Embers of the Raven: A Christmas Story from Greenland (The Christmas Raven Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

desperately to seize the raven but to no avail. As the troll and the raven fought behind him, Mikissok reached the crest of the hollow and plunged down the mountainside towards the sea ice below. Faintly, from within the amauten came the cries of children, almost lost in the squeals of the shrieking sack. Mikissok stumbled and they slid a long way down the mountainside, landing in an uncontrollable heap. The amauten opened and the dwarf peaked inside. Beneath the bodies of two adult Greenlanders, Mikissok found the children. They were bruised and half-starved, they smelt rotten, but they were alive. Mikissok dragged them out of the amauten and buried them roughly in the snow.
    “Stay here,” he shouted at them. The children were too frightened to do anything else. As the dwarf gathered up the amauten and fastened the sack containing the dead Greenlanders, the troll launched off the lip of the ridge and lunged down the mountainside towards him. In her great, clawed hands, she grasped a wild thing, flapping and biting at the troll’s long arm and crushing fingers.
    “The raven!” Mikissok gasped, and then he ran.
    The dwarf reached the sea ice first and flung himself through the lumps and boulders of uneven ice where the sea meets the land. Amâgaiat was moving quickly behind him. Mikissok fled across the ice, the amauten bouncing upon his shoulder, he gave little thought to the dead Greenlanders inside. The dwarf ran.
    Tired of prying the raven’s beak from her fingers, the troll paused to dash the bird’s head upon the diamond-like surface of a small iceberg locked in the ice. As the blood of the raven spattered upon the glacial ice, the troll dropped the bird and hounded after the dwarf with hands and feet clawing at the surface of the ice to give her more purchase upon the slippery surface. Amâgaiat howled behind the dwarf. With the howling of the troll and the shrieking of the sack, Mikissok grew hopeful that their flight might yet be noticed, and that his plan might yet succeed.
    Indeed, so intent was Amâgaiat in her pursuit of the dwarf she did not notice the broad sledge racing along the ice to her left. Two qajaqs were lashed to the long, broad sledge. Nissimaaq raced alongside, his whip snapping and slapping upon the ice as the two hunters perched on the sledge held on for fear of being left behind. The sledge dogs raced with an energy that belied their years. Tongues lolling, half forgotten, they steamed along the ice, their breath evaporating in the warm headwind that rolled in to meet them. In the distance Nissimaaq spied a curious smoke evaporating in the air and a lone figure dashing and leaping between breaking floes of ice crashing and splintering into one another in deadly abandon.
    The twilight of the polar day grew that little bit brighter as the moon waxed into the beginnings of the night sky. Mikissok was at once illuminated as he sped across the ice, but Amâgaiat was almost upon him. Glancing behind him Mikissok dropped the amauten in the hope of checking the troll’s pursuit. It made no difference. Amâgaiat leaped over the amauten and snapped at the heels of the dwarf. Mikissok stumbled and slid into a small boulder of ice frozen to the surface. Amâgaiat slowed to a prowl. She circled the dwarf. The cracking and heaving of the ice in the near distance before them did not distract the troll, nor did the sledge that sped past her. Mikissok caught the movement of the sledge and noticed the hunters cutting the qajaqs free and leaping with them onto the ice. The sledge veered from the encroaching sea and turned towards him. Mikissok breathed a sigh of relief. The hunter was coming.
    A slap across the dwarf’s face shocked him back to reality as he eyed the troll before him. Another slap and a thunderous crack happened at the same time. As the troll slapped the dwarf’s face from right to left, Mikissok saw a huge lead of turbulent sea water cut off any hope of relief. Nissimaaq stared helplessly