The Man in the Ice

Though he had already sworn himself to revenge, Akvil sought the blessing of the gods before he committed murder.

He pushed aside the tanned hide which covered the entranceway to the priestess hut, and the old woman called him by name. Though her milky-white eyes had been unseeing for nearly a decade now, she recognized him before he’d even uttered a word. She sat in the shadow cast by the early-spring sunlight, with the dull embers of her fire seeming to perpetually glow even when unstoked. Undrawn bone and roots lay waiting at her side, and Akvil wondered if his future rattled in them even now.

All of the villagers bid the priestess consult the bones before most major moments. Before passages into adulthood, before births and after deaths, and—less frequently—before violence.

He opened his mouth to speak, but she silenced him with a tut of her tongue.

“Don’t stand before me like an intruder. Come. Sit down before you speak,” she chastised.

Obediently, he crossed his legs and sat across from her. The soft leather of his boot bounced impatiently, as her arthritic hands slowly unfolded and reached for the religious tools, unconcerned with his urgency.

“You come to me during midday, leaving your goats untended on the mountain,” she observed softly, gathering her thin fingers together. “This must be important.”

“You heard?” Akvil finally blurted out, with more venom than he’d intended. “My family. You heard what he did to them?”

She nodded deeply; her sightless eyes fixed on him with an almost pitying look. “I heard.”

He was shaking his head in disdain even as he tried to calm himself.

“My son is no man’s slave,” he whispered with harsh coldness. “And my woman is my own. I refuse to let him—”

The old priestess held out her hand for peace, and he wrinkled his nose at her gesture of diplomacy. But he fell respectfully silent.

“You have your father’s temper, and I suggest you control it,” she lectured, drawing her markings in the charcoal dust by her feet, and scattering the ram bones and roots before her. “As for the chieftain—you quarreled with him, and he punished you by taking your family. It is within his rights.”

Akvil shook his head at this justification, not accepting it. “You cannot see it, but surely you know. My son is strong and grows well. And Ari is kindly and fair. Punishing me was an excuse. The chieftain was just looking for an opportunity to take a slave and a woman for himself. It's obvious to everyone.”

She was silent for a moment, running her fingers over the castings, practically caressing the dried roots and sun-bleached bones for a moment. Finally, she murmured, “And you want to kill him for this?”

“Is that what is shown?” he leaned forward on his elbows, interest piqued. “Do I kill him?”

She was silent for a while, and finally replied cryptically, “Have you considered leaving instead?”

“Leaving?” he balked with growing fury. “I’ve done nothing wrong—”

“If you stay, will you be a murderer? That is wrong.”

“The gods allow for some killings, “ he defended immediately. "It'd be the same as killing a lame goat or showing mercy on a newborn that can’t suckle. It'd be righteous. Better for everyone.”

“Your mother was from the clan across the mountain, yes?” the old priestess interrupted him.

“Yes,” he grumbled.

“And they’d welcome you there, were you to make the journey?”

“Yes,” he repeated impatiently. “Why do you—?”

“Steal away with your family. Maybe tonight, if you can.”

“The gods want me to leave my home, like a coward in disgrace?” he snarled, pointing angrily at the bones.

“Akvil,” she spoke with the firmness of a knowing elder, and it quieted his temper somewhat. “The gods show me nothing. I don’t know what they plan for you, but I don’t think there’s a path in this village.”

He stilled at the thought of it.

Normally, there was something. Even if it was a bad omen or a sign of death.

The first and second time Akvil wished to take a woman to live in his hut, the gods showed warnings against it. And, sure enough, the first one had fallen ill and died a month later. And the second one, according to the old priestess,  would have been brought nothing but unhappiness with him.

Akvil supposed this was true, for he was quick to anger and generally unpleasant to be around. He had few friends and even fewer women who would wish to live with him.

But Ari was good for him. The gods had spoken of the rightness of their match through the old woman’s bones, and they had spoken true.

She was patient with his moods and actually seemed fond of him. Somehow, his ever-present temper quieted when in her presence. Often, she sang absentmindedly while she worked, and Akvil grew embarrassed whenever she caught him listening and smiled at him. For though he pretended he was not moved by her goodness, he suspected that she knew better.

“Nothing?” he whispered. “The bones show nothing?”

She shook her head with a sober earnestness, and he sighed in frustration.

“Leave the village,” she repeated, gathering the bones and roots back into their place. “Maybe your future lies beyond my vision.”

Somehow, he didn’t like or believe that answer, but he accepted it for lack of an alternative.

The day was quiet as Akvil thanked the priestess and left her hut. For once, his mind was quiet and thoughtful.

His village was all he’d known.  The mountain caves to shelter his herd from sudden storms; the thorny berry bushes which brought sweetness in summer; the streams in which he’d swum naked during his youth.

It was early spring, but the ground was still too frozen and the chance of snow still too great to risk planting seeds in the fertile lands near the village. As such, most of the men were away with their herds and the women foraging. Only the elderly and infirm now lingered in the village with the afternoon clouds overhead.

Akvil wanted revenge. But his rage, he reasoned, would help his family with nothing. He didn’t mind being a murderer. But if the gods showed a blank future, he supposed his death would be imminent if his plans remained unchanged.

And so, grudgingly, he prepared to leave.

He herded his goats back to the village, examining them along the way to see which were sturdiest and best fitted to travel with him. He tied two by his hut, and the rest he turned loose to graze in between the patches of frozen grass.  Not bothering to light a fire given the imminence of his departure, he gathered food, tools, water bladders, flint. For his wife and son, he packed extra furs for the journey across the mountain.

And, though the gods seemed to be advising him against violence, he gathered his quiver and bow across his back. In his belt, he looped his copper axe.

A light snow had begun to fall as he crossed through the village center, and the goats bleated unhappily as he drew them to follow behind him.

Akvil had few friends, but it did pang him somewhat to say goodbye to the village, to his herd. Perhaps the priestess had sensed this, for she’d embraced him heartily before he’d gone and reminded him that maybe in the future he could return.

But she knew it as well as he. It was three days across the mountains, and Akvil was already growing old. Perhaps his son could return someday, but he would never.

The chieftain’s huts were near the start of the mountain’s rise, so he could see the village below. His large herd grazed freely outside, and thick bellows of smoke rose to the air from the massive racks of deer meat drying over charcoals. Akvil spotted his son, who now was hoisting a basket of dried grains by the front of one of the huts.

“Come, Norv. Let’s go.”

His son paused, looking around unsurely, as though afraid of trouble.

“Now, boy. Let’s go,” he repeated. Finally, his son came to his side.

“Your mother, where is she?”

Norv indicated one of the huts, “She’s weaving.”

Akvil passed the lead for the goats to his son and started towards the structure.

From above, a voice echoed from a distance.

“Akvil, what are you doing?”

The chieftain’s brother and a hunting party of two others were coming down the mountain, dead deer wrapped round their shoulders.

“Get your mother. Tell her to bring supplies,” Akvil muttered, nudging his son forward. The child dropped the lead and obediently ran towards the hut.

“I’ll not bother you,” Akvil shouted to be heard, reminding himself to keep his temper. “I’m just getting my family, and we’re leaving here.”

The other man’s skeptical laugh was audible, carried by the snowy wind.

“Be reasonable. Chieftain let you keep your herd. If he hears you’re trying to retake your family, I doubt he’ll even let you have that.”

Ari emerged from the hut a moment later with her arm around her son and a small sack on her back. A smile touched at her cheeks when she saw Akvil, but was quickly overshadowed by worry at the sight of the approaching men.

“You want to leave with me? Go to my mother’s clan?” he turned and asked her.

“Yes,” she nodded simply.

One of the men dropped his deer on the ground to draw an arrow from the quiver across his back.

“You need to go home, Akvil. Now.” He warned, bowstring taut.

“Start up the mountain,” he grunted to Ari and Norv, drawing his own arrows. “I’ll join you soon.”

They began running behind him, and he turned back to the brewing fight.

An arrow whizzed past his head, just missing him. He let go of his own bowstring and a shaft flew, felling one of the advancing men.

“Akvil,” Ari called to him from behind.

He fired another three arrows and made sure at least one struck its rapidly approaching target before turning to look at her. She was clutching her side and looking down at the red visible on her goatskin coat.

A hard thump rattled his head, and the world spun around him. Akvil was knocked to the ground, rewarded for his distraction by a blow to the skull. He looked up to see the last member of the hunting party with a club raised above his head.

Akvil rolled out of the way, and the weapon caught only air as it swung down again.

Standing unsteadily, Akvil pulled his knife from his belt and sparred with the man momentarily, balling his hands into fists and striking. His combatant unexpectedly let out a yelp of pain and fell as a hard rock struck the side of his head.

Ari, pale and leaning onto the shoulders of their son, had thrown it.

“Run,” he directed, watching them go as he cradled his head in his hand, feeling blood on his fingers.

Limping, he retrieved the closest of his arrows from the chest of the man it had struck. But the chieftain’s brother had disappeared with the other arrow still embedded in his leg. No doubt he was now gathering others for vengeance.

Akvil wanted revenge, wanted to satisfy his deep fury at the injustice that was forcing him away from his village. He was tempted to wait, to let the fight come to him.

But the old woman had bid him control his temper, and he knew he needed to do just that, or else he would die and his family would be recaptured.

Still clutching his head, Akvil left behind the goats and ran awkwardly, following just behind his family.

The freshly falling snow had begun to grow heavier, obscuring the footprints of his family which he was following up the mountainside path. With every step, his feet crunched in the white. He’d packed stiff wood for his shoes to walk above the snow, but there was no time to attach it to his boots. Through the thick leather, moisture began to unpleasantly seep against his feet.

And through it all, a foggy haze from the constant, dull pain of his head.

“Ari,” he nearly stumbled over his wife, who appeared unexpectedly on the trail in front of him.

She was on her knees, trying to remove her coat despite the cold.

“One of the arrows,” she winced, pushing open the buttons to reveal an embedded arrowhead near her ribs.

Norv lingered nearby, looking close to tears.

“Your mother will be fine, boy,” Akvil mumbled gruffly, trying to disguise his own concern.

He removed the arrowhead with stiff fingers, feeling the chill of the cold already settling into his bones.

“It needs a bandage,” she started to reach for his bag.

Hearing voices echoing from the other side of the pass, he shook his head, “No time.”

He picked her up and, as delicately as he could manage, took her over his shoulder to carry.

And they ran once more, and though only the boy was uninjured, they all managed a rapid enough pace to keep them away from the trouble that followed. The snow grew thicker, though, and tiredness and cold had set in.

“You know where we are?” he called to his son, in between heavy breaths.

“The summer grazing spot,” the child indicated the rockface they used as marking.

“Yes,” Akvil felt pride at his son’s knowledge, even despite his exhaustion and concern. “Take shelter in the caves with your mother. After the snow, cross the mountain and go to your grandmother’s clan. I’ll rest a while and meet you there.”

Ari moved stiffly as he shrugged her off his shoulders, but Akvil saw no fresh red stain against the hides she wore. It made him hopeful that her bleeding had stopped. She smiled wearily at him and was helped to her feet by Norv.

She did not yet know, and he was not sure how to tell her as he watched her go. It was, he had realized, not just his village and his herd that he was to say his goodbyes to on this day.

The gods had predicted fortune and fate, and now they had correctly predicted the nothingness of his future.

For as the winds whipped up more snow and his vision grew blurry from the throbbing of his head, he allowed himself to sink to his knees and rest a moment. The voices creeping closer from behind him grew increasingly audible. He knew he could go no further, and he didn’t desire to try.

The sharp pain of an arrowpoint, immediate and hot, struck his back and he felt himself fall forward into the cold snow. He controlled his temper, his desire to retaliate and to fight until the last moment. And in his restraint, he was rewarded—if only in his imagination—by the sound of Ari’s singing carried overhead by the wind.

In 1991, hikers in present-day Italy discovered the mummified body of a prehistoric man, estimated to be around 5000 years old. The mummy, preserved in Alpine ice for millennia, was dubbed “Otzi the Iceman.” He provided a remarkably well-preserved glimpse into the diet, health, and culture of the region and time.

Originally, it was believed that Otzi had died of hypothermia, but later autopsies showed that Otzi’s death was a violent one. His hands and arms showed signs of defensive wounds, his head had cranial trauma from a heavy blow, and there was a fatal arrow wound in his back. On his clothing and tools were blood from several different people, leading to theories that he died during combat. It is speculated, due to the location of blood on his clothing, that he carried an injured person over his shoulder sometime before his own death.



Here's to Otzi and the legends that scientists and storytellers can make about him.

(Sources: Live Science, National Geographic and USA TODAY)