Tomb of Odin

Chapter 1

Nina tried to steady her breathing, but truthfully she could not recall ever being this cold in her entire life. Not even on the Wolfenstein excursion in Antarctica did she feel such uncontrollable frigidity, which challenged the temperature during her time in Mönkh Saridag on the border of Russia and Mongolia a while back. Her lips and nails had turned a nasty shade of purple and no matter how she rubbed her hands together, they remained void of any sensation under the insulation of her leather gloves. Under her balaclava her jaw jittered madly, so Nina pulled up the stuffed collar of her parka and tucked her Angora fleece scarf snugly inside. With a little luck the wild gust would not nudge it out again, prying bit by bit until it came undone and wrapped its icy fingers around her neck.

“How long, Neville?” she asked the archaeologist she was assisting on this excavation in the Himalayas.

“Not long, Miss Nina, not long. I am just waiting for them to drill through the last six inches of the rock bed. Then we can descend and get out of the elements,” Neville assured her in his heavy Calcutta drawl. His voice rose and fell in volume through the onslaught of the blizzard from where he crouched in the sunken hole that served as entrance to the chamber his party had been searching for.

“Never you fear, Dr. Gould,” a tall German man next to Nina said, “we will be in there soon enough.”

“You seriously think that there is validity in the pursuit of a myth, Herr Cammerbach?” Nina asked, not bothering to hide the ridicule she was dying to lend them all.

“My dear Dr. Gould, you have to chisel away the absurdity to reveal the genetic science of it. Of course we do not expect to find a soft-hearted furry giant with white pelt! Mein Gott, perish the thought!” Herr Cammerbach exclaimed. His piercing, light blue eyes rivaled the thawing ice of the frozen caves and rivulets in the background, and when he spoke with his overly educated tone the deep folds in his cheeks dimpled.

“Then what do you expect to find? I have to concede that I feel a bit awkward having to consult on an expedition into the Indian Himalayas searching for the yeti,” Nina admitted, slipping her hands under her armpits.

“It is much more than that,” he answered, leaning to the side every now and then to look past Nina to see if Neville was sitting deeper yet. “Unfortunately we are pressed for time before this particular site freezes us out for another season, otherwise I would have taken the time to escort you to our two other digs where we have discovered concrete proof that some type of human-beast hybrid had indeed existed here. Hell, it might still be roaming here, who knows!”

Nina nodded in her best contemplative manner, trying to keep her mind alert while her body was slowly turning into an icicle. “On that note, I do hope we do not become warm meat to anything out here while we wait for the cavern to be opened.”

“They should break through soon,” Herr Cammerbach, genetics expert and avid mythologist, replied. He hoped the team would have it done sooner than later, because he was feeling rather uncomfortable out in the open. “I don’t think yeti eat humans, Dr. Gould. But then again, they did find a lot of animal bones where we found the odd DNA compositions. On second thought,” he jested with remarkable sincerity, “there are snow leopards and tigers… even rhinos… in these parts, so I suppose you are not too paranoid about our position or exposure.”

Nina examined his laugh lines to see if they fell deeper, if his eyes narrowed in amusement, but Herr Cammerbach maintained a poker face not to be challenged. For a long few seconds Nina stared him down until he could not hold out anymore.

“I’m joking, Dr. Gould, but I am not. We do have dangerous predators around us and we should really be vigilant, but I don’t think the abominable snowman will gnaw on our femurs and skulls,” he winked.

“Your attempt at recovery is failing miserably, Herr Cammerbach,” Nina complained, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes darting about the area with uncertainty. “And your consolation for it is dismal.”

The German explorer laughed heartily and Nina felt his hand fall on her hood, weighing warm and heavy on her head. She had to smile at the gleeful demeanor of the good-looking adventurer who was no more than fifteen years her senior, yet treated her like a daughter. “I apologize, Nina! I do! I promise I will make you the best dinner you have ever had, just for putting up with me… and our tedious mission.” He moved her head gently under his palm before letting go and gently pushed her aside to survey the progress of the diggers.

“You see, if we use dynamite, the mountains will bury us in ice, so instead we opted for some strong young men to chip away,” he told Nina, barely looking back at her.

“I realize that, but you could have invested in power tools or something, couldn’t you?” she asked. By now her skin was growing taut from the freezing air as it burned over her forehead and cheeks.

“Too much to lug with us, young lady!” he shouted through the new wave of white chips that rained over them like wedding confetti. “Way too much to bring a generator this far, even with the helicopters. It is just impractical in these ranges.”

Nina crouched next to Cammerbach and saw Neville’s back darkened by shadow as he advanced deeper into the hole. From somewhere in the mountains a terrible wail sounded, louder than a human voice, but human in nature. It gave Nina chills; chills she thought she had used up to their quota.

“Hurry, Neville!” Cammerbach urged. His tone was curious, Nina thought. It carried within it a certain hint of panic, well subdued under a professional command, which he delivered with complete control. She frowned, combing the perimeter over ice-capped rocky mountains protruding lazily over the vast plains of grassland, trees, and rivers. There was nothing observable she could subscribe his urgency to, but it was certain that the calm and composed leader of the team was unsettled by something.

“Just a few more inches, Herr Cammerbach. We are almost there!” Neville reported from the dense dark hole. Nina could not help but feel unwavering doom push up from the pit of her stomach as she noted the tall German’s restlessness. He kept surveying the area over and over, his boots constantly teasing the edge of the hole as if he wished he could jump in.

“What is the matter?” Nina finally inquired. “There is something on our trail, isn’t there?”

He ignored her, but the rapid cadence of his breathing affirmed her suspicions. Nina grew impatient with his tiresome display of indifference to her questions and she persisted boisterously, “Herr Cammerbach, are we being hunted by something?” The petite historian’s voice was now firm and assertive, a trait of no bullshit she was well-known for. Her hand gripped his sleeve and forced him to address her. In his face she could read desperation, and even a touch of hopelessness, yet he gave a weak chuckle to maintain his charade.

“It’s nothing, I’m sure,” he explained, while the white dusty vapor of his words announced his panting. “You know, I am just careful. I know these perilous plains and mountain ranges very well by now, but we still have to keep an eye out for anything unusual. Predators roam freely and there are no settlements nearby.”

“Is that a fact?” she scoffed. He nodded, unaware of her sarcasm and hostility. Nina adored Cammerbach. She had worked with him before, but when it came to her safety, her very life, nobody dragging her into it was exempt from her attacks. “I have been here before too, you know.”

Astonished, he took a moment from his frantic worry to look at her. “No, I did not know that.” It was obvious that the team leader felt a tad stupid for lying to his historical advisor to look better informed. He played dumb, though. “When were you here? On holiday?”

“Hardly,” Nina murmured, recalling her dangerous expedition with two other men who always dragged her into situations of immense risk — Sam Cleave and Dave Purdue. “A few years ago I was here with a group of colleagues to search for a relic reputed to have been hidden in Tibet and its surrounding ranges, Heinrich. And I know for a fact that this part of the land is riddled with villages full of goat farmers and traders.”

Cammerbach had no retort. It was true what Nina said, but he dared not blatantly admit to uncalled-for patronization, especially toward a woman of her knowledge and intelligence. Playing dumb was also not tolerated, and he had to concede to his transgression.

“I apologize, Nina. I was just trying to keep you alert while hoping you had not abandoned all trust in my ability to manage this excursion. I had no idea you were familiar with the place,” he confessed. His eyes were still very vigilant, and he turned to study the white obscurity surrounding them. “By the way, what relic were you looking for?”

“The Spear of Destiny,” she answered plainly. “Christ, I could kill for a cigarette right now.”

Intrigued, Cammerbach leaned in to hear Nina better. “Did you find it?”

“What?” she asked.

“The Spear of Destiny — did you find it?” he repeated, absolutely attentive to the conversation.

Nina shrugged, “We found a lot of things, some beyond the conventions of handmade historical items claiming to have power.” That was all she revealed to the expedition leader. Perplexed at her cryptic answer, Cammerbach was about to approach the question from a different angle to assure a satisfactory answer from Dr. Gould, but as he leaned in again to speak, the awful cry echoed once more. Nina jumped. Neville peeked his head out from the hole with stretched eyes that declared his alarm.

“Get through! Get through! They are getting closer!” Neville shouted into the dark ahead of him. Nina looked at Cammerbach. No more was he putting forward the idle chuckles and the dismissive consolations. He was terrified. The wails continued, coming from the pale nothingness around them, closer and closer. Nina could hear the workers chisel hard and madly, babbling in voices fraught with terror and apprehension. She need not know their language to understand what they were saying. Their uttering was universal — primal shrieks of agitation any creature with a soul could construe as emotional injury and impending death.

“Cammerbach?” she shouted. Inside Nina the tension gripped her brain. She could not make sense of any of it. How could so many men—prepared men — be so scared? “Cammerbach! What the hell is going on?”

But he remained frozen in his stance, staring out into the twirling snow at something that was not there. Nina tried to discern movement inside the whirlwind of ice, but she saw nothing. Cammerbach suddenly grabbed her and flung her small frame into the hole with Neville and his frantic colleagues. The rock broke right through and they tumbled into a conduit of dirt and ice, while Nina looked back for Cammerbach.

From the swirling vortex Nina saw a flash of light emanating and it struck Cammerbach squarely in the chest, splitting open his torso like a laser within a blink. The hot crimson flesh fell to the snow and melted its immediate surface. Nina screamed inadvertently and buried her face in her hands. The men with her went into a state of frenzied prayer and when she had steadied her heart, Nina looked up. There was no blizzard, no snow; only the silence of the Himalayan breath that gently stirred her blood-soiled hair.