David Gilman - Ice Claw

Were it not for the backbreaking strain, he’d have taunted them, laughing in their faces, but if he didn’t get Sharkface off that rim the ice could give way and there’d never be the sound of laughter again.

Max found firmer footing and brought his own ice axe free of the ground. Sharkface had managed to drag himself a little higher, but Max could see the sweat running off his face. This was ridiculous. He was trying to save the life of a boy who, the moment he was rescued, would try and kill him. Why didn’t he just slam the ice axe down onto the chain and sever it? He raised his arm and a shiver of lightning caught the blade.

Sharkface wasn’t going to get a free ride.

“Where’s my friend? What did Tishenko do with him?”

“Go to hell!” Sharkface grimaced.

“After you!” Max yelled, and dipped his shoulder as if to strike.

“No! Wait! All right! The tunnel above the cages. He’s got him there. I swear it!”

Max realized he must have been close to Sayid when Angelo Farentino had spoken those barbed words about his mum.

“All right. You listen to me. I don’t know if these wolves are hungry enough to risk that jump, but if we keep our heads and we work together, we can get back to the mountain and stop Tishenko. You understand? You don’t owe him any favors.”

Sharkface nodded. How much longer could Max bear his weight?

Max pushed his ice axe down towards Sharkface, who grabbed it with his chained hand. Now they had an even purchase, and Max backed away, muscles straining as he pulled the floundering boy from the brink. Sharkface was clear.

The exertion took its toll. Both slumped to the ice. The wolves ran backwards and forwards, trying to find a way of reaching them, but the big male stood still amid the scurrying. Max was on all fours and gazed past Sharkface to the wolf. A silent understanding, which Max could not have explained, bridged the void. The alpha male turned and loped away. Momentarily confused, the wolves seemed uncertain what to do, but then they too followed him. After fifty meters the pack’s leader turned his head, looked back at Max, raised his head and howled. The other wolves took up the cry. For a second it reminded Max of the siren at les Larmes des Anges.

A warning.

Sharkface attacked.

The axe scythed across the space between them. Max couldn’t bring his own axe to bear and block it. He flicked the chain instead, and the slack caught Sharkface’s pick’s serrated point, yanked and the blade dug into the ice a hand’s width from his thigh. It was a vicious attempt to disable him. He rolled, heaved on the chain, pulled Sharkface to him, shouldered his chest and, as he spun and the chain tightened, brought up his own axe.

They slammed blows on each other. Max managed to get both hands on the length of his axe and block a vicious downward strike. He twisted Sharkface’s axe away but couldn’t follow through because of the chain. Sharkface was fast, his recovery instant. He swung left and right, bearing down on Max like a gladiator. The axes thudded and screeched as blade hit blade. Parry, thrust, lunge, strike, kick and shoulder-slam.

This was a fight to the death.

Both boys sucked in air, yelling to give their arms strength. A furious battle that could last no more than a few minutes, so intense was the assault. It was hand-to-hand combat in its most brutal form.

They scuffed backwards and forwards into the icefield. Small crevasses making them turn on a heel, change position quickly, strike and block, a ballet of death. Max stepped inside a curving blow aimed at his back, grabbed Sharkface’s axe shaft, pulled as hard as he could and slammed the bigger boy’s chin with the top of his head. Something crunched and Sharkface spat blood.

As Sharkface fell, he pulled Max down with him. The chain determined that neither could escape. Sharkface bucked and rolled, throwing Max clear. Max felt his feet slip into space. Another crevasse. He slid quickly. Now it was Sharkface who had to bear the weight. The edge crumbled. Max jolted downwards. He gasped. He couldn’t swing his axe and get a grip. It was only the chain holding him. His hand clung to a freezing-cold rock on the rim. Sharkface did not even hesitate. Max saw the look in his eyes as they locked on to Max’s wrist. If he chopped off Max’s hand he would save himself and kill Max. The axe was a blur. It swooped down like an executioner’s blade. Max twisted his arm. The blade struck the rock, severing the chain, and Max slid down the ice wall into darkness.

The last thing he saw was his attacker peering over the edge. His bloodied mouth, like a shark’s having savaged its prey, and above him rolling black clouds torn by lightning.

It was a vision of hell and the devil’s dark angel.

An all-encompassing darkness swallowed him, its cold breath as dank as the deepest grave. After a few meters the ice wall curved into the crevasse, became a slide and scooped Max along. He reversed the ice axe, held the pick close to his armpit, leaned back and heard the grating tear as the blade dug in like an anchor. It was a terrifying, hurtling ride. He might drop into a void a thousand meters deep, or rocks could be lying in wait to mangle him. He pushed his heels together. He was slowing. He was sure of it. The huge black ice slide was flattening out.

Now he was horizontal, his body still skidding but barely moving. He thumped into a wall of ice, grunted with fright and surprise, tucked his knees up and rolled. He lay still for a moment, then gingerly reached out to feel the ground around him. There was no drop. Perhaps he was at the bottom of the small crevasse, or on a ledge. He felt confident enough to stand, pushing his back against the cold wall. Lightning crackled somewhere overhead and, although he couldn’t see the sky, light bounced down. He was in a labyrinth. Dirty-looking ice, contamination from dust and rock, twisted this way and that, as if some great force had ripped it carelessly apart. He was on the bottom, grateful that the drop had been only about fifty meters. His hand touched the ice wall, like someone feeling their way in the dark. There was an almost negligible tremor under his palm. But it was there. A vibration.

Every creak of slow-moving ice, every faint flicker across his eyelids from the ricocheting light, centered his thoughts. He liked the dark and trusted his instincts to guide him through it. Other senses came into play. He heard a slow, regular drip of water somewhere ahead and to the left. Probably ice meeting warm air; possibly an overhang that was melting slowly. The machine hum was far away and the cavernous, twisting walls distorted its source, but there was something else. A smell.

Wolves and bears can smell their prey kilometers away. No human could match this, but now Max’s senses went beyond such limitations. The musky smell of a bear and the tang of wolves reached into his mind and gave him direction. These were animals he already knew. The wolf pack and the polar bear. What was it that allowed their smells to reach him? Some kind of underground cave system, perhaps. Right now it didn’t matter. His senses told him that those animals were back where they belonged, at the mountain, and that there was a way out from down here.

Max moved forward, one foot just nudging in front of the other, and then, when the reflected light filtered down from the sky into the underground world, he moved more quickly.

It took over two hours to edge farther along the passageway until he was in such complete darkness that even the lightning could not penetrate. This was rock face now, not ice. He could hear a deep hum, and the vibration was much stronger. He listened, then let his hand follow the wall. It curved; he hugged it, edging along, and then he saw a thread of light. He followed it, more bravely now, confident he was not going to fall. Above him, cut in the side of what must be the mountain’s lower slopes, was a tunnel. It was easily three meters high and the same wide. Max clambered up, using the dim glow from the tunnel’s soft lights to find his way. The air moved down the passageway; it was this that had allowed the barely detectable smells to reach him.