The cold swallowed him up.
Maddock’s world turned black as he slipped beneath the ice.
FOUR
The cold water burned at his eyes. He couldn’t open them, but he knew he had to.
There was nothing to see; not even a faint glow of light that should have come from the surface. He couldn’t see the fissure he’d fallen through. Had it closed back over his head? He struggled in futility against the overwhelming darkness.
Was this the end? Drowning was supposed to be pleasant. Better than a bullet, at least. He closed his eyes again.
No! He would not give in. Not yet, anyway. His lungs strained at his ribs, close to bursting as he struggled to hold that last breath the cold was so desperate to shock out of them. He knew that he could ease the pain by letting the air leak out of his mouth. But without oxygen he’d go down fast. Besides, he couldn’t part his lips; the message wasn’t reaching his extremities, that or his body knew better than to take any notice of the panic fighting for control of it.
His arms and legs flailed, battling uselessly against the current that would wash him out toward the deeper sea if he gave himself to it. He kicked against the undertow, giving every ounce of strength he had remaining to the fight. It bought him a few feet, then lost one as the water pushed him back.
He was drowning.
He knew it.
The light above him changed for a moment. Light? Or were those spots exploding across his mind’s eye as oxygen deprivation killed him? Conflicting thoughts swarmed across his mind — don’t go into the light, swim for the light. Embrace the afterlife, live damn it, live. He wanted to live, whichever choice that was. He wasn’t ready to die, not like this. He surged upward, toward the light and reached out, his hand thrusting up through the ripples into the air. Someone grabbed at him, catching hold of his upper arm before he could sink back down beneath the surface again. He reached for the hand, praying that it was a hand, not some sort of Arctic seaweed.
He couldn’t panic. Panic could drag his savior beneath the ice rather than lift him out.
Another pair of hands grabbed hold of his arm as the last of his strength ebbed away. He lost the last breath he’d been holding onto.
His body fell limp.
A moment later his head burst through the surface of the water and he found himself gasping for air, still very much alive. Voices demanded to know if he was all right, but it was all he could to do breathe as the air burned his lungs and he thought for the first time, seriously, that he was going to die because he couldn’t stand the pain.
He coughed and spat out a lungful of the ocean as someone hauled him clear of the icy water and onto dry land. Bones wasn’t letting go of him.
“Thanks,” he managed between raking shudders. It was barely enough, but it he had nothing more to give at the moment.
The big man just nodded.
Maddock lay on his back, staring up at the sun where it pierced the pervasive shroud of mist. Some small part of his subconscious imagined it to be the light toward which dying people drifted as life fled their bodies.
“We need to get you out of these clothes,” Professor said. He mumbled something about hypothermia being the biggest killer out here, but he could have been speaking through a woolen blanket. Maddock’s head throbbed and ached with the cold as he felt the moisture that had caught in his stubble start to freeze, seeming to crush his skull with the sudden intensity of it.
“Easy Professor,” said Bones. “Let’s try and find somewhere to get him warm before we start stripping him down to his tightie whities. This isn’t the place for standing around naked.” Besides, imagine the shrinkage this cold weather has caused.
Maddock almost managed a grin, but his lips were frozen in place.
Professor gave Maddock a long look, then turned to Bones. “Bring him down to the buildings. I’ll go ahead and find the best place to get a fire going.”
Maddock felt Bones grab hold of him around his waist and haul him to his feet. Bones draped one of Maddock’s limp arms around his shoulder and got him moving. Maddock went with it. Professor was right. It would have been easier for the big man to throw him over his shoulder fireman-style, but Bones was letting Maddock keep some of his dignity. Should his legs buckle, that would change.
He was starting to feel that he should be able to cover the short distance under his own steam, but the strength disappeared from his legs within a dozen steps. It was all he could do to stop his teeth chattering. And even that was a struggle he couldn’t win. He could scarcely keep a thought in his head for more than a moment. He needed to get some heat back under his skin and that wasn’t going to happen in these soaking clothes.
The buildings lay less than four hundred yards across the ice. Those four hundred yards were some of the most arduous he’d ever walked. Each step sent a shiver of pain through muscles that were shrinking in the cold, pulling themselves tighter and tighter.
“Let me carry you,” Bones said. They’d barely gone fifty feet. Maddock shook his head. He needed to put one foot in front of another to keep going. Get the blood moving again. If he couldn’t even do that much he would be of no use to anyone.
Some of the team found it hard to hang back with them, face into the wind, with shelter so close.
“If you want to make yourself useful go see what you can do to help Professor get that damn fire going,” Bones growled. “Scavenge whatever fuel you can, even if that means pulling one of the buildings apart with your bare hands, get that fire burning.”
Shaw and Lewis hurried ahead, grateful for the chance to get out of the wind. Leopov hesitated for an instant before following along behind them. Only Willis hung back.
When they were out of earshot Bones paused and readjusted his grip. “You hanging in there, bro?”
“Just about,” Maddock replied, or thought he did. He couldn’t be sure his lips had even moved enough to enunciate the words beyond a mumble.
That was good enough for Bones.
“Well now that there’s just you and me out here, how about you give up some of that stubborn pride of yours and you let me carry you the rest of the way? I really don’t want to freeze my ass off out here any longer than I have to.”
Maddock shook his head.
“At least let me help.” Without waiting for a reply, Willis ducked beneath Maddock’s free arm and he and Bones began to haul their frigid comrade forward.
Maddock moved his feet, but there was little need. The tips of his boots scarcely skimmed the surface of the frozen ground as the two big men swept him forward. At just under six feet tall, Maddock stood a few inches shorter than Willis and half a foot shorter than Bones, but right now he felt like a child being carried along. At least he remained upright and could maintain the illusion of carrying a bit of his own weight, though for whose benefit he couldn’t say.
Maddock felt the warm lure of unconsciousness tugging at him, trying to draw him into the realm of sleep. But that was no place he wanted to be, even if it would be warmer there, and he’d be free of the pain in his legs. It was important he stay clear. Alert. Awake. He counted each jolting footstep that Bones and Willis took, each one taking them closer to the buildings; each one meaning that he drew closer to the warm and dry. The effort must have been causing every muscle in the men’s bodies to strain, but it didn’t show. They were rock solid men, physically and mentally. Even Bones, who was as reckless and foolish as they came when off-duty, but over time, Maddock had gained a grudging respect for the big Cherokee’s skills in the field.
When they were a few strides from the door leading into the building Professor had picked, Bones and Willis lowered him to the ground, still supporting his weight, and helped him to make the last few steps on his own. He was grateful for the charade.