Embers of the Raven by Chris Paton

Author:Chris Paton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aarluuk Press
Published: 2023-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Dwarf Runes

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VI

Dwarf Runes

The dwarf and the raven found the troll’s trail in the teeth of a fierce arctic wind. It was not without effort that they had discovered the oversize footprints and now the wind was doing everything it could to disguise the last portion of her packed-snow trail. Wind-blown the unlikely pair forged ahead, the raven sometimes blown backwards, the dwarf sometimes forced to stop and turn his back to the wind. His beardless face stung in the bitter bite and blast of the persistent polar air.

“Nissimaaq promised me a lifetime of warmth, you know?” Mikissok shouted at the raven. His words were all but swallowed by the wind. Teeth chattering, the dwarf turned once more into the wind and toiled along the trail, the raven following in the lee of the dwarf’s short, stubby body.

They found the entrance to Amâgaiat’s cave at the base of an overhanging cliff face, sheltered from the wind and hidden from all but the most persistent eyes. Mikissok burrowed into a snow drift opposite the troll cave and settled in to think. Now that he had found Amâgaiat, he had no idea how he was going to rescue the Greenlanders, let alone kill the troll. The raven remained outside the snow burrow and Mikissok was left alone with his thoughts. Crouched within the burrow, Mikissok felt the clay pot pressing upon his stomach. He retrieved it and could just make out the dwarf runes written around the lip. Removing the sealskin lashings, Mikissok found the first rune and read aloud, his soft-spoken tones absorbed by the snow.

“Long may the winter last, for the fire within does not wither. The wrath of Asiaq has met her match, for the fire within will last all winter.” Mikissok traced the runes with a finger.

“Asiaq,” he mused, “The weather goddess. What are you trying to tell me, brother?”

Asiaq lived a hard life out on the pack ice, far from land. Should the ice not crack in the summer, it was the shaman’s job to seek her out and pacify her so that she would release the warm winds and break up the sea ice. The shaman would then have a difficult time of it trying to return to his camp. The hunters would be looking for him in their qajaqs and the women would be ready with the umiaq to collect him. It was a dangerous time to be out among the chaos of breaking plates of sea ice in the wind. The shaman could easily drown.

“And if the shaman could drown,” Mikissok thought aloud, “then so could she.” The dwarf shrank in the sudden silence of the snow burrow. “I cannot do this alone,” he said.

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