Tear Of The Gods. Alex Archer

or measured that section of the site, and we’re not even close to being ready to begin excavations….”

      Craig’s tirade suddenly fell silent. Annja followed his gaze to where he was staring at the ground a few inches from her left foot. A shout of triumph almost passed her lips when she saw what he was staring at.

      A hand was thrust upward through the peat, as if reaching for the light of the sky above.

      THERE WAS ROOM for three of them to work the find so Craig brought in Paolo Novick, a professor from the University of Turin and an expert on pre-Roman Gallic cultures, to help them. Most of the rest of the team gathered about to watch. Little by little, the peat was peeled away, exposing another inch of the man’s remains.

      It took them almost four hours to bring the chieftain’s body into the light of day for the first time in millenia. Unlike the remains they’d uncovered to date, this one was completely intact. Everything from the shoes on his feet to the tunic he wore beneath his long coat of mail was in excellent condition, seemingly none the worse for wear after their years of submersion in the bog. Even the small piece of twine that bound his long red hair in a ponytail had survived.

      A quick measurement put his height at seventy-four inches, and that was after the bog’s natural preservation process had shrunk the body slightly. In life, he’d probably been closer to six and a half feet tall, which Annja knew was a literal giant for that day and age. His size, combined with the massive knot of red hair that still hung from his skull, quickly earned him the nickname Big Red.

      Photographs were taken, covering Big Red from every angle possible so that a record would be preserved of how and where he had been found before the laborious process of removing him from the peat could begin. The previous night’s thunderstorm had Craig worried that the weather would take a turn for the worse soon, however, and he didn’t want the body left exposed to the elements. The decision was made to cut a block out of the peat, body and all, and move that back to the camp where it could be studied and worked on at leisure, away from the potential damage the elements could inflict.

      As Craig sent several members of the team back to the camp to organize the tools they would need to pull off their plan, Annja bent over the body with a set of hand tools. She was still shocked that Big Red had been there at all; she’d almost convinced herself that everything she’d seen in her dream had been just that, a dream. Obviously it had been something more. She wondered just what part Joan’s sword had played in it all. It wouldn’t be the first time its powers had surprised her, that was for sure.

      Using a miniature pick and a small brush, she began to work at the peat still covering the front of Big Red’s throat. She remembered the strange gleaming necklace the chieftain had worn around his throat during the burial ceremony and wondered if that, too, had been real.

      A chunk of peat cracked and fell away from the rest, partially revealing the gleaming surface of the tribanded necklace Big Red was wearing around his throat.

      “What have you got?” Professor Novick asked from his position at her side.

      “Looks like a necklace, maybe a torc of some kind,” she said, and leaned back to let him take a look.

      He whistled at the sight of it. “What is that? Obsidian?”

      She shook her head. “I don’t think so. It looks metallic to me. It seems too shiny but maybe it’s iron. We’ll have to wait until we can get him into the lab to examine it more closely.”

      As the day wore on and the hard work of removing Big Red from his resting place got under way, Annja was forced to forget about the necklace and concentrate on the task at hand.

      The damage, however, had already been done, though Annja didn’t know it.

      The block they cut out of the peat reminded Annja of one of the stones used in the building of the pyramids; it looked that big. It was also heavy enough that they had to use two different winches to get it up out of the earth and into the front of the Bobcat they’d had brought up from London to serve as their transport vehicle. Once the peat slab was secured in place, the Bobcat made its way up the hill and down the path through the woods to the camp that part of the team had spent the afternoon clearing.

      A new tent had been erected in their absence—a thick tarp rolled out in the center of the floor—and it was on this that the peat block was finally placed. Seeing Big Red’s body partially protruding from its surface reminded Annja of Star Wars; Han Solo encased in carbonite was far less interesting to her than this ancient Gallic warrior, however.

      She, Craig and Paolo worked through the afternoon, slowly chipping away at the heavy peat surrounding Big Red’s body, freeing him inch by inch from the preserving matter. By the time they called it a night, the sun had long since set and many of the camp’s other residents had gone to bed.

      As they were leaving, Craig pulled her aside.

      “How’d you know?” he asked. “How did you know to dig there, of all places?”

      She answered him as honestly as she could. “I saw it all in a dream.”

      He laughed. “Right,” he said. “And I suppose tomorrow you’ll wake up and tell me you’ve discovered the location of Genghis Khan’s long-lost tomb.”

      Annja smiled. “Nah. Been there, done that.”

      The look of shocked surprise on his face was the perfect end to a perfect day.

      5

      Shortly after midnight a man slipped out of a tent in the middle of the camp and quietly made his way across the clearing to the tree line just beyond. At the edge of the woods he stopped and turned, looking back the way he’d come. He waited, one long moment, then another, watching, listening, making certain that no one had followed him.

      Assured that he was unobserved and alone, the man disappeared into the woods, following a faint path through the trees until he reached the deadfall he’d selected as a landmark. There he turned and traveled for another hundred yards before stopping beside a huge boulder that had probably been there since the last ice age.

      Again he paused, listening, sweeping the path behind him with his peripheral vision, searching for anyone who might be on his tail. While it was unlikely, it never hurt to be careful, and with something like this he didn’t want to be wrong.

      Finally satisfied, he reached into a cleft in the rock and pulled out a satellite phone. Switching it on, he waited for it to power up and then dialed a number. When it was picked up on the other end, he said, “It’s Novick. I need to speak to him.”

      There was a pause. Novick figured the man on the other end of the line was considering the wisdom of waking their joint employer at this hour of the night, and so he said, “It’s about the torc.”

      That seemed to convince the other man, for he said, “Just a moment,” and put the receiver down.

      Several minutes passed.

      Finally Novick heard the phone on the other end being picked up.

      “You have something for me?”

      Novick swallowed the sudden hesitation he felt at the sound of that voice and answered him. “Yes. At the new site in the West Midlands. We found a body in the bog this morning, an Iceni warrior.”

      “And?”

      “And he was wearing a torc that fits the description of the one you’ve been seeking for the past several years.”

      “You’re certain?”

      “Absolutely.”

      “What about the test?”

      Sneaking into the artifact tent with the device in hand had been easy. “It was positive.”

      There was a long silence as the other man considered the implications, then he said, “Very good. I will dispatch someone to meet you tomorrow afternoon.”

      With