Sacred Ground

by Alex Archer

  Wishman helped her up. “Are you all right?”

  Annja held up the sprig, but as she did so, the herb crumbled into dust in front of them.

  Wishman frowned. “What was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Annja said. “But it smelled rather funny. Made me light-headed almost.”

  “You’re tired,” Wishman said. “And with great reason to be. Not many would have the courage to face a demon in battle. Let alone live long enough to persevere. Sleep is what you need.”

  “And some food,” Annja said. “Maybe coffee, as well.”

  They walked out of the burial mound and back through the pines. The sunshine seemed brighter than it had since Annja had arrived.

  “They’ll never believe us, you know,” Annja said as they passed under the canopy of the pines.

  “My men will believe what they want, although some will see the truth immediately. The others will come around in time.”

  Annja nodded. “I was thinking more about the remaining miners. And Godwin.”

  “The half-breed,” Wishman said.

  Annja glanced at him. “He’s tried to do more for your tribe than anyone else. Can’t you at least give him some quarter? Allow him to be able to call you part of his family? Is that so difficult?”

  “For the Araktak it is.”

  “But why? You’ve seen what sort of trouble this secrecy can get you into. Godwin would have stood there and gone toe-to-toe with the demon just as readily as I did. His bravery and strength make him a perfect addition to the tribe.”

  “But his mother—”

  “So what? Look, I know the loneliness that he feels. I’m an orphan. I never knew my mother or father and I’ve struggled with the idea of what family truly is for many years. You’ve got the chance to make a good man part of your tribe, and I think you should do so.”

  “It would unwrite years of traditions.”

  Annja smiled. “The youth of your tribe will do that anyway.”

  Wishman nodded, a vague smirk playing across his face. “There is much truth in that statement.”

  “So, why not? If you want the Araktak to continue on and perhaps even prosper, you will need warriors like Godwin to take their rightful place among the ranks of the other men.”

  Wishman looked at Annja. “I promise you this, Friend of Bear. I will think on it and if I decide the wisdom is there, then it shall be.”

  “Well,” Annja said, “if that’s the best we can get for right now, it will have to do, huh?”

  Wishman pointed. “They must have awoken from their slumber. The cooking fire is started.”

  Annja caught the scent of cooking meats on the fire and her mouth fairly drowned under the deluge of saliva that flooded her mouth. “God, I’m starving.”

  Wishman guided her to the main lodge and opened the door. The crowd of Araktak men looked up. Godwin was among them and he stood when he saw Annja.

  “What happened to you? You look like hell.”

  She frowned. “Good morning to you, too.” She pointed at the sizzling meat. “Is that almost ready to eat?”

  Godwin glanced back at the cooking griddle. “I guess so. I mean it was supposed to be my breakfast, but—”

  Annja stepped forward. “Would you mind? It’s been a really long night and I am starving.”

  “Where were you guys? I woke up and felt like I’d lost consciousness last night. Your bed was empty. So was Derek’s. What gives?”

  Annja got a fork and speared the meat out of the griddle, plopped it on a plate and settled herself on a log nearby. The meat still hissed and sizzled on her plate, but she was beyond caring. Wishman pressed a mug of steaming coffee into her hands, and Annja tore into the minor feast, not caring how much of a pig she might have resembled.

  No one said anything while she devoured the food. Wishman stood nearby, almost as a protector, and she was grateful to have the moment to eat in peace and quiet. When she had finished her food, she set the plate down and drank the coffee, which had cooled somewhat in the meantime.

  Godwin squatted next to her. “You okay?”

  “Friend of Bear is exhausted,” Wishman said.

  Godwin glanced up at him. “You look as though you could do with a meal yourself.”

  Wishman smiled. “In truth, I could.”

  Godwin turned back to the fire and got another plate for both Annja and Wishman. This time, he piled on some scrambled eggs along with more meat. When he handed them back, Annja and Wishman started eating immediately.

  The remainder of the Araktak warriors watched in silence. Perhaps it was their experience that when their shaman entered in such a fashion, he must have had something happen and they would wait for him to tell them rather than immediately press him for details. Annja found it a quaint throwback to a time when things weren’t instantly dispensed at light speed over the Internet via blogs and message boards.

  Annja finished her second plate and leaned back against the wall of the lodge. It was still cold but somehow, she didn’t even notice. Her stomach rumbled a quick thanks and then set to work on the food. Annja sipped her coffee and watched as Wishman finished and handed his plate back to Godwin with a hearty thanks.

  Maybe there was progress happening there, Annja thought.

  Nyaktuk came forward and spoke to Wishman in low tones. Wishman nodded several times and gestured toward Annja twice. Nyaktuk stared at her, disbelief showing across his face until it was replaced by admiration. He must be telling him about the battle, Annja thought.

  And to Wishman’s credit, Nyaktuk seemed to readily accept what the elder told him as truth and not fantasy. That was one fewer person they would have to work hard to convince. Annja hoped he would help them with the others.

  Godwin came back over. “What happened, Annja? The Araktak men are quiet and that means something.”

  “Oh, you know that, do you?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve picked up a few things since I’ve been here. And some of it comes from what my father taught me about this tribe.”

  Annja smiled. “Well, something did happen. I still can’t quite believe it, but apparently there was some kind of evil creature trapped in the burial mound. Derek and Hansen wanted to free it and Wishman and I intervened.”

  Godwin shook his head. “What? What are you talking about? Evil creature? In the burial mound? Where?”

  Annja took a breath. “Derek slipped out of the lodge last night and I followed him to the burial mound. He was setting up the radar unit up and we found a wall, a wooden wall. Turns out that was the focus of their quest all along. The company—your company—is run by some type of evil people who worship dark gods from times long past. Derek and Hansen were sent here to release the entity and control it, so it would do their bidding.”

  Godwin looked at her. “You’re joking.”

  “She is not,” Wishman said. “She speaks the truth. Every word of it is so because I was there to witness it.” He turned to the room. “Listen well to the words that Friend of Bear speaks. It is as she says it was.”

  So Annja told them the rest, trying her best to keep the fact that she had the sword out of the story as much as possible. The less people who knew about it, the better.

  One of the Araktak men wore a smile that mocked the entire story. He laughed.

  Wishman’s words were harsh. “Be quiet! I told you she speaks the truth. Or don’t my words count for anything these days?”

  She felt Wishman’s gaze on her and he was apologetic. “They are younger than me and take little on faith or, apparently, the strength of the words I speak.”

  Annja nodded. “It’s all right. It’s a pretty unbelievable story.”

  All Annja wanted was a warm bed to sleep in for a few weeks. She got to her feet, helped up by both Wishman and Godwin. Godwin’s strength hoisted her quickly.

  “Thank you,” Wishman said. “I know that you have secrets you wish to keep. I will help them see the truth for what it really is.”

&n
bsp; Annja nodded. “Forget about it. All I really want to do right now is sleep for a very long time. If you don’t mind, I’ll leave you guys to sort things out here while I vanish into my dreams.”

  Wishman nodded. “Of course. I think we have a lot of things to discuss here while you rest.”

  Annja turned and started for the door when it opened suddenly and the remaining miners rushed into the lodge. Annja recognized one of them as Hansen’s second-in-command. She sighed. The last thing she needed now was another fight, and judging by the expression of hatred on the man’s face, that was exactly what he was looking for.

  “Where are they?” he demanded. Seeing Annja walk toward him, he held up his hand. “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To bed.”

  “Where are Mr. Wainman and Hansen? They aren’t around and we have some stuff to talk to them about.”

  “What sort of stuff?”

  “We were drugged by these Araktak. We want justice! We’re not going to take this. If they don’t sort this out, we’re going to call the RCMP and get this whole project shut down. We didn’t come up here to be drugged by the likes of these people.”

  “Derek and Hansen are gone,” Annja said. “And the Araktak had nothing to do with it.”

  26

  Hansen’s second-in-command, who went by the name of Dufresne, stood with his arms folded across his barrel chest and a grim expression plastered across a face that sported a day’s worth of stubble. He listened as Annja filled him in on the story, trying to minimize the supernatural elements as best she could. When she’d finished, she stood to one side so Dufresne could see that the Araktak tribe was in agreement with the story.

  Dufresne looked Annja up and down as if deciding whether she was actually from this planet. Finally he took a deep breath and blew it out in a whiskey-tinged stream of air that made Annja blanch.

  “An evil god.” He turned to the rest of the men, who clearly took their cues from him. “You hear that, guys? There’s an evil god on the loose here and Mr. Wainman helped set it free.”

  “It’s the truth,” Annja said. “We were there in the burial mound and we saw the entire thing happen.”

  “Now, was that before or after you slayed the evil creature, because I can’t quite recall that particular detail?” Dufresne’s grin underscored the disbelief and sarcasm.

  Annja felt her blood surge. She didn’t like being called a liar. By anyone. And Dufresne had been passed out in an alcohol-induced slumber tainted with drugs administered by Hansen. As far as Annja was concerned, Dufresne had no right to call her account of things into question. But she had to admit the whole thing sounded ridiculous.

  “Well, why don’t you tell me what you think happened, then?” Annja asked, fixing her hands on her hips.

  Dufresne nodded. “Be glad to.” He gestured around the room. “Someone, I’m not sure who, put some kind of drug in our drinks last night, causing me and the rest of the guys here to pass out until just a few minutes ago.”

  “It was Hansen who brought the whiskey,” Annja said. “Not the Araktak.”

  “As I was saying, these Araktak must have had some kind of drug that they slipped into our drinks and caused us to pass out. While we were asleep, they took Mr. Wainman and Hansen to parts unknown and did some sort of ritual sacrifice to them, killing them and then hiding the bodies.”

  Annja’s eyebrows shot up. “How in the hell do you go from missing persons to homicide?”

  “Well,” Dufresne said, “where are they?”

  “I don’t know where they are,” Annja said. “But odds are they’re dead.”

  “Exactly.”

  “But the Araktak didn’t murder them. Hansen and Wainman took it upon themselves to resurrect an evil god. It probably backfired.”

  “And what got them killed in the process? By what?”

  “What do you mean?” Annja shook her head. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Well, you said you killed this—whatever it was, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then what was left to kill Hansen and Mr. Wainman? And where are the bodies to prove it?”

  Annja stopped. It was a decent question. And one her exhausted mind hadn’t had time to fully process yet, either. If she’d been rested, she would have thought of it immediately. But as it was, her fatigue slowed down her thought processes.

  Where were Wainman and Hansen? Annja had killed the evil creature, which left nothing behind to kill the two company men. So where were they?

  “You see,” continued Dufresne, “what I think we got ourselves here is this little conspiracy.”

  “A conspiracy? Oh, please,” Annja said.

  Dufresne held up his hand. “Seems to me what has happened here is when Mr. Wainman and Hansen came up to check things out, these Araktak here got wind that they were sitting on a lot more than they originally thought when they sold the land. So they dreamed up a rather unusual way to try to renegotiate the contract. And in the end, Wainman and Hansen got shivved for it.”

  “You realize that sounds insane,” Annja said. “The Araktak wouldn’t stoop to murdering Hansen and Wainman over a piece of land. That’s crazy.”

  Dufresne looked at her. “Didn’t you just stand here and tell me a story about an evil creature who had been imprisoned until our bosses freed them?” He chuckled. “And I’m the crazy one.”

  The men behind him started to guffaw, as well. Annja shook her head. She had to try to make sense of what had occurred. She needed time to try to figure out what had become of Hansen and Derek. But standing here verbally sparring with Dufresne wasn’t going to help the situation.

  “I need to sleep,” she said. “You guys can sort through this mess.”

  Wishman came up to her. “But how? We need your help to convince them that we are not the savages they think we are.”

  “You don’t need me,” Annja said. “You just need someone impartial to help sort through all this junk. I don’t know what happened to Wainman and Hansen. For all I know they slipped in a sinkhole or got swallowed up by a giant anaconda or an asteroid came out of the sky and hit them. I have no idea. In fact, I don’t know much of anything right now beyond the fact that I am completely exhausted. I am going to bed because I am no use to anyone like this.”

  “But—” started Wishman.

  Annja held up her hand to cut him off. “Like I said, you don’t need me even though you think you do.”

  “But who will help us?”

  Annja looked across the room and pointed. “He will.”

  Godwin looked up. “Excuse me?”

  Annja smiled. “There’s your impartial judge. Godwin’s got no stake in things either way. Part of him is with the Araktak and part of him is with the company. As far as I’m concerned, that makes him the perfect man for the job of sorting through all this madness.”

  Wishman looked at Godwin. “Would you be willing to try?”

  Godwin shrugged. “I suppose. If Dufresne and his men are willing to let me act as the mediator.”

  Dufresne eyed him for a moment and then shrugged. “Yeah, all right, then. We can deal with Godwin. I know he’s good people.”

  Annja took a deep breath. Now if she could just manage to make her way back to her bed, all would be well. “Good night, everyone. Don’t kill each other while I sleep. Or if you decide to, try to be quiet about it.”

  Annja pulled on the lodge door and stepped out into the morning air. Sunlight rebounded off the snow, almost blinding her.

  She walked back to her shelter and opened the door. She lay down on her bed, falling immediately asleep. Her thoughts drifted away from her as she plunged into slumber. She felt the inexorable reach and pull of sleep dragging her down into the depths of her subconscious like an anchor attached to her waist. Down and down she fell until she thought she could go no further.

  But she kept plummeting down through veils of sleep and dreams. And when she finally lost track of how far she had
fallen, Annja was deeply asleep.

  FROM WHERE SHE RESTED on a bed of dreams and soft visions of tranquillity, Annja’s subconscious tugged at her, trying its best to locate her and wake her. Annja resisted fiercely, determined to stay where she was, lost on some tropical-paradise shoreline, feeling the waves lap at her feet and the sun warm her golden body from high overhead.

  Annja reluctantly allowed her consciousness to rise back to the surface and her eyelids fluttered. She expected it to be bright when she opened them, but instead, darkness had fallen again.

  How long have I slept? she wondered. It must have been at least eight hours since her run-in with Dufresne. She thought about Godwin and wondered how the young man would take to playing the role of mediator between the Araktak and the mining company.

  She’d lied, of course, when she had suggested that Godwin was impartial. He had a lot to gain by playing his cards right. Wishman might be willing to accept him into the Araktak. And she knew that would make Godwin very happy indeed.

  But what about the miners? How would they react if they felt things didn’t turn out properly?

  In response to that question, Annja’s stomach seized up and she came fully awake, her eyes scanning the darkness for what had woken her.

  Nothing moved in the shelter. Annja could detect nothing out of the ordinary among the shadows that inhabited the room with her. She used the corners of her eyes to try to catch any movement, but after several minutes of keeping still, Annja wasn’t convinced she was in any danger.

  She frowned. She stifled a yawn and thought about how nice it would be to drift back to sleep.

  Annja shifted in her bed and then heard something outside.

  She strained to hear it again and relaxed her jaw to further open her ear canals so she could allow more sound waves to enter.

  She waited.

  Minutes crawled by. And then she heard it again. A shuffle. A crunch. Footsteps. Somewhere outside, close by the shelter.

  Someone was approaching her lodge.

  Annja slid out of the bed and stole smoothly across the floor to the door. When it opened, she would take down the stalker and see what was going on.