QUILLER
Mink, RabbitEar, and I fall back with our hands clutched around our weapons.
The old witch lifts his torch higher, and every fissure and crack in the cave flutters with shadows. He notes the dead piled against wall, then the women and children who huddle far back in the tunnel. Finally, his gaze focuses on my face. His examination seems to take forever, as though he’s comparing what he sees now to the woman in his spirit dream, making sure we are the same person.
“Let us go and sit down,” he says.
As he walks toward me, I back up to the center of the cave and adopt a fighting crouch.
Mink and RabbitEar silently close in behind Trogon.
As though completely unafraid, the elder sits down on the floor, leans his torch on a rock, and politely gestures for me to join him. “Please, sit down, Quiller.”
“I’ll stand.”
His lips turn up, but no one would call it a smile. He’s a caricature of a man, just the sort of monster you do not want to get too close to. I am much taller than he is, but his thick chest and shoulders leave no doubt about the outcome if he can get his hands on me. I’m not going to give him the chance. He may be old, but none of his life was spent lazing around campfires.
As he leans forward, the silver fabric of his clothing conforms to his bulging muscles.
“War Leader Mink,” he says, “while we speak, I will not attack anyone in this cave. I give you my oath.”
“What do you want?”
That unnatural smile again as he studies me. “You’re pretty.”
I have a freckled face with a broad flat nose, bushy red hair, and green eyes so large they seem bug-like. I’m anything but pretty. I’m in the process of formulating a response when RabbitEar sucks the air out of the cave: “Shut up, old man.”
Trogon bows his head. I’m certain no one has ever spoken to him that way. Through the blond strands of hair that cover his face, his eyes are shiny fawn-colored beads, watching me. He gestures to the floor again. “Sit down, Quiller. Please.”
I hunt for any hint of witchery, but find none. What is it about Trogon that draws people to him on such an epic scale? I’ve spent my entire life struggling to understand men like this, but find them unfathomable. He’s just an ugly old man with bizarre eyes.
I crouch down with my bone knife clutched in my fist. “Go on.”
“After you appeared to me in the dream, I saw you climbin’ the mountain, headin’ to a cave. I’ve tried to soul-fly to find it, but it eludes me. The spirits must want you to take me there.”
“There are a thousand caves in the Ice Giant Mountains. Which cave?”
“You mustn’t play games with me. You see, there’s no other reason for me to bargain with you for the lives of the last Sealion People.”
My throat constricts with hope. “I’m not playing games. I don’t know what cave you mean.”
Trogon tilts his head. “Did you find the Old Woman of the Mountain there?”
“The Old Woman of the Mountain?”
Trogon’s laced fingers clench until they go white. “You went into her cave. I saw you do it.”
Confused, and frightened, I say, “I don’t understand. What does this have to do with Arakie?”
“It’s his cave. He lives there with her. The Jemen told me.”
Mink silently steps forward. He’s standing one pace behind Trogon. It’s a simple lunge with his knife.
For the first time, Trogon blinks, looks over his shoulder at Mink, then his gaze moves to a tiny crack in the ice that slithers down from the roof; it resembles a thin black serpent. “I could escape anytime, you know.”
Mink follows his gaze. “Going to change yourself into a spider and skitter through that crack?”
“No.” He pauses. “Not a spider.”
Trogon slowly unlaces his fingers, rests them on his knees, and stares unblinking at me. I feel like I’m caught in the gaze of a hungry lion.
“Forgive me for starin’, but I can’t see you. Are you gone?” he asks, and looks around the cave, as though searching for me.
“Move your torch. It’s probably blinding you.”
“No, it’s not the torch. It’s the blood.” Trogon leans forward and squints hard. “Why ’aven’t your sacred elders told you of this?”
“About the blood?”
“Yes, so much blood. I can barely see you through it. You’re afraid and walkin’ fast.”
I ponder that. Sounds like a threat. “You mean I’m dead and walking through the skyworld? On my way to the campfires of the dead?”
“No. It’s different. It’s like you are an empty skin and blood fills you up inside, givin’ you the shape of a woman. But you are not a woman. I don’t know what you are.”
Gods, he’s strange.
He asks, “Don’t your sacred elders care about this?”
“Maybe they don’t see the empty skin.”
Trogon squares his shoulders as though he finds that possibility disturbing. He leans very close to sniff me. “When you killed your first man . . . is that when the blood filled you up? The Jemen are strange that way. They don’t want us to see the path too clearly.”
“Lean back, elder, or you’ll find my knife in your guts.”
Trogon blinks curiously. “I could be wrong. Perhaps the livin’ can’t help you. Maybe the dead are your only hope. Perhaps your elders know this. I can’t be sure, of course.”
“You risked your life to come in here and tell me that the dead are my only hope?”
His eyes are endless amber reflections. Since he entered the cave, it has felt emptier than before, stripped of everything warm and light. “The Old Woman of the Mountain will send someone through the veil of blood, you know. You should prepare yourself for this arrival.”
My voice is mocking, when I answer, “Oh, I will.”
He doesn’t comment, just rises to his feet and calmly walks between RabbitEar and Mink to leave.
Before he shoulders through the crevice into the luminous green night beyond, he looks back one last time. “Quiller? Would you bargain for your people, if I allow it?”
RabbitEar shakes his head so violently his blue medicine bag, which hangs from a braided cord around his throat, flops back and forth across his chest. “No, Quiller. You can’t—”
“I would,” I call over his voice.
“Then I ’ave one simple request. I must find your friend Lynx and the old man named Arakie. I wish you to accompany me. In exchange, I will allow your people to go free. I’ll even order my healers to care for their wounds. That’s a good bargain, isn’t it?”
Mink scoffs. “Quiller, you can’t believe a word he says. He’s a liar. As soon as you step out of this cave, his warriors are going to rush us and kill everyone in here!”
I’m clutching my bone knife so hard my fingers ache. Glancing back at the women and children in the tunnel, I see Jawbone flickering in the torchlight. Crow stands beside him with her muzzle up, sniffing the air. The skirts of my daughters are visible just behind Crow.
“Mother?” Jawbone calls. It’s the first time since I adopted him into my clan that he’s called me that. He’s clutching his boy’s spear and shielding his sisters with his body. Like a slender arrow, he shoots out of the tunnel and runs to grab my hand. Looking up, he whispers. “A woman has been talking to me through the air. Elektra says she’s coming back—”
“Come with me, Quiller! This is your last chance,” Trogon shouts.
I have no idea what my son is talking about. I know of no one named Elektra. I squeeze his hand. “Jawbone, I love you with all my heart. Please, go and guard your sisters.”
Tears stream down my son’s face as he hugs me around the waist and says, “Mother, she wants to take you away from us. Don’t let her take you!”
“I—I won’t. I promise. Now, please, go guard your sisters.”
“I love you,” he says, then runs back to the tunnel to stand in front of my daughters.
In the gleam of the torch, I see Trogon’s wide eyes narrow, listening. He extends a hand to me. “Come. The Old Woman of the Mountain waits for us.”
I turn to my husband. More than anything in life I long to lie in his arms surrounded by our children, but I know I may never do that again.
“Keep our children safe,” I tell RabbitEar. “Never leave them alone.”
“Quiller, no. Everything he tells you is a lie! You know it! You’ve seen it over and over—”
“Don’t come after me.” I poke a finger hard into his chest. “Do you understand? Protect our children and our people. I can take care of myself.”
“No, don’t do this! Please…”
I unsling my quiver, hand it to RabbitEar, then shoulder through the crevice and walk to meet a man I have feared my entire life.
Excerpted from The Ice Ghost by Kathleen O’Neal Gear Copyright © 2022 by Kathleen O’Neal Gear. Excerpted by permission of DAW. All rights reserved.
THE ICE GHOST by Kathleen O’Neal Gear
The Rewilding Reports # 2
In the brutal Ice Age caused by the ancient Jemen war, many archaic human species, including Denisovans and Homo erectus, hover on the verge of extinction. There seems no way out, until the greatest Neandertal holy man, Trogon, has a vision. Legends say the truce that ended the old war left one hostage in the hands of the victorious rebels: the godlike Jemen leader known as the Old Woman of the Mountain. According to Trogon’s vision, only one person knows the location of that burial cave. Trogon must capture young Quiller and force her to lead him there…for the Old Woman may not be dead. She may only have been in stasis for a thousand summers, and when reawakened she will save them from oblivion.
But according to the Denisovans—Quiller’s people—Trogon is the most powerful witch alive. He’s up to something evil that will surely spell their destruction. He must be stopped before it’s too late.
Quiller’s best friend Lynx must brave towering glaciers, dire wolves, and prides of giant lions to save her and stop Trogon.
Science Fiction Suspense/Thriller [DAW, On Sale: May 17, 2022, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780756415860 / eISBN: 9780756415877]
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About Kathleen O’Neal Gear
KATHLEEN O’NEAL GEAR is a former state historian and archaeologist for Wyoming, Kansas, and Nebraska for the US Department of the Interior. She has twice received the federal government’s Special Advancement Award for “outstanding management” of our nation’s cultural heritage. The Gears, whose First North American Series hit the international as well as USA Today bestseller lists, live in Thermopolis, Wyoming.
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