Blood of Wolves (22 page)

Two hundred men! Kern tried to imagine, failed. Two hundred was an army. Two hundred should have been able to handle so many raiders.

He said so aloud. Reave frowned, the expression building on his forehead like a pending avalanche, then slowly falling down over his entire face. Daol merely shook his head. They had both heard the tale already. The others listened silently. For some, it was their first time.

Ehmish glanced about nervously, as if recounting it might summon back the Vanir horde.

“Maybe we could have held them. Thrown them off. But that's when the second attack came at us. From the north. More raiders, and a dozen or more of these Ymirish who have been showing their faces over the last year.” He glanced at Kern, no doubt noting again the similarities in face, in features. “We've seen their like several times. Put a few of their heads on the walls, in fact. But these ones were larger, even. Stronger. And had a sorcerer among them.”

Gard turned the small group away from the ruined palisade and the first few homes, leading them along a trampled path to the northeast edge of town. But here Kern stopped.

“A sorcerer?”

Another Cruaidhi, one of Gard's men, nodded. “He made the snow come alive. Saw it myself, I did.” He had a nervous way of jumping his gaze around, as if never quite sure whom to look at. “A long hump, rising out of the powder. Coiling around. Then it lifted up a head like a serpent, with diamond-bright eyes and fangs of icicles.”

Everyone looked down into the trampled snow, as if expecting such a demon to live again. Kern did see a slick of blood and snow, refrozen into a pinkish sheet of ice. So many dead.

“I didn't see it rise,” Gard said, “but I saw it die. Not before it killed seven of our finest warriors, though, including Alaric, the chieftain's son. Alaric put a javelin through its head, which slowed it down. But it got him in its coils and squeezed the life right out of him before it simply fell apart.”

Raiders and Ymirish. Grimnir the undefeatable. And now a sorcerer's demon. Kern exhaled sharply his frustration. How was Cimmeria supposed to stand against this?

“By this time,” Gard continued, pushing the group ahead of him, “the fortress palisade was burning, and we were in complete disarray. The settlement came alive, and many men and women rushed out to help. But already I was losing men to the storm. Some lost. A few run off and hiding. The wind picked up, and the snow cut at our eyes like blades.

“That was when he came.”

Grimnir the invincible. The immortal. Champion of the northern gods. A terrifying man, he had to be—the rumors could hardly keep up. He grew larger every time Kern heard of him, and the wounds he'd taken and survived were legion.

Ehmish had heard many of them by now as well. “I hear you have to cut off his head,” the youth said, his voice breaking with the changes of age. “With a silver blade.”

“Twelve foot tall and shoots fire from his eyes,” Hydallan groused, making fun of the young man's gullibility. “Eats young Cimmerians for breakfast and lunch, I'll wager.”

“Why not dinner?” Ehmish asked. Looking abashed, he tried to stand up for himself by taking a bite back at Hydallan. He should have known better.

“Not enough meat on their bones,” the old man said, not completely unkindly. Reaching out, he pinched the youth's arm.

Ehmish had good, lean muscle on him, but Hydallan managed to make it seem like skin and bones. Ossian and Aodh laughed. Their barks invited others to join in, though no one did.

Gard frowned, shaking his head.

“You don't believe the tales?” Kern asked.

“After seeing Cruaidh taken apart like this,” the clansman said, “I don't know what to believe. I never got a good look at him myself. Most men I'd trust to tell me, who got close enough during the storm, are dead. Some sliced in half. Some crushed. A few had savage claw marks ripping out their throats. I came upon a good friend out in the darkness. His chest had been caved in. All he could say to me was, ‘Monster. Monster.' And then he died.”

The rest was short and severe. The burning fort. The destroyed homes. Men dying by handfuls and no clear leadership. The Cruaidhi war host broke and ran, grabbing their families if they could find them, and their thickest blankets, heading out into the storm. Gard and Sláine Longtooth, the chieftain, rallied a short line of defenders, but that broke under a Vanir push, and so the call went out to run. Run and hide, and live for the next day. They hoped.

“About half came back,” Gard said, as they approached the burial grounds still being dug, filled, and covered. “The rest were lost to raiders or to the storm. We'll be finding bodies deep into summer, if summer ever comes.”

“Raiding for food. Raiding for spoils. That I understand.” Kern looked around again at the total wreckage visited on Cruaidh. “This, this is madness. You can shear a sheep many times. You can only slaughter it once. Why do this?”

“Punishment. It's the only thing Sláine Chieftain and I could think of. We've been pushing warriors up through the pass all winter, trying to open the Break-neck to the Broken Leg Lands. Cruaidh needs trade. It can't survive without it. Too big. But the summer trade and autumn's were choked off with Vanir controlling the pass. We saw no blue iron coming down from Clans Conarch or Morgach. None of the late-winter grains they are able to grow on the other side of the Teeth. We need these things to survive the winter. So we tried to reopen the pass.

“And Grimnir came for us because of that.”

“But . . .” Kern counted the surviving clansfolk by clumps. “Your army. You could not have lost two hundred men. You said half of them returned, but I see very few warriors left.” And not enough gravesites to account for the rest.

“You do not see Sláine Longtooth here either. That is because the chieftain has our war host up inside the pass right now.” If it were possible, the Cruaidhi warrior looked grimmer. “Our best men and women, and some we dragooned from nearby clans and communities. And more on their way. I've runners carrying a bloody spear to every village and farm within three days of here. Conall Valley must answer.”

They would, Kern knew, if the bloody spear arrived. Smaller clans and villages were compelled. Clans of equal size or position to Cruaidh would send whatever force they were able to muster on short notice. It was custom, and law. Even long-standing feuds must be set aside to answer the greater threat.

Gaud and Taur, already hurt so drastically by raiders and the long winter, would have still sent warriors. But three days? Sláine Chieftain was obviously not willing to wait.

Kern drew in a deep breath, tasting damp ash on the air, and sweat. He would have given a great deal just then for a heated kettle of water, a skewer of venison— horseflesh, even—and a dry shack where he could roll up inside his felt pad. But he sensed those things were not coming anytime soon. Besides the fact there wasn't a standing shack anywhere in the settlement, he sensed that they had finally arrived at the moment Gard had angled for since their short-lived standoff.

Stooping, Kern snagged an exposed rock and pitched it off to one side. The smell of overturned earth was very strong, so close to the burial field. “You want our aid in opening the pass,” he guessed.

“I do. Any band to survive the trek you've been on is a force not to be taken lightly. Sláine Longtooth plans to clear the pass and hunt Grimnir into the Broken Leg Lands. He will need every last man.”

Whether he knew it or not.

Somehow Kern felt those words hanging between them, unspoken. He glanced at Daol, at Desa, two of his more astute warriors. Daol's look was guarded, wary. Desagrena stared through long strands of oily hair with a look of outright disbelief on her face. They had picked up on it as well.

“Your chieftain decided not to wait for more warriors.” Of course not. A thought dawned, bright and clear as fresh ice. “He wishes to avenge his son.”

“He may not be thinking with the best mind,” Gard admitted. “But make no mistake, he is a warrior born and has survived longer than any ten chieftains you could name. I don't know what more sixteen men can offer, but if there is a chance, I will take it.”

“Fifteen,” Kern said absently. Then, “It seems a strange request to come from a man who was ready to run me through with a pike.”

“I have very few warriors left to me and fourscore clansfolk to protect. Your warriors had naked blades. I wanted no injuries, and no illusion as to who was in charge of Cruaidh.”

Kern crossed arms over his thick chest. Every muscle ached, but even though he knew Gard was tensed for action Kern felt he could get his shield around before the Cruaidhi ran him through with the pike he still carried. “You are here with only two warriors. You must be very certain of yourself, Gard Foehammer.”

“Or very certain of you, Kern Wolf-Eye.” The settlement's protector deliberately turned his back on Kern, walked between two graves, leaving fresh prints in the black soil. The scent of sour earth was strong. Like mud left standing too long without drying in the sun. Two men with shovels worked nearby at the hard-frozen earth.

A third man with his back to the small group, slight and bent with age, turned his hand at a pickaxe with surprising strength.

Gard looked back, shrugged. “You could kill me now, that is true. But you would not.” His laugh had little humor in it. “Even if you tried, you could not hold Cruaidh with sixteen warriors.”

“Fifteen . . . and how can you be so sure? From a few stories told by freezing outcasts wandering in out of the storm?” He glanced at Daol, at Reave. “Maybe they lied. Maybe we all lied.”

There was something else going on. Something hidden. Kern sensed it, like a trap lying below the silky blanket of snow. His guard was up, as he stood amidst the burial fields and several open, unfilled graves.

But Gard had another purpose for bringing them out here, other than any implied threats. “The man who first talked of you had no reason to lie.” He reached back, laying a hand on the shoulder of the man with the pickaxe. The bent frame stiffened, as if caught out. Slowly he turned.

“Any man who would give up a rare meal to a clansman cast out,” Gard said, “would not stoop to betraying a clan in need.”

Perhaps not. And Kern knew when he was beaten. Old Finn stared across the head of his pickaxe, a sheen of honest sweat matting iron gray hair to his forehead. He looked leaner than when he'd left Gaud. Leaner, and tough as old leather. The light behind his milky blue eyes burned brightly.

Kern didn't bother with welcomes or recriminations. He simply offered his hand, and smiled when the old man took it with his own—the gnarled fingers still had surprising strength in them. Gard Foehammer had been right after all.

Sixteen.

NO MATTER HOW badly Gard Foehammer might have wanted to press Kern's small band after the Cruaidhi chieftain, Kern was physically spent and in need of at least some minor attention for frostbite. He didn't have the deep white patches of Reave or Ossian, or half the others in fact, but the edges of his ears and high over his cheekbones required treatment. If left alone, the dull, waxy patches would turn bone white, then gray. As gangrene set in, bits of flesh would eventually go black with dry rot.

Kern remembered Burok Bear-slayer, and his final days as the gangrene turned wet and septic. It was an end he'd rather avoid.

Ashul worked hard on some of Cruaidh's more desperately wounded, so it was Desagrena who volunteered to see to Kern that evening. No healer, she certainly lacked the caring touch of Jocund or the healer Kern had seen at Taur. But she knew how to dress a wound and care for frostbite. Pulling her dark, oily hair back from where it usually hung in her eyes, she inspected the frost patches on Kern's face. Poked at them with a sharp finger. Kern felt only a numb pressure.

“Could be worse,” she said, poking harder, then pinching the skin until Kern finally yelped. “It's not too deep.”

A good thing. The Gaudic woman might have gone for her dagger to probe any deeper into Kern's damaged flesh.

“She do this for you?” Kern asked Reave, who shared the cramped tent with him.

The large man nodded glumly, frowning as he remembered. “Yea. Though I think she pinched a mite harder.”

“And you squealed twice as much,” Desa shot back, her viperish temperament still in place.

She didn't go for her knives. Instead, she wrapped damp rags heated on an outside fire over the damage. Kern's ears stung painfully as blood returned to the cold-affected areas, settling eventually into a throbbing ache. He woke up to lessened pain the next morning. Also to Reave's elbow digging hard into his side.

Kern extracted himself carefully from the tangle of blankets and limbs. Before leaving the small tent he smeared horse fat over his cheeks to protect them from further damage and dabbed a bit on his cracked lips as well. For his ears he cut a long strip off his felt pad and tied it back around his head like a scarf, knotting it securely behind his neck and letting the ends trail down his back.

The mist had cleared overnight, but thick gray cloud cover overhead still muted the dawn to a murky gloom. Old Finn and Daol tended a small fire not too far away, readying it and a camp griddle for flat cakes. Ossian sat with them, stropping his knife against a leather strap, sharpening it.

Closer by the creekside, Ehmish, Aodh, and Mogh did some sitting-up exercises to warm themselves. Kern joined them, and soon felt the chill in his bones loosen its grasp.

Loosen, but never let go.

“Three of Gard's runners returned late last night,” Aodh said, grunting as he stretched down to reach for his toes. “A dozen warriors in tow. Each.”