” said the dwarf gruffly. The girl smiled and turned to stand beside her father. Nissimaaq joined them.

  “Hello Mikissok,” said the hunter. Mikissok nodded. “This is Tulugaq and his daughter Panínguak.” The dwarf shook hands with the man and waved at the child. “It was Tulugaq that went forth onto the ice.”

  Mikissok regarded the man a moment before nodding slowly. “Thank you,” he said again, although less gruffly this time.

  Tulugaq shrugged. “It is me that should thank you. You brought our children back to us.” Mikissok’s face dropped but Nissimaaq smiled and prompted Tulugaq to continue.

  “Mikissok does not know what happened, Tulugaq.”

  “Oh,” said Tulugaq. “Oh, well, you should know the children crawled out of the snow and walked down to the beach when you arrived with the umiaq.” Tulugaq paused. “They say that they tried to talk to you, as did the women, but you were busy building a fire. After a while they left.”

  “Mikissok nodded. “I had to build a fire for a friend.”

  “Indeed you did,” said Nissimaaq. “Come friends, let us bid Mikissok a good winter’s eve and be on our way.”

  Mikissok shook hands once more with Tulugaq and his daughter. As he took the hand of the hunter Nissimaaq held him firmly. “Go friends,” he called. “I will join you in a moment.” Nissimaaq returned his gaze to the dwarf and after, a moment, he released his hand.

  Mikissok looked up at the hunter and smiled. “I did it then.”

  “Yes, you did,” said the hunter. “And I have come to keep my promise, just as I did for your brother.”

  “I was wondering about that,” said the dwarf. “My brother would need both hands to etch those runes into that clay pot.”

  The hunter laughed. “Indeed he would.” As Nissimaaq’s shoulder shook gently, the silver bells upon his smock tinkled and Mikissok heard the chatter of a child’s laughter from upon the sledge. The hunter turned to look at Mikissok once more. “I may have played a greater role in this little adventure than one might think. But the real stars of the show were you and the shaman there,” the hunter turned to wave in the direction of the sledge. “Without the two of you we would never have gotten the children back to their parents.”

  “What about the Greenlanders, the ones who died?” said the dwarf.

  “It is regrettable, for sure,” said the hunter. “As is the death of your friend.”

  Mikissok breathed deeply. “Aap,” he said.

  “I must go now and so must you,” said the hunter. “Return to the beach where you gave your last farewell. You will not find the raven,” he cautioned, “but maybe something to soothe you during the cold winter days.” The hunter clasped both hands of the dwarf and, silently, bid him farewell. Nissimaaq tinkled gently as he returned to the sledge. Taking the whip from the uprights, the hunter roused his dogs with a snap of the whip upon the ice. He leaped aboard the sledge as it turned in a wide circle and headed back to the winter settlement of Nugatsiaq. Standing between the uprights, Panínguak waved at the dwarf and he waved back.

  ҉

  The dwarf stumbled down the mountainside, sliding at last onto the beach. Mikissok turned slowly towards the place he had made a fire and was shocked to see a faint glow between the rocks. Approaching warily, the dwarf found the embers of the fire to be glowing still and yet the fire was starved of fuel. Mikissok stooped down to place a palm above the coals and he found them hot. Even the outer rim of the fire where the coals were spread thinly was hot to the touch and smouldering still. Mikissok scratched his ear and thought for a moment. It was not long before he reached inside his skins and pulled forth the little clay pot. Unlashing the lid he used it to scoop the embers into the pot. There were too many for such a small thing and yet, as the patch of glowing embers diminished there was always a little more room inside the pot. When there were no more embers glowing in the snow, Mikissok replaced the lid on the pot and lashed it tightly with the sealskin cord. The pot was warm to the touch but it did not burn him. As he returned the pot to the pocket inside his skins shadows circled above him. Looking up, the dwarf smiled as two ravens cawed above him before flying off to perch upon a nearby iceberg floating in the sea. Mikissok nodded once at the ravens before turning to make his way back up the mountainside in search of his bed before the coming twilight.

  About the Author

  British by default, Chris Paton (1973) has English and Welsh parents, and a Scottish surname. But it is his Welsh heritage - something about dragons - that seems to drive Chris' writing. Graduating from Falmouth University in 2015, Chris has a Master of Arts in Professional Writing, and a couple of other degrees that help pay the bills. Chris' favourite books include any genre with a bit of magic, giant squids and spaceships. Chris is a teacher by profession and a canoeist by choice. He lives in Denmark with his wife, Jane. You can find him in Denmark or online here:

  www.chrispaton.dk

  www.facebook.com/chrispaton.author

  www.twitter.com/Aarluuk

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