Blood of Wolves (19 page)

Four days.

Always heading north and west.

That was when the blizzard struck.

After a day of clear sky and a cloudless night, black stormrunners built up thick and fast during the morning trek. Massing higher, until they seemed like a huge anvil ready to drop on Cimmeria.

Watching them pile up over the Valley's western Teeth, blocking out the massive summit of Ben Morgh, Kern thought at first they had a chance of outrunning the storm to Clan Cruaidh and pushed his team harder. He didn't care for the ground they moved through, knife-cut ravines so thick with trees and thorny brush that it was best to run the high ridges of broken, crumbling rock. But there they fought narrow trails over sheer cliffs, often slicked with ice or waterfall runoff. Bad ground. He didn't want his people trapped there under dark and snowfall.

They pushed forward at a healthy pace, jogging for hours at a stretch, slowing only when Daol or Hydallan or one of the others spotted sign, and they grew careful of an ambush. The winds picked up, gusting down from the heights with an icy touch that cut through furs and wool and leather. A frosted ground fog rolled down in patches biting with frozen teeth at their exposed legs and arms just as the first snow fell.

It came thicker and sharper after that. Dry snow, stinging the eyes as the wind whipped it horizontally. The storm clouds collapsed overhead, running out across the valley with incredible speed, pushed by the sudden, northwest zephyr. More snow and a thickening fog created a white haze that lowered visibility to a hundred paces. Then fifty.

It caught Kern's people in some desperate territory, halfway along a steep bluffside trail. Sparse brush and stunted trees in all directions. No protection from the winds unless they wanted to hunker down together with blankets wrapped over their heads. A plan that was on the bottom end of Kern's thoughts.

“What do you think?” Daol asked, moving back along the line of struggling warriors, calling out to Kern. “Go to ground?”

Kern squinted into the horizontal blow. He saw another of the trickling streams they'd seen cutting at the dark clay all along this trailside. Again, noticed the lack of heavy vegetation. Nothing put down roots there. Not for long. “Bad area. If the storm turns to rain or sleet, we might see flooding or slides. Not safe.”

“Up or down?”

Up meant trying to get above the water runs, but they'd be more at the mercy of the winds. Worse chance of frostbite. Down would find them looking for a sheltered cleft or a windbreak of heavy trees, but put them in greater danger if the snow gave way to sleet or rain. It also meant giving up on Cruaidh for at least another day.

“Down,” Kern decided, cursing the weather. No storm like this had been seen so late in the year in his lifetime. Maybe not even in Hydallan's lifetime. But they had to deal with it. “I think this is going to pile up on us. We have to get out from under the wind first.”

“Wind first,” Daol agreed. “Da saw some lighter slopes ahead. We'll need to turn right at the next fork, then bear off toward a shallow vale you might be able to see from the scarp.”

“I'll see it,” Kern said. To his eyes, the gloom was really not so bad as a clear moonlit night. He needed only a few breaks in the snow flurries. “Right, and then bear for the vale.”

Nodding, Daol grabbed Wallach as he stumbled by, turned the old man around, and sent him back along the rear line to hurry the rest, passing the same instructions. Kern and Daol hurried ahead, racing past Ossian and Nahud'r. Coming up behind Ashul, the Taurin who had trained with the village healer. She held her own, using a walking staff in each hand to help steady her footing.

But she stopped, right in front of Kern, tilting her head one way then another. Kern listened as well. The winds hammered at the thin line of warriors, howling its building strength. Bringing snatches of shouting, of cries.

Of sharp, clashing steel.

“Vanir!” Kern yelled, springing forward, ripping his arming sword free of its sheath and tossing his winter cloak back from his sword-arm shoulder. Ashul tossed her staves aside and came up with long daggers in each hand as Kern passed her.

With Daol and Ashul laboring to keep up, Kern sprinted forward, catching Brig Tall-Wood at the fork Daol had mentioned. Shoving the younger man ahead of him, they half ran and half staggered through the rushing storm. Brig glanced back repeatedly, as if making sure Kern was right behind him. A dangerous expression crossed his face, but Kern had no time to ask after it.

The snow swiped at Kern's face, stinging his eyes as he ran. Fifty paces. A hundred. Too far to be spread out. Had they missed a turn?

Then he heard shouting again—much closer this time. He led the others off the path, angling on a sharper downhill turn. Scraping through dwarf pine and basket cedar, they stumbled into a small depression that must have looked like a good campsite when Hydallan and Ehmish found it.

Except the Vanir had found it first.

There were three raiders, each armed with a broadsword of some fashion. One blade had a curved edge to it that flared out near the end to give it some good weight for slashing—not native to Cimmeria, though certainly the raider was putting it to good use.

Hydallan reached somewhere deep within his flagging strength, flailing about with his own broadsword as he battled back two of the raiders. Never going on the attack, but parrying strongly as they struck at him again and again. Ehmish, too, was struggling for his life, and giving a good measure with his arming sword.

But there wasn't a great deal of time left in either clansman, old or young.

Yelling a Gaudic war cry at the top of his lungs, Kern crashed into the battle with Daol, Ashul, and Brig not far behind. He shouldered one of Hydallan's attackers aside, sending the man sprawling.

His companion slashed a wicked backhand at Kern's throat, but it met his arming sword instead of soft flesh.

Slash. Guard. Thrust! Kern rammed six inches of bright steel into the Vanir's gut just as Brig Tall-Wood struck the edge of his broadsword deep into the raider's shoulder.

The northerner's cry died quickly, choked off in his throat. He collapsed in an unstrung pile.

The raider who had pressed at Ehmish now faced both Daol's and Ashul's more experienced swords as well. With a feral snarl, he feinted a quick chop at Ashul, then dived for some brush on the downhill side of the shallow depression. Ashul ran after him, daggers ready.

Kern spun about, back to back with Brig Tall-Wood, looking for the third attacker as they heard what they thought were the shouts of battle. But it was only Hydallan, cursing himself with a real gift.

“Walked right into it! Stupid old man. Of all the Crom-cursed, northern-frogging . . . Garret! Kern, Crom take you, where is Garret?”

“Never saw him,” Brig answered for the both of them. “Just you two and the three raiders.”

“Four. There were four!” Never one to waste time on regrets over action, Hydallan dropped his pack near a pile of Vanir supplies and launched himself at the edge of the brush. He swung his broadsword in great cleaving arcs, cutting an easier path.

Daol ran after his da without word or wonder. Ehmish looked ready to follow, but Kern grabbed him by the scruff and pointed him uptrail. “Find the others. Bring them after us.” He gave the youth a shove.

Ashul was too far gone by then to chase after. Kern hoped she could hold her own. Doffing his own pack, he laid it over Brig's and unslung his shield. Both men plunged into a break in the scrub, looking for Garret in another direction than the two hunters. Within a moment they were stumbling blind through the growing blizzard.

The makeshift trail turned between two patches of dead, brown thornberry brush. Thorn tips snagged at Kern's cloak and his heavy kilt. Kern pulled himself free and stumbled forward a few more paces to where the path turned again. Brig fetched up against Kern on the corner, swiping at his eyes, which teared in the wind.

“This was a good idea,” he shouted in Kern's ear.

Then he looked around, noticing that they were isolated by the storm and had no clear path back. He looked back at Kern, at the arming sword the other man wielded.

“What?” Kern asked. He glanced desperately to either side. “We can't stop now. Move!”

Brig hesitated, then nodded curtly. He moved on, blade naked in his hand, held at a half-guard position.

And a good thing it was, as a raider charged into him not a dozen steps later. The man wasn't as large as some of the others, but he was fast. And he swung the curved, slashing sword. Brig barely slid his sword in the way, catching the wide blade against his cross guard.

The Vanir stiff-armed Brig in the face, throwing him back. Would have had him too, if Kern hadn't leaped forward with his arming sword already slashing for the raider's throat.

The raider ducked back, but he needn't have bothered. Kern's sword sliced nothing but air, coming up short because he had slashed instead of stabbed! Again!

But when he tried to follow up with a short jab at the Vanir's ribs, the raider spun inside his reach and circled a heavily muscled arm around Kern's, trapping it.

Caught in an awkward dance, the Vanir brought his sword hilt straight down against Kern's forehead, bruising the Gaudic outcast right between the eyes. The only thing that worked out in Kern's favor, in fact, was the unwieldy sword the other man carried. It was no good as a close-in weapon. Kern ditched his shield and managed to get a hand on the Vanir's wrist, and the two shuffled around in lockstep, staggering several paces off to one side, then farther downhill, then . . .

Then the ground gave way beneath Kern's feet as the two struggling men hit a steep drop-off.

The raider lost his hold on Kern's arm. Kern kept his own death grip on the other man's wrist, though, pulling him along as they both half tumbled, half slid through more thornberry brush, then into one of the muddy creeks that bounced and ran down the bluff. Kern's feet shot out from under him, sitting him down roughly in the muddied, freezing water. The raider sprawled forward.

No time for niceties, Kern chopped at the other man, hacking several pounding strikes at his head, his shoulders. Nothing certain to be fatal, but he thought he hit bone at least once. A few heartbeats later, though, Kern hit another drop-off, and he lost his grip and his sword both.

He wouldn't remember much more than flashes of the next few moments. It was all white splashes of water, horizontal snow, and more scrapes and bruises than he could count.

Scrabbling through mud. Fighting for any kind of desperate handhold.

Feeling plants uproot under his weight, then tumbling . . . sliding . . . falling back into open space.

He hit hard, his breath hammered from him. Rolled through more light brush. It was a good thing there were no large trees or heavy rock outcroppings, because Kern certainly would have broken bones or caved his head in against one. He managed to turn the barrel roll into a slide, with cold, clammy muck raking up the back side of his kilt. This lasted only seconds before another short fall spun him around hard again. And again.

And again.

THERE WEREN'T MANY things more dangerous than being lost, alone, in a Cimmerian blizzard. Even if it should have been several weeks—a month—into springtime.

Wet from a trip down the splashing creek. No food. No blanket. Just a threadbare, half-soaked winter cloak and a tattered leather poncho. Kern's chances didn't look good.

He finally slid into a patch of brambles, the thorns catching him by cloak, kilt, and skin. At least it stopped his sliding fall before something larger, like a tree, halted it more abruptly. Detangling himself occupied several long and painful moments while the ends of his fingers turned numb from the wet and cold. His teeth chattered, which for him was a huge worry. He had to get moving quickly, to work off the chill.

After a few false starts, Kern realized that any attempt at an uphill climb—snow-blind, in the dark— was futile. At best, he'd end up rolling right back down into the brambles.

He tried to gauge his bearings. Failed. The dry snow stung his eyes, and the wind drew away any possible shouts for rescue, or hearing any rescuers. He remembered Daol talking to him about bearing for a protected vale, and figured he had to be farther down than the hunter had thought. Heading north, then, might catch him up with the others. Or it might get him hopelessly lost.

What happened in a wolf pack, he wondered, when the leader didn't come back? Did the pack go looking? Or did it move on?

Survival first. He had to assume the others would find a safe place to bed down and wait out the storm. They'd look for him as soon as they could. He worried about his exposed position. Down inside the narrow cleft he had some shelter from the wind, but not much. Brig knew about where Kern had gone over the bluff slope, but the Gaudic warrior was far from Kern's strongest supporter and, even if he did make the effort, there was no guarantee he'd be able to find his way back to the trail
and
back to the right spot with help.

No good praying. Crom had already done more than his share in making the Cimmerians a strong and hardy race. No matter what Kern suspected about his parentage, that was what he believed. And when left to one's own strengths, one did not sit around debating it.

Fall down seven times. Get up eight.

North, then. Struggling along for the best footing he could find. Over the next while, he crawled switchback up an easier slope than the one he'd fallen down, then half slid down the back side.

The feel of the land, the way the ravine wall twisted back, Kern thought he might be turned more east than he'd like. Forging on, he planned a more circuitous route that would bend him back around toward Cruaidh and his warrior band. The whiteout conditions robbed him of any certainty, but at least he was moving. Without shelter, movement was the next best aid to staying alive. Kept him warm—or less cold anyway. And each step was one pace closer to help.