Page 10 of Thor

"No, you said Thor's hammer. And that's no axe."

Sibyl's eyes followed Lara's gaze to the tray where the find lay in a pool of water. Sure enough, the ice had sheared away from the axe head, which was bigger and heavier than she'd first thought. And while it was shaped like an axe, where an axe might have a blade was too thick and blunt – more like a hammer or a mace.

"Oh my God, you really found Thor's hammer!" Jorunn exclaimed, hugging Sibyl from behind.

Sibyl couldn't respond. She could only stand there stiffly and stare.

NINE

Sibyl's mind spun with plans. First, they'd need to completely melt the ice off the weapon and catalogue the find in detail, with more photographs. Then, they'd need to get it to one of the university labs and do some scans. X-ray and CT scans, for a start. The metal was shinier than she'd expect for a thousand-year-old Viking weapon, which were mostly iron. She'd have expected such a weapon to be more rusty than this was, which meant she'd have to find a way to analyse the metal. The handle looked like leather wrapped around wood, and identifying the species might require DNA analysis, which she'd never had to do before, so she'd need to look up relevant papers...

"So, what's the plan for tomorrow?" Lara asked. "Finish the transects, or see if there's anything else buried beneath the ice where Sibyl found Thor's hammer?"

Sibyl's whirling mind stopped dead. "There might be more than just the hammer?" she blurted out.

Nik made a derisive sound. "You are still expecting your Australian actor man? Foolish girl. If such a weapon were buried as grave goods, the body will be little more than a skeleton now. Not to mention it's solid ice. All that work likely for nothing more than a few bones? I say we continue the transects, and see if we can find something of importance."

Karl eyed Nik.

For a moment, Sibyl wondered if Karl was actually going to tell Nik off for being such an arsehole.

"If the hammer is part of someone's grave goods, it's likely there'll be far more than bones in there with him. A warrior who carried such a weapon would definitely be rich and important. The hammer might just be the start," Karl said.

Of course Karl would see the research possibilities above all else, even Nik being a complete dick to everyone else on the team. But even Sibyl couldn't be upset at the possibility of finding more. A warrior's grave would be an amazing find, and more than enough to write one if not several research papers on. Besides, if a battle really had occurred here, then he wouldn't be the only warrior who'd died, and there would be other graves. Maybe this was what she'd come here to find.

Karl continued, "So we should probably mark that site for further investigation later in the season, when the ice has melted some more. What's the weather forecast for tomorrow?"

Lara tugged the satellite phone out of its cradle and frowned at it. A long moment passed before she said, "Well, that answers that. Early snowfall forecast for tomorrow, with more snow and freezing temperatures for the rest of the week. That ice won't be melting any time soon. When the weather clears, we'd be better off returning to transects."

Sibyl's hopes soared, then plummeted. She was on the cusp of discovering the site of Utgard, only to be stopped by a bloody snow storm. That'd never happen in Australia, or at least not at any of the sites she'd worked at.

Well, there had been cyclone alerts at Burrup, but bad storms could happen anywhere, and you usually had enough warning that a storm was coming to put in a few extra hours a day while the good weather lasted, then protect the site as best you could before you had to evacuate as the bad weather came in. It was sort of a standard joke among the Burrup team that there was always time for one more dive.

Surely there was time to go out to look at the site after dinner, just in case they'd missed something...

Karl rose. "All right, time for an early night, everyone. It's been a busy week, and I couldn't be more pleased at how much we've surveyed so far. With bad weather moving in overnight, everyone's to stay in camp until Lara gives us the all clear. It couldn't come at a better time. Jakop's due to arrive with another load of supplies in a day or two, so I want all our finds properly documented so we can send everything back to the lab with him. Everything done by the end of the day tomorrow, people!" He headed out.

Sibyl's feet carried her after him, almost of their own volition. "Are you sure we shouldn't take one last look at the hammer site before it's covered by snowfall?" she asked. "I mean, we melted a lot of ice, but we were more focussed on getting the hammer out than seeing if there was anything else with it. What if...?"

Karl shook his head. "The temperature's already dropping. Any ice we melted will have frozen already, preserving any finds for us until it's warmer, later in the season. Don't worry. Whatever's there has waited a thousand years to be found. Another few months won't make much difference."

If she'd waited a thousand years to be found, she'd be pissed about being made to wait even longer. "But..."

He held up his hand. "I want to find out what's in there as much as you do. Maybe even more, because if it really is a grave, this could be the ice mummy we've been hoping for. But that's even more reason to wait until the ice melts on its own, because the lower the temperature, the less damage there'll be to the body before we can dig it out and transport it to the lab for analysis. Helicopters can't fly in bad weather, and even if it could, there'd be nowhere safe to land it until later in the season.

"But it doesn't matter what's in there, or what the flying conditions are. We filed a risk management plan with the university to allow this expedition, and our safety procedures don't allow survey work outside the camp after dark or during a snowstorm. Besides, I know I need to get my documentation complete. Is all of yours done?"

Sibyl felt her cheeks redden. "Well, no..." Mostly because Nik had driven her out of the mess tent with accusations of incompetence and bad handwriting so many times, that she'd been waiting for a chance to do it when he wasn't around. Problem was, he'd always been around, so she hadn't had a chance. She probably should have tried to do it in the tent she shared with Jorunn instead, but Jorunn always seemed to have something fun to talk about, or to drink, or both, and after a couple of shots of aquavit, Sibyl knew better than to try to write anything legible.

"Good. See that you get plenty of rest tonight, and take care of paperwork tomorrow. It helps to develop good fieldwork practice early on, so that by the time you're my age and leading expeditions, it's just automatic. One less thing to worry about when you're making a dozen decisions a minute and everyone defers to you." He nodded to her, wished her good night, and headed off to his tent.

Sibyl stared after him, half annoyed and half...gratified, or at least she thought that's what it was. For all Nik's insults, Karl seemed to think she had what it took for a lifelong career in archaeology, up to and including leading expeditions in the future.

God, she wished she could talk to her cousins right now. Okay, Callie would probably offer to curse someone, even if only Nik actually deserved it, and Octavia could probably offer half a dozen solutions of questionable legality, depending on who she'd been doing IT support for lately, and none of that would be particularly helpful. It was Tacey she really wanted to talk to – because Tacey had always been the mama bear of Bell House, with the right advice at any time, no matter what the problem was.

So, what would Tacey say?

Sibyl took a deep breath and blew it out. Tacey would say that Karl was right and Nik was wrong. If she just focussed on the project in front of her, and did her best work on that, the future would take care of itself, and she didn't need to worry about that right now.

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