The Glaciermen #42: Immolation
Early access prepublication manuscripts of "The Glaciermen"
Happy Tuesday!
I’ve got a crazy work day and I’m cramming posting this into my lunch break, so let’s just get into it.
P.S. If you haven’t already checked out the free books available through BookFunnel (no account required), you can find them here or at the bottom of this post.
(Here’s the previous segment if you missed it, and the first chapter and index, if you’re new).
Recap (spoilers!): At the hideout, Mika confesses her affection to Lee, and in turn he reveals Nantuk’s infatuation toward her. Spurned, she leaves—Lee and Trya wait until Nantuk comes instead with supplies and news. A few weeks pass. Muktuk follows Nantuk into the night, and sees him ride of in a canoe.
Burnt
Lee waded up to his belly in the brisk water. He was about a few hundred feet from the little shore near the fissure, on his way back from the little cove he had found as the perfect place to set the fish traps. Every day, just after sunset, he waded out to check the traps, and tonight was a good haul—three meaty fish wriggled in the woven wicker trap.
The weeks of hiding had passed slowly. Besides an hour or so practicing their languages, Tyra remained mostly silent, retreating into herself, and Lee practiced his breath and meditation, seeking to hone his ability. Nantuk would visit every day or so, bringing new tales of his courtship with Mika, ludicrous rumors of the supposed tunnel demon, and other such village hubbub—it was mostly nonsense, but it broke up the monotony.
The far off splash of a paddle in the water ahead told him Nantuk was soon to arrive for his next visit. It struck Lee as odd, though, because he usually didn’t come this early in the night. Lee squinted into the darkness, trying to spot Nantuk's canoe.
He dropped the trap.
Then he crouched low in the water until it came up just below his nose. He tried to steady his pounding heart, to keep his breathing quiet.
Four canoes moved through the darkness, three men to each. As soon as the first scraped up onto the beach, torches sparked to life, casting dancing reflections across the water. The men poured out of the canoes, spears in hand, rushing toward the opening as if in a silent race. Lee watched four of them crawl into the dark orifice in the rock.
As quickly as he could without making too much noise, he began wading toward the shore. Every fiber of his being wanted to rush toward them, scream curses as he bashed their skulls against the rocks, but there were too many, they were all armed, and he was too far away. He was powerless except to creep slowly closer and listen as shouts and screams began echoing out from the crack in the rock, then silence.
Three men emerged, dragging a limp figure behind them.
Tyra!
The fourth man did not come out. She must have got one of them. Voices carried over the water. Lee was still too far away to make out the faces in the flickering torchlight.
“Damn whelp! She knifed Pek in the throat—I say we just kill her now and get it over with.”
“Shut up, you idiot! We must deliver her alive,” came a familiar sneering voice that could only belong to one man.
“Where is the outsider?” the voice continued.
“It was just the girl, nobody else.”
A string of curses carried across the lake.
One of the men was facing out toward the dark waters.
“I don’t like it out here, boss. You know we ain’t supposed to come this way.”
“Tell me, how were we supposed to capture this wench by sitting at home like a bunch of crying women? Are you a coward?”
“No, boss, never. Just worried about that demon is all. Maybe it don’t like us coming out here, you know. Maybe this girl called it on us. Maybe—”
“You shut your mouth about that damned demon! I don’t want to hear another mention of this ridiculous rumor. Not a word from any of you, understand? Now get back in the boats. We may have failed to catch the outsider, but I know where we can find the next best thing. He must be behind this, yes. He must be.”
“What about Pek?”
“Leave him. We’ll come back later. Right now we have more important business to attend to—and everyone is waiting. Into the boats. Now!”
At that, the men returned to the canoes and paddled off.
After crossing the remaining distance, Lee crawled up onto the beach and went into the fissure. Inside, he was met with the obvious aftermath of a struggle. Coals from their little cook-fire were strewn about. The bedrolls were tossed asunder. A corpse lay in a pool of blood next to Tyra’s bedroll. The knife Lee had given her was stuck into the side of his neck.
Lee hunched past all of it into the deeper portion of the cave, where the darkness hid their humble stash of weapons and supplies: one hunting spear, some rope, another knife, cord, a few smaller fishing spears. He slid the spare knife into his belt next to the one already there, then grabbed the rope and the full-length hunting spear. He wouldn’t be able to carry any more than that.
Outside, he tied the rope to the spear, then looped it around his torso so that the spear was securely fastened on his back, centered between his shoulder blades, its point sticking out past his head. Then he dove into the waters, and began swimming toward the village.
He swam as hard as he could, knowing every minute lengthened the distance between him and the canoes carrying Tyra away. Even against a strong swimmer, the boats would reach the village at least a quarter of an hour faster, and they already had a lead.
It was difficult to keep his bearings in the dark, and several times had to redirect himself after running against the vertical wall of the chasm. The water seemed intent on drowning him, finding its way into his mouth, nose, and eyes constantly. Finally, after what felt like an eternity of thrashing through the uncooperative lake, his fingers scraped against the pebbles of the shallows.
Lee allowed himself a few seconds to rest, hands on his knees, chest heaving as he sucked in breaths after the intense dash across the lake. He pressed a hand to his back, felt with relief that the spear was still attached, and began working the knot loose. Flickers of red reflected off the water, pulling his eyes to the village, still a few hundred yards off. The light came from a crowd of torches arriving at the edge of the clustered tents, coming from the direction of the chasm stair.
Aguta! Lee thought.
Forgetting his exhaustion, he thrashed through the last of the shallows and took off toward them at a sprint. He slowed as he neared the village—there were guards posted around the perimeter, spaced every hundred feet or so. The riotous cries of a pogram crowd rose from the village interior, out of sight beyond the concentric rings of tents.
Still moving, Lee picked up a pebble and whipped it just past the nearest guard. The stone clacked against something, drawing the guard’s attention long enough for Lee to close the distance and crack him over the back of the head with the butt of the spear, bashing his brain into unconsciousness. After a quick check, Lee dragged him out of sight into the nearest tent.
A loud cheer rose from the center of the village. As it faded into the frenetic shouting of a single voice, Lee crept from one tent to the next, each time fearing a screaming occupant, but all of them were empty.
Muktuk must have called the whole village out for this, Lee thought.
Finally, he crawled under the back wall of a tent at the edge of the village center, which was no more than a large clearing of trampled dirt serving as a public gathering space. He peeked through the front flap.
The whole village indeed must have been called out, for there was a large crowd gathered around the circle. In their center were four figures. One was tied upright to a post atop a great pile of branches and sticks. His head was down so that Lee could not see his face, but he knew who it was in an instant. The other two were spaced apart in front of the pyre, hands tied to waist-high posts.
To the left was Nantuk, stripped and hanging slack by his wrists from the post, facedown, either unconscious or dead. Bloody stripes crossed his exposed flesh. On the other side was Trya, snarling and yanking ineffective against her bonds. Luckily, she was still clothed and showed no obvious signs of injury beside a bloodied nose.
The last figure carried a torch and a whip, and was shouting wildly to the crowd, spittle flying from his lips.
“Too long have we suffered this insult,” Muktuk yelled, thrusting the torch toward the sky to a cheer from the crowd.
“Too long have we allowed this outsider to infect us, to weaken us, to spread his corruption among our kin. See him now, finally coming to the justice he deserves.”
He thrashed the whip toward the figure tied to the post in the center. The crack of the cord was met with only a suppressed grunt from the captive.
“Aguta!” Muktuk cried, “I charge you with sacrilege.”
Another cheer rose up from the crowd. Lee watched helplessly as Muktuk continued.
“You have betrayed your fellow villagers, you have betrayed me, and worst of all, you have betrayed our great masters, who deign only to share with us their gifts, but for your apostasy they have deemed us weak, unworthy! You brought only poison to our people, who welcomed you with open arms. How did you repay us? With gratitude? With cooperation?
“No! You only sought your own ends. You rejected the gift you were given, time and time again. And now, finally you have crossed a line too great! You have…”
Muktuk paused, raising his hands into the air in an exaggerated display of gravitas, the crowd hungrily awaiting his next words.
“You have stolen the spoils of our master, bringing their wrath upon us! You have stolen from… the tunlaq!”
A fearful cry came from the crowd at the brazen mention of their masters by name. Muktuk laughed maniacally before continuing.
“And now I, Muktuk, will wrest justice from the hands of catastrophe! I will reset the balance of your crime, and I will regain our masters’ favor. I sentence you… to death!”
With the last word, Muktuk lowered the torch to the fuel at the base of the pillar. The branches must have been soaked in oil, for flames jumped immediately to life, illuminating Aguta in a bright heat. Muktuk turned back toward the crowd, raising his arms triumphant. An evil laughter poured from his lips as the flames licked at Aguta’s exposed legs.
“Noooo!” Lee cried, bursting from the tent and hurling his spear.
Time became slow. The spear flew lazily through the air, followed by dozens of startled eyes in the crowd, locked on the missile as it crossed over their heads. Muktuk's gloating cackle slowly metamorphosed into a shriek of fear and then pain as the point of the spear buried itself deep into his shoulder. The inertia of the blow sent him soring backward off his feet, hurling onto the blazing fire, where his skin sizzled and steamed before he managed to roll off, thrashing and howling on the ground.
For an instant there was stillness. Mutkuk’s cries of pain were the only sound as all eyes turned to Lee standing at the edge of the village center, chest heaving in the firelight, glistening with water and sweat.
Then, a bone-chilling, skin-crawling sound poured into the stillness—a long, guttural bellow of agony from Aguta, engulfed in fire.
“It’s the demon!” someone yelled, ending the stillness and igniting the crowd into a maelstrom of chaos.
Lee made a dash for the center, but the sea of panicked, thrashing bodies blocked his path. He surged into them with a cry of pure rage, forcing his way past clawing hands and pounding fists. He struck out at them with unleashed ferocity, heaving pounding blows against faces. Jaws cracked and noses shattered. He sent kicks into knees and legs, breaking bones and ripping sinew. Eventually he tore his way to the center, a path of carnage in his wake.
He rushed to the crackling pyre to release Aguta, but the heat was too powerful. He could only stand helplessly in front of the man who had raised him, watching as he burned.
Aguta’s cry faltered and he lowered his face toward Lee. Their eyes locked, and for a fleeting moment, the world fell away—it was just the two of them, gazing into the depth of the other. Aguta’s eyes sang of deep sadness, a regret beyond comprehension. Yet beneath the regret was a deeper, infinitely more potent melody, an unbreakable song of unfathomable love.
Lee's heart was wrought wide as he watched the last of the life drain from his father’s eyes, accompanied by a single, whispered breath, barely audible above the crackling flame and smoke.
“Live.”
And he was gone. His head sagged against his chest, and the world came rushing back to Lee, leaving him no time.
Tyra!
He rushed to the girl, yanking the knife from his belt to cut her binds, but before he could even put the blade to the cords, a maddened cry came from behind him. Lee ducked out of instinct, an instant before a spear whipped through the air where his head had just been.
He whirled around. Muktuk stood ten paces away, half of his skin crackled red and black where he had fallen into the fire. Blood leaked from a gaping wound in his shoulder where he had pulled the spear from his own body to hurl it back at Lee. He was flanked by several others, spears held ready. There were too many.
Lee looked at Tyra. Her face was set like stone. She gave Lee a simple nod, her solemn comprehension giving him permission to do what he could not have without it.
He ran.
He ran as he had never run before, overcome by the drive of that final command. Live. Tan and brown tents flew by in a blur, then icy whites and blues, and the blackness of the tunnels. He stumbled forward in darkness, slowing only slightly as he bloodied his fingers along the wall to guide his way until he came to a storage chamber illuminated by a single torch. He paused only to wrench the torch from its base and continue his wild flight, twisting and turning through the passages until the cries of his pursuers faded into silence.
He kept running until the torch burned out, and even then he went on, feeling his way forward until exhaustion overwhelmed him, collapsing into a dreamless darkness.
• • •
Something pulled Lee back to consciousness, a noise maybe. The sticky wetness in his mouth told him he had been out for no more than an hour. A dull ache throbbed in his knees. He was awkwardly bent in a low crouch, head slung between his legs, hands resting atop his moccasined feet—lucky. If he had been lying on the ice he surely would have frozen to death. The tunnel was pitch black.
There it was again. An echo down the tunnel—a woman’s scream.
Lee forced his stiffened limbs to move. He felt for the burned-out torch and made his way forward in the darkness, using the torch stump to feel along the wall.
The scream did not come again, but there were no turns in the tunnel, so Lee only had one way to go. The movement and blood flow slowly warmed his creaking limbs, but this only brought new pains. He was sore everywhere. Bruises and scrapes covered his body. His knuckles ached from the striking out during blitz through the crowd. His fingertips stung where the flesh had been rubbed raw in his dash through the dark tunnels.
Eventually he scraped past an opening. After feeling around more in the dark, he confirmed he had come to a three-way junction. The floor was noticeably slanted, so with no better criteria, Lee chose the path angling slightly upward.
He continued for many minutes, each step bringing him closer toward the surface, until finally the passage opened out into empty darkness—except for a single shaft of light poking down from above, maybe fifty yards away. Since his eyes had already adjusted to pitch-black of the tunnel, Lee was able to make out the faint details of the rest of the space from the ambient radiance of the light.
It was a large cavern. Strewn here and there were odd rectangular lumps. Spread every twenty feet or so toward the shaft of light were strange tripod pillars of some kind, with a snaking black line going between them. Sharply cornered black and grey crates lay about in the white disk where the light directly illuminated the cavern floor. Then Lee saw the source of the scream.
A silhouette figure hung from the ceiling of the cavern. A tiny, yet powerful source of light cast a narrow swaying beam down onto the floor. Something about it triggered an unnerving sense of remembrance for Lee. The whole cavern did, in fact, but he couldn’t place it.
Is that… a flashlight?
A loud metallic clang pinged through the cavern, followed by the electric whine of a motor, another ancient sound resurfacing in Lee’s recollection. The sound came from the shaft of light in the ceiling of the cave. Lee scampered away, finding a gap in the cavern wall and scooting himself backward into it. He was overwhelmed with another wave of deja-vu—and of long-dormant fear.
Then, emerging out of the white light like a spirit from the sky, came what Lee’s scattered, fatigued mind first labeled as an angel, until slowly his perception reoriented and recognized the strange sight as a person in a metal basket—a young woman.
Until Next Week
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– Xavier Macfarlane
Author, The Glaciermen
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