Gabriel Hunt - Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire

“Gabriel!” Velda cried, but one of the guards silenced her with a swift jab upward through the woven bars.

Two cages sat empty on the ground, their gates open. The guards sliced through the cord connecting Gabriel’s ankles to Millie’s and forced Gabriel at spear point to climb into one of the spheres. No amount of prodding and screaming was going to get Millie’s massive frame into a four-foot-diameter cage, so as Gabriel was sealed inside his cage and hauled up using a heavy rope-andpulley arrangement, the women resorted to lashing Millie securely to the trunk of the tree. Gabriel watched the process through the side of the cage. In their cages beside him, Rue and Velda were watching as well, he saw.

Giving the ropes connecting the cages to the tree one last going over to be sure they were secure, the guards left the team to dangle like aging meat.

Gabriel looked from side to side; Rue was on his left, Velda on his right.

“Thank God you’re both okay,” Gabriel said. “You are, aren’t you?”

“We’re alive,” Rue said.

“They were pretty rough on us,” Velda said. She turned one arm toward him to display a darkening bruise. “And they took our packs and clothes, and all our equipment.” She nodded toward the large, smoky bonfire. “They burned everything.”

“Now even if we could make it back up to the surface,” Rue said, “we’d be dead of exposure in minutes.”

“What did they do to you?” Velda said.

“Nothing good,” Gabriel said. “Except clean us off. And they fed us a little,” he admitted. “And gave us these loincloths.”

“Hell of a lot better than the treatment we got,” Rue said.

“Yeah, well, they’re not looking to breed you.”

“To breed—” Velda said.

Gabriel swiftly filled the women in on what had transpired: the sickly men, the queen and her demands, the ritual combat. When he finished, he fished the pocket watch out from under his kilt and, facing Rue, held it to a space between the bars of his cage. With one finger he flicked it open. He couldn’t see Velda behind him, but he heard her sob.

“That’s him,” she said, her voice unsteady. “It’s his. My god. I gave it to…Gabriel, do you think he’s…”

“I don’t know,” Gabriel said firmly. “We didn’t see him. All we know is that they had his watch.” He replaced the watch under his kilt.

“Millie?” Gabriel called down. “Millie, how you holding up down there?”

“I got ants the size of my thumb using me for an expressway,” Millie replied between clenched teeth. “So far no bites, but I’m gonna try to keep really still and not piss them off.”

That was a smart plan for a nearly naked man tied to a tree that was crawling with ants. But a plan like that—keep still, do nothing, hope you don’t piss off your enemies—was not one the group as a whole could afford to use.

Gabriel pushed his fingers through the weave of his cage and clenched his bound fists, pulling at the bars. What ever kind of wood the cages were made of, it was both flexible and strong—it moved under his grip, but didn’t break. He hissed with frustration and shifted his trapped and folded legs into a slightly less uncomfortable position.

Gabriel squinted through the bars at the red ice overhead. In the distance, he could see the thick shaft of white light pouring through the opening in the ice but could not see the opening itself.

“We’ve got to get over there,” he said. “Somehow. Rue, if we made it to the plane, do you think you’d be able to pilot it through that opening?”

“Are you kidding?” Rue replied. “I can pilot a 747 through a hula hoop.”

Rue sounded as cocky and confident as ever, but Gabriel could hear a brittle undertone of fear in her voice. And it only made sense. From the little they’d seen of the plane, it had looked like a vintage number, possibly from the 1960s, maybe older. Even if it were still functional after all this time and still had fuel—two very big ifs—depending on the exact make and model of the plane, Rue could have as little as twelve inches of clearance to make it out through that narrow opening. It would be a difficult enough stunt in a modern plane in mint condition with modern navigation tools. Who knew what sort of condition this plane would be in? Always assuming, of course, that they managed to get to it at all.

“We’ll wait till they take us out for the ritual,” Gabriel said. “If they want us to fight, they’ll presumably give us weapons. Even if they want us to fight bare-handed, at least they’ll have to untie us first. That’ll be our chance to rush them. We should be able to grab a spear or two at least.”

“They’ll be expecting it,” Rue said. “They’ll be on their guard.”

“These are twenty-year-old women,” Gabriel said. “Between Millie and me—”

“Don’t underestimate them,”Velda snapped.“They’re seasoned, coordinated fighters—you saw how they took down the bird that killed Nils. You and Millie weren’t able to do that. And there are dozens of them and only two of you.”

“There are four of us,” Rue said. “Unless you’re too frightened to fight, princess.”

“No, Rue,” Gabriel said. “If you get free, I don’t want you wasting any time getting involved with the fighting. First chance you get, you run. You understand? You run as fast as you can and you get to that plane. We’re all stuck here for good otherwise. Getting to that plane and getting it running has to be your top priority. And if you succeed—if you manage to get it up and running—and you don’t see any sign that we’re on our way—” Gabriel’s voice trailed off. “We’ll try to make it. I promise. But if we don’t, you get the hell out of here and don’t look back. You hear me? Get out and get back to safety.”

“I won’t do it, Gabriel,” Rue said softly. “I won’t leave you here.”

“Well, let’s hope you won’t have to,” Gabriel said. The emotion in Rue’s voice touched him. Maybe she still had some feelings for him after all. “But if you have to, you do it. Someone has to survive to tell the world about this place.”

A sound of footsteps from below indicated that the guards had returned.

Gabriel craned his neck to see what was happening. He could hear Millie swearing, and the women speaking to him in the local tongue, and then Gabriel saw Millie being led off by his leash.

Seconds later, he felt his own cage shudder and sway and then begin to lower.

Chapter 19

As the guards led Gabriel though the village, all the inhabitants turned out again, lining the pathways between the huts, tagging along behind Gabriel or reaching out to touch him as he passed. When they arrived in the center of the village, several women were hauling aside a heavy woven mat about ten feet in diameter. Beneath the mat was a stonelined pit. Gabriel couldn’t see the bottom, but he could hear Millie’s angry voice coming up from below.

The guards slung a rope under Gabriel’s arms and used it to lower him into the pit, dropping him the last six feet to the hard-packed dirt floor. Millie hurried over as the women up at the top yanked the rope away.

“You okay?”

“Dandy,” Gabriel replied, getting to his feet again and taking stock of his new surroundings.

The pit was approximately twenty-five feet deep, damp and claustrophobic. There was a bad smell, like fear-sweat and spoiled meat. The stones of the pit walls were slick and mostly featureless except for what looked like some kind of asymmetrical drainage hole, about a foot wide, off to one side. Even in the dim light, Gabriel couldn’t help but notice the brown stains of dried blood on the stones surrounding it.

A shout came from above and something was slowly lowered on a rope: a stone knife, the rope looped through a hole in its broad handle. A second rope followed, with another blade. When they had descended enough for Gabriel and Millie to grasp them in their bound hands, the men set to work sawing through the ropes around their wrists. Gabriel freed his hands and bent to cut his ankles free as well, but before he could, the rope from which the knife hung was abruptly yanked upward and the knife shot out of his grasp, slicing his palm on its way up.