The Glaciermen #27: Tribunal (Part 1)

Early access prepublication manuscripts of "The Glaciermen"

Hello Dear Readers,

It’s Wednesday! Which is not Tuesday, which is my normal posting day. Life got in the way a bit, and this was a tough one. I wanted to get it right before sending it out (which included finishing typing it up from my hand-scratched first draft), so it’s one day late. I suppose this is what I get by writing as I go.

Regardless, here it is…

(Here’s the previous segment if you missed it, and the first chapter and index, if you’re new).

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Recap: Lee was nearly finished with the Trial, but he was being followed. He ran, but his exhaustion and a psychedelic burst from the godseye were too much for him, and he collapsed into unconsciousness on the ice.

Tribunal (Part 1)

A burlap hood covered Lee’s head. He was awake, lying down. The floor was rattling. It was not the floor. He was on a sled. He tried to sit up, but his hands were bound, and his chest hurt again. The pain was not overwhelming, but it was enough to keep him from trying again until the sled came to a halt. There were voices. Gruff, harsh tones. Yelling. 

Rough hands grabbed Lee and hoisted him painfully to his feet. He could see blues and reds through the weaves of the burlap hood. There were figures moving around. The hood came off. Lee blinked at the change in light. He glanced first at his chest, anxious about the condition of his wounds. His upper torso was wrapped in a rough bandage, and his left arm was in a sling. 

Lee was standing in an ice cavern, large but not massive. There were a dozen tunlaq in the space, and they were all armed. Four bodies hung upside down from the ceiling, arranged in a large square. Lee was standing in the center of the square, about ten feet from each of them. Underneath each body was a small cauldron encircled with four torches, and next to each cauldron was a large stone bowl of dimly glowing gel—godseye.

In front of Lee was a large mound of dark  lumpy ice, arranged more or less into a pyramid shape. Rough steps were hewn into it, leading to the top. They had a bizarre red texture to them, but it was obscured by a layer of frost. At the top of the stairs was a dias, upon which was a throne made of bones and antlers. Sitting on the throne was the shaman.

The bone-white caribou skull was still perched upon his shoulders. It looked down at Lee with eye sockets black as pitch. The shaman sat in a relaxed manner, with one hand casually on the armrest of the throne and the other resting atop his cruel, claw-shaped wooden staff, which rested across his lap. Like the other tunlaq present, his skin was coated in a thin sheen of the godseye gel, and it glowed a dim blue.

Lee gulped down his fear. A tunlaq guard behind him struck the back of his knees with the shaft of a spear, collapsing him into a forced kneeling posture.

“Hey!” Lee yelped, his anger flaring above his fear for a moment. 

“Silence!” boomed the voice from within the skull.

Everything in the cavern stopped. The only sound was the crackle of torches and the creaking of the cords suspending the bodies from the ceiling.

“Bring the others,” the shaman commanded.

Four figures emerged from a tunnel opening to the side. One of them was Aguta. 

Thank God! Lee thought, but his relief was quickly replaced with dejection.

Aguta’s hands were bound, and the other figures were two guards and Muktuk, who sported an insufferably triumphant smirk. Aguta was forced to kneel. Muktuk took the pose voluntarily, with exaggerated elegance and deference.

That sniveling tattle-tale! Lee thought. He spat on the ground toward him, glaring.

The guard behind Lee smacked him across the back of his head, hard. It stung, but Lee gritted his teeth, saying nothing. The spit had been worth it.

The shaman stood, his intimidating form stretching tall with corded muscle, the antlers of his skulled head rising toward the ceiling. He raised a hand, then spoke.

“You have pressed the boundaries of our ways once again, Aguta. Muktuk has generously relayed to us the details of your latest trespass. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

Aguta glared at the shaman, his face a mask of contained rage. He was silent.

The shaman continued, “You make me wonder if I should doubt my decision to let you live amongst us. You showed such promise once. It is truly a shame. And here you are again continuing that habit of yours, I see. Stealing those who do not belong to you. Were the boy not so… interesting, I would have ended you both. You would make a good harvest for my warriors, Aguta, there is no doubt of that, for though your brazenness has been a thorn in my side, no one can dispute the purity and quality of your stock. But now, after this, what shall I do with you?”

“I have honored the Bargain,” Aguta snarled. He was met with a smack from a spear.

“Ah,” the shaman replied, “So quick to speak out of turn, yet you always speak plain truth.” He paused before continuing. “I see the boy bears the markings of the Claiming—though I cannot recall him ever being brought to me for the Offering—so you are technically half-correct about the Bargain, and I am forced to deal with him according to its rules. I must say, given his potential, I am not disappointed by this. You have good taste in those you steal, Aguta. Nevertheless, you must be punished.”

Muktuk let out what could only be described as a yip of delight. Lee was disgusted.

“You will be lashed,” the shaman said, then to the guards, “Now take them away.”

Muktuk’s face dropped. “But no! This is ridiculous—the outsider deserves death, not a few lashes!” he burst out, before clamping his mouth shut, his face filling with fear at speaking out of turn.

“Silence, worm!” the shaman yelled, “You dare question me? Were it not for the value of your willingness to betray your comrades to me I would have you ended here and now.” He then spoke to his guards, “Lash this pest as well, and get them both out of my sight.”

Once Aguta and Muktuk had been taken away, the shaman sat back down on his throne and turned his attention to Lee.

“So you are the one they call Tigua’ak. ‘Adopted One.’ Neither creative nor inconspicuous, wouldn’t you agree? Though I suppose you look different enough that those fools in their tents needed a name they could remember. Regardless, I have been told of your… exploit, and I must say, I am impressed.”

The caribou skull nodded toward the sled Lee had been brought in on, an oddly familiar yet unnerving gesture. On the sled was the severed head of the polar bear.

“Bring him closer,” the shaman commanded, “I want to get a better look at him.”

Hands clamped on Lee’s shoulders, yanking him to his feet once again and causing another burst of pain in his chest. He clamped his jaw tightly—he dared not let out a cry of pain now, as any show of weakness might mean his end. The guards lead him to the edge of the pyramidal ice mound, releasing their grip when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

Lee gasped. The mound was not made of lumpy ice. It was frozen bodies. Limbs and faces pressed together in a grotesque frosted mass. He looked closer, then almost lost the contents of his stomach as nausea flared at his sudden understanding: these were the passengers from the plane.

He needed to look away. There were faces he did not want to see. He shifted his focus to the stairs, then gagged again, this time barely holding down vomit. The steps were hacked out of the mound with no concern for the bodies that made it up. Their dark red color was the hue of frosted flesh, muscle, and whatever organs or limbs happened to be in the way. 

“Come to me boy,” the shaman said.

Lee couldn’t. It was too much. The faces. The bodies. The gruesome stairway.

“I said, come to me!” the voice boomed.

A speartip prodded against Lee’s back. There was no choice. He looked up from the grotesque steps and locked his gaze on the dark holes of the shaman’s caribou skull eye sockets. He began climbing. The frozen steps crunched under his feet. So much death. Lee felt anger begin to burn inside of him. There were faces he did not want to see. He would make them pay for this. He swore it.

When he reached the top of the stairs, Lee stopped and stood before the shaman on his throne. The large man was even scarier up close, but Lee tried not to let it show. The shaman’s physique was more impressive than the other tunlaq, yet paired with his clear command of intellect, it suggested a precise combination of deadly power. His skin was overlaid with the usual scars, but there were more than Lee had ever seen on a single person before, so many that there was barely any skin left without the mark of a blade.

The shaman started to speak, then stopped himself. He reached up to his caribou skull head and adjusted something behind his neck. Two thin leather straps came loose and draped against his shoulders. A moment later, he gripped the jawline of the skull and lifted it upwards. Revealed beneath the skull was the wrinkled face of an old man.

It was just a mask! Lee thought, suddenly feeling stupid at how obvious it should have been. He tried to hold onto his anger, but the feeling of idiocy made it difficult.

The skin of the shaman’s face was tattooed solid black from the neck up, likely to obscure it while underneath the mask, though it was disquieting enough on its own. The whites of his eyes pierced the black facade, and the two beads of his pupils looked out from within dull blue irises. Surprisingly, the shaman’s face was calm, his expression interested, even sympathetic. Lee wanted to hate it, but at the same time it was somehow so… friendly.

Adding to Lee’s confusion was the shaman’s obviously advanced age, yet Lee had never seen such an old face attached to such a strong body.

“Don’t be so surprised, boy,” the shaman said, his voice gruff but grandfatherly, and certainly not hostile. In fact, his voice was warm, inviting even. “I know many secrets, and I suspect you are beginning to unravel a few of them already. Let me share another with you.”

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And that’s it for now folks

Thanks for reading! I’ll try to post another segment by next Tuesday, so keep an eye on your inbox.

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– Xavier Macfarlane

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