Blood of Wolves (38 page)

Brief glimpses of the battle, as the mammoth ran Brig Tall-Wood down.

 

KERN HELD OUT little hope for himself, now that Grimnir had focused his giant strength against him.

No tricks would save him.

There were few left to come to his aid.

He read raw fury in Grimnir's eyes as the legendary warrior set Burok's sword against the ground and shattered it with one strong blow of the warhammer. Searching for his dropped battle-axe, he'd batted Reave aside as if the large man had been a child's plaything. The sidehand blow with the hammer had picked Reave up and thrown Kern's friend into a cluster of Vanir and Cimmerians raining blows against each other.

Kern didn't think to see him again.

The ragged cheer of Nordheim voices when their leader pulled the broadsword from his heart had nearly sapped the last of the Cimmerians' flagging strength. Several men fell during the next few moments, unable to rally against the fresh arms streaming to Grimnir's side. Garret was one of those, dragged beneath the claws of Grimnir's second snow-cat.

Many of Kern's warriors were down, in fact, though he counted most still alive as comrades fought to protect them. Aodh and Wallach looked over Nahud'r, the Shemite dazed and bloodied but still moving. Ossian had been picked up and dragged to one side by Old Finn and Ashul, and dour Mogh continued to fight at Desa's back. Even Daol had returned, putting his last arrow into the eye of a nearby Ymirish. But too many warriors stood in the way. Too many.

The ripe smell of blood and opened bowels swam over the battlefield, and Kern's feet slipped in gore as often as they found good purchase beneath the snow-laden ground. He'd yanked his arming sword free, managing to stab Grimnir once in the arm and again in the chest, but it hardly mattered. Not when blood continued to pump from the deep wound in the giant-kin's chest, yet he seemed barely to notice.

Sword slashing for his head, battering across Kern's shield, driving him ahead. Hammer smashing down, forcing Kern to jump back.

He gave ground slowly, backing up along the edge of the bluff as some Callaughnan and Cruaidhi rushed to his aid. Sensing, perhaps, that Grimnir had to fall before the Vanir could ever be defeated. But too little, too late.

Grimnir turned and dealt them savage blows, driving them back until his Ymirish or Vanir raiders fell at them as well. He also rolled to one side and grabbed up his battle-axe again. And hacked it down through a Cimmerian's chest.

Giving Kern a look at his broad, muscular back. The Gaudic warrior ran forward, thinking he had another chance, and nearly lost an arm to one of the snow-white saber-tooths, which charged in at his side with a snarl and snapping jaws.

It cost Kern several long heartbeats, backing away from its savage attack. Reeling as claws shredded through the shoulder of his tattered poncho, ripping long bloody furrows down his arm.

It might have been worse had not Frostpaw charged in after the large cat, driven to a bloodlust of his own in the presence of so much violence. Bleeding scars and angry, open wounds promised that the large dire wolf had not been still all this time. Hunting mastiffs or tangling with swordsmen, hard to say.

But the saber-tooth—that creature the wolf obviously remembered. It charged in from the side, teeth ripping at the creature's exposed flanks, working with Kern as it might have fought alongside a member of its long-lost pack.

And when the cat turned to gash the wolf's shoulder with long fangs, Kern lunged forward to put the point of his arming sword into its throat.

That was when Frostpaw turned on him, snarling and leaping at Kern. He did not even think to raise his sword, caught so completely by surprise by the wolf's sudden ferocity.

A good thing, as the husky canine brushed past Kern to leap at Grimnir, sinking teeth into the giant's wrist, just below the hand that held the warhammer. Grimnir's bellow was more anger than pain, though he lost the great maul as he tried to shake the wolf loose. But Frostpaw held on, dragging at the arm as it waited for Kern to rush in beside it to jab the arming sword home, into the giant's side.

Twice . . . Three times . . . Four.

More pain this time, but hardly a dying call. Grimnir slashed his battle-axe overhead at Kern, ripping the Cimmerian's shield away as the mighty blow completely numbed his arm and his fingers.

Then the frost-giant slung his other arm sideways, whipping the wolf side to side as its teeth finally tore loose, throwing the wolf into a nearby pile of boulders, where it struck hard and fell into a stunned pile.

Grimnir advanced on Kern, battle-axe raised overhead.

Then he was spinning about, bellowing. Not in rage or challenge, but in fresh agony as he searched the battlefield behind them. Something . . . ?

From the yell of victory on the far side of the field, Kern thought that the giant-kin's other sorcerer had been taken down. Regardless, he knew to take advantage of it. Kern jumped in beneath the frost-giant's terrible reach, arming sword striking with a viper's speed as he punched it over and over into Grimnir's side and chest.

Not that it did any better than the deep wound he had punched through the beast-leader's heart. Grimnir batted Kern aside with his open hand. It was like being struck with a log across his head and shoulders, throwing him back into a shallow drift of snow and dropping him into an ungainly pile. Kern tasted blood in his mouth, and spit it out as he rolled back to his hands and feet, squatting in a ready crouch as the great leader of the north roared and leaped for him one last time, axe already slashing down.

Kern acted without thought, letting instinct take over. Against such terrifying strength and greater reach, he knew he had to come up close. He shuffled forward quickly, ducking beneath the battle-axe and slamming body to body against the giant. His arming sword rammed deep between two rocklike ribs, burying itself in Grimnir's flesh. Then he lost his grip as the full force of Grimnir's charge bowled him back toward the bluff's nearby edge.

Kern knew then he was lost, and had one last service to pay for his friends' lives. To give them any chance of salvaging the battle, or simply escaping with their lives.

To give Ehmish the chance to fight for his life. To let Daol find Reave, and hopefully Desa.

To give Cimmeria a chance before the Vanir raiders ran over the entire land.

Kern grabbed at his sword and Grimnir's wrist, falling back, and pulling the giant-kin with him. Stumbling up to the edge of the bluff, and hanging there, over the fog that still swam through the glen far, far below.

Then he simply threw himself back, adding a bit more momentum as he hauled the frost-giant back over the cliff face.

Dragging Grimnir the Invulnerable with him into death.

EPILOGUE

DARKNESS SMOTHERED KERN, weighing down his arms, his legs. Making it hard to breathe without tasting the blood that clogged his nose. It pushed his face against the cold, unyielding rock, and winter's touch shivered deep inside in the places where Kern was never warm.

Not even in death, it seemed.

There were eyes on him. He felt their cold touch. And he heard voices that whispered beneath the howl of banshees riding the darkness. Friends, he decided, who had preceded him into death. Wolves of the pack. They scuffled and scratched around him in the dark and the cold. Their fingers were cold as the dead rock on which he lay. And painful. Clawing at his soul and his sanity as they struggled to rip both away from his flesh.

“Broken?” one of the rasping voices asked.

“Nay that I can tell.” That one hawked and spit into the howling calls of the winds and distant creatures of the night.

Familiar.

A large, rough hand grabbed him by the chin, shifting his head back and forth. His neck spasmed with pain, and even in the dark he sensed sparks lighting off behind his eyes. The strong fingers did not burn with cold or pain there. Only the ones pressing at his arms, his side, where his skin had been flayed from his body.

“Looked better.”

Kern began to suspect that he might not be dead after all.

He forced open one eye. The broad face hanging blurrily before him sharpened into focus only slowly. Oval shaped, with dark hair matted with blood and dirt sticking to the sides of his face. Glacial blue eyes staring at him, an open window into the exhaustion and concern Reave had to be feeling. Mouth set in a grim line, and upper lip clotted with blood that had run from a broken nose.

“Mus' be dead,” Kern said. His voice croaked out with rusty strength. “All a' us. Too ugly to let live, this one.”

He tried to close his eyes again, but rough hands fastened on to his shoulders and his poncho and hauled him upright. Fire washed over Kern's back and down his side, crisping the flesh of his legs and arms and across his chest. Basically everywhere. He winced in pain, drawing in a sharp breath, and pushed their hands away as he struggled forward on his own.

His friends slammed him back against the rock wall.

“Not so fast,” Daol warned. “It is quite a step from here.”

Opening his eyes more carefully this time, giving his tired brain time to think about what he was seeing, Kern saw that the three of them perched on a narrow ledge against the side of the cliff face he'd thrown himself down. From his seated position, he could stare up and back along the way he must have come. Steep, but not a straight drop. Lots of handholds and broken alpines that must have claimed their share of skin on the way down. Given the raw pain covering his body, and the bloody swatches he could see on his chest and arms, he changed his mind.

More than their share.

The banshees continued to wail for him, but the darkness had retreated into the back corners of his mind. Kern allowed his friends to help him up, standing on shaky legs as the three rested back against the rock, away from the long drop that continued on toward the floor of the glen. Late afternoon. The fog had all burned away, though a slight haze of smoke remained as a few trees and many of the unprotected homes surrounding Conarch continued to burn. The soot and acrid scent mixed with the taste of blood in his mouth.

Past a low ringing in his ears, Kern listened as the banshee's call changed to the distant, mournful dirges of Vanir horns and the much closer howls of a large wolf. With effort, he shook the last of the cobwebs from his mind and grabbed Daol by the shoulder.

“The Vanir? The northern war host? Grimnir?” No, he didn't care as much about them. If his friends were there, much of that had solved itself, one way or another. “Our warriors?” he asked, voice stronger. “Who made it through?”

“You seem to be fine,” Daol said, glancing at their large friend. “Told you,” was all he said to Reave in a brief aside.

“And we might have been very lucky. Wallach Graybeard will lose his hand—near severed anyway. Nahud'r has some broken ribs. Old Finn might not walk again, and Garret is clawed up something fierce. But other than a bunch of cuts and bruises, and lots of blood lost, we came through alive.” He must have seen the disbelief. “All of us, Kern. You saw us through.”

Another long, savage howl. Reave cursed into the cold winds that continued to blow along the cliff face, sweeping the hair in front of his eyes. “Even that damned wolf will see another day. Been howling up a storm ever since it recovered, pacing the cliff edge with its nose to the ground. Stayed up there even when most of the war host cleared out to chase down Vanir survivors.”

As it turned out, seeing their legendary warrior and infallible leader pulled over the cliff had dispirited the Vanir force so much that several had broken and run on the spot. As if a spell had washed over them. And perhaps that wasn't far from the case, Kern decided later, hearing tales of the way Grimnir had been very much aware of his sorcerers' deaths, and they his needs.

He waited to ask about the frost-giant warrior until safely back atop the cliff face. It was a long climb, especially considering his rough treatment on the way down, but Kern didn't suffer anything worse than a lot of skin loss and a wrenched neck.

It took more than that to keep a Cimmerian from such a short climb.

Funeral piles heaped up in several places as the northerners' dead were thrown atop each other with no ceremony other than a quick few sword chops and a head stuck up on a freshly cut pole. There was a special row for Ymirish. Seventeen of them in all, with blood matting their long, frost blond beards and yellow eyes permanently staring in death.

They found Brig Tall-Wood there with Gard Foehammer and Sláine Longtooth. Brig looked about as battered as Kern, with deep bruises purpling under the skin on his chest and arms. Gard's eyes were bandaged over, and welts the size of sickness blisters stood out as painful red splotches on his face.

“Still alive, Kern Wolf-Eye.” Longtooth had one arm in a sling, but otherwise looked hale. In his other hand he held a bearing spear for Clan Cruaidh, with its fox's tail tied near the top.

“Still alive,” Kern admitted. Though he hardly felt as if he should be.

The sun had driven away all sign of fog and frost. It stood deep in the western sky now, glinting off the snow that still covered the plateau country. But maybe, Kern thought, the end of winter was near.

Though not the threat of Grimnir.

“Tracks was all we found,” Ossian told him when he led back an armed party from the base of the cliffs. “Tracks from the war leader hisself and at least fifty men. They staggered south, away from Conarch.” A quick glance at Longtooth. “Ros-Crana has already left, to see to the safety of Callaugh.”

“Not Narach Chieftain?” Kern asked, sensing that Ossian held something back.