David Gilman - Ice Claw

There was no flash of lightning this time, and Max strained to hear anything that might alert him to the arrival of the next arrow. There was no warning. It came out of the darkness, a rushing, lethal whisper that lanced downwards across his face. A couple of centimeters less and it would have pierced Max through the neck and into his chest.

Sharkface’s terror was as vividly evident as Max’s. The arrow had embedded itself between them. All very well that Max had nearly died, but had he gone down, the fast-approaching wolves would have had Sharkface at their mercy. To hell with Max Gordon getting killed by Tishenko; he didn’t want to be torn apart chained to bloodied dead bait.

The ice axes were fifty meters away. If Tishenko got another shot off, it was likely to be third time lucky. For him.

Max and Sharkface saw the ice axes at the same time. Their curved, serrated picks wedged into compacted snow, the adze-the flat rear blade-protruded, catching slivers of light from the diffused lightning in the clouds. The axes were the same length, each long enough to stand from ankle to thigh, with a pointed end at the base of the rubber grip. Max and Sharkface yanked them free.

The wolves were eighty meters away, splitting into smaller packs. These highly intelligent and courageous hunters would not be frightened by two teenage boys carrying ice axes.

“Go left!” Max yelled, tugging the chain so that they veered sharply towards the rising ground.

Tishenko needed a headwind to keep his momentum going. There were no thermals to catch; this was a cold night in turbulent conditions. No sane man would be up there in the sky now, but Tishenko must have extremely good equipment to manage it, perhaps even specially designed military gear. Whatever it was, Max thought he knew how to stop him.

The thunderstorm buffeted the far mountains, but the wind was fairly constant in this valley-that was how Tishenko could fly so accurately-but where the ridge’s gnarled rock formations obscured the distance, the air would be turbulent, and this wind shear was something all pilots dreaded. A rolling vortex of wind can create high-speed surges. Even Tishenko could not control his paraglider in those conditions.

It was the uneven ground and crevasses that slowed the wolves, and as Max and Sharkface leapt in unison across one of the narrower gaps Max felt the wind shift. Snow powder gusted and swirled.

“Keep going! Jump the gaps!” Max shouted, seeing that a pack of several wolves had found its way across the face of the slope and was coming at them from a different direction.

Where was the winged hunter?

“Check out Tishenko!” Max yelled as he took in as much of the ground as he could.

Sharkface looked back. Max tightened the chain, keeping it as taut as possible, controlling their run, while the other boy took his eyes off the way forward.

Tishenko watched the two boys-saw the ragged teeth in their usual snarl as the boy looked up towards him. Max Gordon was cleverer than he had thought. He had obviously sensed the place of danger for the paraglider. With the growling clouds several hundred meters above his head and the funneled wind across that rock face, Tishenko could not control the big wing in any effective manner. Turbulent air like that would collapse the paraglider now buffeting above his head. And then he would be the one lying injured on the glacier, waiting for the wolves. This was only sport, he told himself. More serious considerations needed his attention. Tishenko would return to the mountain and prepare himself to harness this threatening storm and bring the greatest power in the heavens down to earth.

Max Gordon had survived this far. He felt a grudging admiration for the teenager. But the wolves would finish the job, and he doubted Max could beat the stronger Sharkface.

Tishenko did not care who died first. In a few hours it would all be over anyway. He trimmed the wing and turned away from the doomed boys.

“He’s gone!” Sharkface said.

They were still running, but now they were being cut off by two different packs of wolves and, with the storm’s dancing shadows, the light played tricks on their eyes. Max was uncertain whether the shapes he saw across the icefield were wolves or not.

“Hold it!” he said.

Desperation could finish them off if they didn’t think their way out of the encircling wolf packs. There was a low whimpering, as if the predators were communicating with each other. Max loved wolves and had always admired them; he knew they seldom attacked humans, but this was the cold reality of being face to face with a starving pack kept by a madman who had found ways of controlling them.

Max tried to identify the alpha male and female. The alpha pair would control and direct the wolves’ behavior. The attack would come-but which wolf would be the one to trigger it?

The ground they were on was like a spit of land. They were boxed in on three sides by wolves. Beyond them was another crevasse. Max tugged at the chain, edging them closer to the void.

It was about the size of the battered old sofa in the common room at Dartmoor High. It was nothing. But with this gaping drop into blackness it was as wide as the Grand Canyon. And the ground was icy underfoot. They would have to jump that space together. If either lost his footing …

“We have to jump this and we have to get it right.”

“Too far!” Sharkface said, eyeing the gap.

“You think there’s a choice? We need a run at it,” Max said, turning to face the wolves, which had crept closer.

Max and Sharkface needed several meters to gather momentum, and the wolves were twenty meters away and closing. How many could they kill if they were rushed? Max doubted they would manage even one or two. Wolves pull their prey down; they go for the throat, and no sooner are their victims on the ground than they start to eat. And these wolves were hungry.

There was a sudden snarling fury. One of the subordinate males had made a run for them and a big male had lunged, bitten and barged the impertinent youngster. Its yelps and body language showed immediate submission. There it was, Max realized-the alpha male. Its ears were up, its tail was held high and its eyes gazed fearlessly at the two boys.

The pack merged into a semicircle, knowing it had run its prey to ground. Now it was only a matter of who went in for the kill first. Max locked eyes with the big wolf, raised his ice axe like a trophy and howled as loudly as he could. He’d made his profile bigger and his presence known in no uncertain terms. The wolves faltered. Even Sharkface felt his blood chill at the sound of Max’s howl.

“Now!” Max said.

They turned and sprinted for the crevasse. The wolves surged forward. Max’s foot hit the rim first, Sharkface, heavier and slightly slower, right behind him. Max bicycled his legs, like doing a long-jump on sports day. As his feet hit the far side, he threw himself down and slammed the ice axe into the ground. No sooner had he secured a firm grip than the chain yanked his arm backwards. He twisted, crying out in pain as his shoulder wrenched. Sharkface screamed. He hadn’t made the gap and had only managed to snag his ice axe on the edge.

“Help me! Help me! Hurry!”

Max dug his heels against a lump of ice, twisted his body and pulled his left arm towards his chest, taking the strain of most of Sharkface’s weight. The wolves snuffled and growled on the far edge, desperate to reach their prey, but they were helpless as they faced the gap.

Sharkface could be seen just below the rim, his chained right hand clawing at the snow, the other through the axe’s wrist loop. Max shifted the strain of holding him to his legs, feeling the muscles in his thighs tighten. He held Sharkface, but now he was facing the wolves. He could smell their breath, and it seemed as though their snarling jaws could still reach him.