Now something had changed. From the first day Arjen had been hired onto the Karga-Holzer Ark Project, Hakan and Feyiz had butted heads over Hakan’s treatment of the workers and the constant, muttered insinuations about Meryam and Adam. His disdain had seeped into the attitudes of some of the others. Arjen had seen it in them, and been entirely unsurprised. His uncle had set the tone for the other members of the family who worked under him. They would provide whatever manual labor the project required, including bringing supplies to and from the ark, but they could not respect their employers. Not if Hakan had anything to say about it.
Only Feyiz and Arjen felt differently. But even Arjen had begun to view Meryam and Adam differently after tonight. Meryam seemed frayed at the edges, on the verge of unraveling, and the tension among the workers and students and professors hung thick and heavy in the cave. The box had done that. The horned, dead thing. How could they not have anticipated the damage the whispers would do, the fear that would infect the entire project? Arjen had not had much schooling and had never been more than twenty miles from his home, but he knew that much. Meryam should have seen it coming.
Tonight, at last, she had tried to reason with them all, and he knew that some had listened. But the fear remained, and Uncle Hakan had not helped. The look in Feyiz’s eyes then had been worrisome. Arjen just wanted to stay out of it. Tonight, for the first time, he had not minded at all when his uncle had told him he would have the second watch. The more he thought about it, Arjen wondered if Hakan would let him do second watch every night, just take that shift as his main job. He could sleep most of the day, and most of his waking hours would pass while the rest of the crew were sleeping.
It’s peaceful, he thought, staring out at the light, swirling snow and the indigo depths of night. In these small hours, it seemed like dawn would never come. He almost liked the thought of that, the idea that the rest of them would sleep forever. The tension had finally eased from his neck and shoulders and he could think of the meal his mother would cook for him the next time he came down off the mountain, and the way his second cousin Navbahar smiled at him when she thought nobody else might be looking. Like music, he had said once, the words whispered to the mountain wind, never to be shared. He’d chided himself for such fanciful thoughts, that bit of poetry, but her smile really did make him think of music. Or make him feel the way music made him feel.
Arjen sighed and turned away from the ledge. The sentries were supposed to walk the outer edge of the cave, not because Hakan really thought some journalist or religious fanatic or terrorist might sneak up the mountain in the middle of the night—although there had certainly been terrorist threats. No, the sentries were mostly there to reassure Meryam, Adam, and the archaeologists that nothing would happen to their artifacts, samples, and dusty bones while they were sleeping. Arjen supposed it was possible that a member of the team might attempt sabotage out of religious fervor or fear or because someone paid them to do it, or might take unauthorized photos or video and sell them. But in the ten nights he had stood second watch, he had heard nothing more than the mutterings and cries of people suffering nightmares and the grunts and moans of those who’d found warmth and comfort in each other’s arms. Nobody got up and walked around in the night unless they were sick or shaking off bad dreams. Sometimes they would smoke cigarettes, breaking Meryam’s rules, but Arjen didn’t see the harm there at the edge of the cave, where the ashes weren’t going to ignite the old timbers. The butts would be flicked over the edge, into the snow.
The wind kicked up, howling around him, so strong that it bumped him back a step. Arjen blinked in surprise, his heart racing, and moved a few feet farther away from the edge. With the wind so strong, only a fool would take chances. He shivered and reached up to readjust the cowl he wore around the lower half of his face. The years had made him used to the brutal cold the winter wind could bring to Ararat and he knew how to endure it, what precautions to take. But nothing could keep the icy air from penetrating down to his bones when he had to stay out in it, unsheltered, for so long.
Coffee would help. Something warm around which he could warm his hands. Something to heat him, down inside. Yes, a cup of coffee. Or Navbahar. The thought of her made him smile, though not without a certain guilt.
A cigarette, then. Now that he’d thought of the nights he’d caught Dr. Dwyer or Mr. Avci out here smoking, he craved the warm, curling smoke in his lungs. Surely just a few puffs on a freezing cold night would not give him cancer.
Another gust of wind and he frowned, then smiled under his cowl. Had he caught the scent of cigarette smoke on the air, or was his craving so strong that he had imagined it? Arjen glanced up, wondering if someone on level two might be smoking, despite Meryam’s explicit warnings.
Then he heard a small cry in the dark, off to his left. The wind rushed at him as if to drive him away, but Arjen stood rigid, listening as he peered along the outer edge of the cave. Was that another human sound, some kind of grunt? And a scuffle in the inch of newly fallen snow, a thump against the stone beneath it?
Arjen felt his throat go dry. He wanted to shout, but stopped himself. This was the point of being on sentry duty, after all. Someone had been out there smoking and stumbled, that was all. He’d smelled the smoke, craved a cigarette.
He started in that direction, striving against the wind that tried to push him back. The icy chill buffeted him, but he straightened up, unwilling to be cowed by it. His thoughts were often full of silent griping, but in his heart he felt strong. His family had given him that strength. His heritage. If Arjen could not withstand the cold winds that scoured the face of Mount Ararat, he might as well never have been born.
The snow picked up, obscuring his vision, and he tugged his goggles down so that he could see better.
There.
Thirty feet farther along the ledge, a shape lay heaped on the snowy ledge. The cave loomed to one side, mostly shadows while everyone slept, and ahead the night and the storm breathed darkness. He caught another whiff of cigarette smoke and wondered if the cigarette had fallen into the snow.
The heap on the ground began to groan.
Arjen swore. Wary of the wind and the ledge, he knelt and dragged the heap toward him, away from the perilous edge. Even in the dark, the black spill of blood on the snow stood out in stark relief. He turned the heap over and tried to make out the face below him, tilted the man’s head toward what little illumination came from the interior of the cave. He had not bothered to get to know the students working the Ark Project. If not for the argument at dinner, Arjen would never have recognized Kemal, but he knew him now.
“Hey,” he said quietly. “Are you all right?”
A stupid question. He knew the answer, but he couldn’t understand what had happened here. Had Kemal tripped and struck his head, or had he had some kind of seizure? Was he ill? The archaeology student lolled his head to one side and moaned in pain and confusion. His lips moved but formed no words, and his eyes searched the gusting snow and the darkness, unfocused but full of a primal dread that filled Arjen with an icy chill no storm ever could.
He stared at the black spill of blood on the snow and forgot to breathe. What if Kemal hadn’t fallen at all?
Arjen drew back from him, knees whispering against the snow. As he glanced over his shoulder there was a lull in the wind, and he heard the hitching breath of the shadow even before he saw it rushing at him. A glint of light from the cave shone upon the curve of the ice ax and it whistled as it sliced the wind and lodged just below his heart, struck so hard it pierced every layer of his clothing, tore flesh and muscle, and punched between ribs.