Hunt Beyond the Frozen Fire

Chapter 10

Before Gabriel could react, a crushing wave of jagged ice slammed into the Spryte with the impact of a speeding train, wedging the vehicle down deeper into the crevasse and blotting out the pale, distant sun. Several smaller chunks of ice smashed down through the broken window before one too large to fit sealed it up completely.

The rumbling grew fainter and more muffled as more and more ice piled up on top of the Spryte. Eventually it ceased. The Spryte’s battered steel hull groaned and creaked in protest against the added weight.

“Jesus,” Millie said softly.

“All right,” Gabriel said. “Change of plans.” He shone the flashlight down through the front windshield, revealing the outlines of a narrow black chasm below them. “If we can’t go up, we have to go down. We’ll rappel down to the bottom, see if there isn’t a way up and around the piled-up ice.”

“If there is a bottom,” Rue said.

“Spoken like a true optimist,” Millie muttered.

“Tie a rope to the frame of the Spryte,” Nils said. “Those without harnesses can just slide down.”

“Good idea.” Gabriel tossed a length of neon green rope to Velda, who swiftly knotted it to the frame. Gabriel made his way down to the windshield and with one swift kick knocked the glass from its frame. He listened to its fall. One second, two…then the crash as it splintered against the ice. There was a bottom.

Velda came down beside him, aiming the flashlight through the windshield. “Here,” she said, “hold this,” and handed him the light. “I’ll go first.”

Normally, Gabriel might have insisted that he be the first one down, out of some atavistic sense of chivalry or propriety. But he owed it to Rue and Millie to get them down safely—he’d dragged them into this, after all. “Okay,” he said. “Just be careful.”

Velda leaned forward awkwardly from her crouch and planted a kiss on Gabriel’s chin. She found his lips with her second attempt. “I’m always careful.” Then she was gone, making her way down the rope into the blackness.

Half a minute passed in silence. Then they heard Vel-da’s voice. “I’m down!”

“Is it stable?” Gabriel called.

“Yes.” Another long moment of silence. “Can you send down the light?”

Gabriel hauled up the rope, tied it tightly around the shaft of the flashlight, and without turning it off began lowering it. They watched the yellow cone of light reflecting off the ice walls, bright at first and then fainter and fainter as it descended. Eventually the line was fully paid out. “Hang on,” Velda called, “keep it steady…got it.” She was far enough below them that they could only see the faintest glow. Her voice, when it next came, was quieter, as if she’d gone some distance away. “There’s a…a passageway, a narrow one. It looks like it could lead into another crevasse.”

“Any sign of a way back up to the surface?” Gabriel called.

“Not yet.”

“Well, it can’t be any worse than what we’ve got here,” Gabriel said. He gestured toward Nils. “I’ll tie the rope under your arms, lower you down.”

“I can lower myself,” Nils said, climbing awkwardly down onto the driver’s seat.

“All right,” Gabriel said. The tall Swede took hold of the rope and dropped through the windshield, rappelling downward against the ice wall.

“Nils is coming down,” Gabriel called. “Help him off at the bottom.”

Moments later, they heard a cry of pain as Nils touched down. “Got him,” Velda shouted.

“Everything okay?” Gabriel said.

“Just my ankle,” Nils shouted. “It’ll be fine.”

“Not broken?”

“No, just twisted.”

As they spoke, Gabriel hauled the rope back up, tied Velda’s pack to the end, and lowered it. He felt a series of tugs at the bottom as Velda undid the knots, then a lightening as she pulled the pack off. He repeated the maneuver, sending down a bundle of loose gear tied up in Millie’s sleeping bag.

“Here’s the rest,” he shouted.

Again, the wait, then Velda’s voice.

“Got it.”

“Okay, Rue,” Gabriel said. “Your turn.”

Rue looked doubtfully down the rope and back up at Gabriel.

“I’ll hold it steady,” Gabriel said.

“Great.” She took hold of the rope with both gloved hands, but didn’t begin letting herself down.

“Time to go,” Gabriel said.

“I’m going!” she replied indignantly. “What, do you think I’m scared?”

“If you are—” Gabriel began, but before the words were out she was shimmying down the rope into the chasm, the bright red of her parka slowly swallowed up by the blackness.

He held on tightly to the top of the rope, trying to minimize its torsion as she descended. “You doing okay?” he called after a minute of unbroken silence.

“What do you think?” Rue called back. “If I wasn’t, you’d’ve heard me screaming.” A moment later, she called, “I’m down.” Then: “Man! It’s cold as hell down here. When we get out of this, you owe me a trip to a goddamn hot spring, Hunt.”

Gabriel smiled and slapped Millie’s big meaty shoulder. “You ready?”

“You know,” Millie said, his steaming breath labored as he grabbed hold of the rope, “the town I grew up in is only seven feet above sea level. Seven feet, Gabriel. I can’t help but ask myself what the hell a decent God-fearing Chalmetian like me is doing freezing his ass off and making like a yoyo at twenty-eight-hundred feet. It ain’t natural, I tell you.”

“Go on, you big baby,” Gabriel said.

“How do I keep letting you talk me into this kind of thing?” Millie asked, lowering himself hand over big hand down the rope, which swayed despite Gabriel’s best efforts to hold it steady. “I oughta have my head examined.”

The Spryte groaned and shifted under Millie’s considerable weight on one end and the even greater weight of the piled-up ice on the other. A sudden lurch shook the vehicle. Gabriel tasted an icy metallic fear in the back of his throat. The rope bearing Millie’s weight swung to one side and a barrage of colorful swearing echoed up the chasm.

“Don’t want to rush you,” Gabriel called down, “but…shake a leg, okay?”

“What’s happening up there, boss?”

The groaning and creaking was getting louder, and though the darkness was now almost complete, by peering closely Gabriel could see the metal frame of the Spryte bulging inward. “Not your problem. Just get down.”

Suddenly, Gabriel felt the rope jerk in his hands. There was no weight on it anymore. A moment later, he heard a heavy impact. “What happened?” he shouted.

“I got down,” Millie called. “Figured I could stand to drop the last dozen feet or so. Wasn’t the slickest landing ever, but I’m in one piece. Now you, boss. Get your ass down here.”

Gabriel didn’t need to be told twice. He took hold of the rope and pushed off, sliding down as quickly as he could into the blackness. His head was aching from the altitude and his breath was leaden in his constricted chest but he pushed all that aside and concentrated only on lowering himself into the chasm.

Above him, he heard the sound of metal twisting, and he felt the motion transmitted through the rope. The Spryte couldn’t fall any farther—could it?

It was a chance he couldn’t afford to take. He slackened his grip on the rope and slid, as quickly as he was able. He could feel the walls of ice narrowing around him until he had to twist his body sideways in order to slip down between them. Another noise came from above, the sound of metal snapping this time—and a moment later, there was no tension in the rope at all. It had been severed, and Gabriel was falling.