“I know them,” Kern finally said, not quite certain of how the nomadic tribe viewed his short stay at their campsite. “Tahg Chieftain dealt well with me, and this one saved the life of one of my warriors.”
That got Hydallan’s attention, who knew immediately of whom Kern spoke. The old man came to his feet.
“Tahg Chieftain is dead,” the Galla warrior said in a gravelly, damaged voice. Kern saw the scar that slashed across his throat, still angry and weeping. No doubt a hairbreadth from having taken the man’s life; it was a wound not many could have survived.
“And chieftains of t’e Black Water tribe and Stonefall tribe as well. Many of our people are dead, Kern Wolf-Eye. Women. Children. T’e Vanir and t’eir devil-masters scattered us from snow line to t’e lower slopes, and t’en hunted us as sport.”
Though his voice was certainly not up to it, the Galla warrior recited events as they had happened after Kern’s departure. It was not the anger-laced recital of the Hoathi, but far more straightforward. Speaking of their battle with Vanir and two Ymirish—one who wielded a strong blade and the other who commanded the darkest winds of the mountains. Savage creatures, striking out of the night, and the fires and bloodshed. Cut off, herded, Tahg Chieftain had commanded his people to flee down into the lower valleys.
Of thirty lives who began that final journey, not ten of them were left. Though he hoped more might still make it down off the mountain.
“Could be,” Old Finn said, his voice dry and leathery, but still with some strength left to it. “That was hard country up there, Kern. Good places to hide.”
Reave nodded. “Worse for them once they come down. Stragglers would be easy meat for Vanir raiders. Or Jaryyd’s patrols, if’n he did nay know any better.”
His tale finished, the man had lapsed into silence for a moment, mustering his strength. Now, “You offered the bloody spear to Tahg Chieftain. Will you offer it again?”
He could. Hydallan carried it just now, the token never out of the hands of Kern or one of his men. But the direct request surprised Kern nonetheless. “Morag Chieftain did not offer it to you?” He looked to Cul, who gave Kern a warning shake of his head.
“Clan Hoath is the stronger ally,” Cul said. “We’ve no time to search for stragglers.” He nodded toward the tattooed clansman. “This one would not even give his own name, speaking only for his dead chieftain and their lost tribesmen.”
Mountain tradition. Names were shared between those who deserved them. Usually among warriors who had tamed the mountains for their own. Warriors such as those would make for strong allies, Kern knew. One man, or ten, Cimmeria needed to muster all the strength it could if Grimnir was to be defeated.
And like a wolf with the scent of prey in its nostrils, Kern accepted the answer he’d wrestled with for three days. Now or next week, he knew, it wouldn’t change. It wasn’t what he hoped to accomplish. It was that he would try to accomplish something. No more waiting. No more delays.
“I’ll go,” he said. He looked to Cul, whose face darkened with an angry flush. “With or without Morag’s order, Cul. Tell him that.” Then turned aside to the Galla tribesman. “I can promise you one blade at the least, ready to travel by nightfall.”
He reached to Hydallan, who passed him the spear’s broken shaft with its blood-crusted head and the leather tags each fastened in place behind the metal tip.
The mountain warrior never hesitated. Pulling a knife from the scabbard tied into his belt, he slashed his hand. Dark blood welled up inside his cupped palm, then he reached out to grab the spear, adding a fresh stain. “Let our blood mix with t’ose who have already stained t’is spear. Let us fight toget’er until t’e Vanir are destroyed.” He stepped back. “My warriors will be ready when you call.” A pause. “Tergin promises you.”
Then he left, turning away from Cul Chieftain and trotting back the way he’d come.
Which left Cul standing there alone, surrounded by Kern’s warriors. Not that he showed any fear or worry of being threatened in any way. His growl was low and dangerous. “You take too much upon yourself, Wolf-Eye.”
“Someone must,” Kern said. “I would have left for Hoath Plateau by week’s end regardless. There is nothing more for me here.” Though it hurt to admit it, thinking of Maev, and her condition, and what could have been if events had happened only slightly differently.
“You make that decision for all of your people?” Cul asked. “When they have only recently come home?”
“Is this home for them now, Cul? You’ve guested us well, which is more than we could have asked for, but there has been nay feeling that it was anything more than that. Are you now ready to accept them back? All of them?”
“Yea! Crom take you! For the clan and Morag Chieftain and Cimmeria, I’ll break tradition. All of them are welcome back. Even you, Kern.”
It was an admission Kern never thought to hear. A hard one for Cul to swallow. And he never would have, no doubt, if not driven against a wall by Kern and by circumstance.
And now Kern had to throw part of it back in his face.
“Tell the others,” he said to Reave, to Hydallan and Finn and Danon. “Let them all know. But I travel north this night. I’ve already made my pledge.”
“Then we go with you,” Reave said at once. Finn and Danon nodded immediately.
“Your niece, your nephew, have already lost Ros,” Kern reminded him. He saw the pain flash across Reave’s face at the mention of his sister, the loss reflected in the man’s glacial eyes. “Kohlitt, I’m certain, would welcome you back and counsel you to stay, my friend.”
“You think—”
But Kern waved him to silence. “Tell them all,” he said. Then turned away, not waiting around to argue. His bedroll and a leather sack of provisions would be all he’d need. And with however many of them decided to come, he would be ready and away from Murrogh’s stronghold before nightfall. As he’d promised.
Even with Cul’s generous offer, he could do little else, he knew.
There truly was nothing for him here.
9
EVERY MAN AND woman of Gaud and Taur—every survivor who had survived Conall Valley and made the trip over the Pass of Noose, by whatever path—waited for Kern when he returned to the community commons later that day. Some leaned out of windows, or against an open door’s jamb. Many sat in small family clusters out in front of their tiny huts.
And every one of them stood when Kern walked up from the lake’s shore.
Even Cul Chieftain and Maev.
Kern was honestly surprised at the quiet demonstration of respect. As much as he was to find sixteen warriors ready to travel. Some, he’d figured, would follow. Just as he’d been certain the call of kin and community would hold some of them back. But there they were, with bedrolls lying at their feet, shields slung across backs, and leather sacks of food being hastily packed.
And grim smiles of determination. On every one of them.
Cul could not be happy to see his offer so easily rejected, which was likely why he had arranged the send-off. To put the best face on it with at least a token show of his support.
Reave was first to step up as Kern entered the commons. His bearskin cloak lay back across his shoulders, traveler fashion. He covered his chest in a thick, quilted jerkin, traded from someone since the practice grounds almost certainly.
Kern shook his head. “You’ll nay listen to any good sense put in front of you. What about Ros’s children?”
“Bayan and Cor? Figure I’d like to be able to look them in the face on any day after the morrow.” He grinned, showing strong, white teeth. A predator’s smile. “Cor wanted to come, but we talked him out of it.”
“How many lumps did he take?” Kern asked, knowing the family.
Reave’s smile widened. “More than a few.”
Daol was right behind Reave, standing with his father. “You two as well?”
Hydallan thumped his son hard on the shoulder. “Young pup here would
never forget or forgive the debt owed to you. And if he did, I’d be having to kick him hard in the arse for being so thick-witted. Where you go, we go.”
Desa. Ehmish. “Yea,” she said, agreeing. Ehmish nodded once, curt and strong.
Gard Foehammer and Nahud’r and Valerus waited in a trio off to one side. Men with no ties to the community, but who might have made a life at Murrogh beyond running and fighting. Old Finn stomped around at the edge of the village, never comfortable among the people who once cast him aside as worthless, ready to be off.
Garret Blackpatch handed Aodh a full-loaded quiver of arrows, then picked up his bedroll and slung it over his shoulder.
Wallach Graybeard looked a mite peaked, and pale about the eyes, but never hesitated as Kern walked up. Nor Brig Tall-Wood, who stood ready to travel though his eyes came back to Cul Chieftain as often as Kern.
And Ossian, Mogh, and Danon. The three Taurin who had chosen to follow Kern over half of Cimmeria and back again. Ossian nodded for them all. “Where you go, we go,” he repeated.
Too much. All of it. Kern stood there for a moment, struck nearly dumb. “Why?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
A shrug. “Ashul.” He said it like it made the most sense of anything so far.
Except that Ashul had died terribly, stretched out in the muck at Gaud. Choking inside on her own blood until Kern had taken a blade and ended her suffering. Her dying words had accused him then. Barely able to speak, she’d coughed it out.
“Wul—Wolf! Whu—whun—One! One of . . .”
One of them. Of the enemy. Of the marauders who had stolen away her clan, her village, and now her life.
“Ashul,” Kern said. Nodding. Ossian and the others, they sought revenge for their fallen kin. Badly enough that they’d stay with Kern even in the face of her accusation.
So be it.
He checked the sky. The sun bent low toward the western horizon. There the Black Mountains reached up to smother the warmth long before true twilight set in, but that left several good hours still. Following the lakeshore, sticking to the better-known trails, a small, strong pack could make four leagues before rolling into bedrolls for an abbreviated sleep, up and running again before dawn.
“North,” Kern whispered. He found Daol, and Ehmish, gathered them in with a look and nodded them to the trail.
The three Taurin nodded a few last farewells and struck out right behind, some of their kinsmen walking alongside for a bit. Then others drifted out after them. Aodh and Old Finn. Wallach, Gard, and Nahud’r. The others, also drifting out singly and in pairs, while Kern paused for a final word with Maev.
As he passed near, Cul stepped aside to speak with Brig Tall-Wood. Or more, Kern suspected, to avoid another exchange of hot words. Maev folded her arms across her chest and stared coldly at him. “Cul can never make such an offer again. You know this.”
He did. He nodded. “Was nay a good idea to make it the first time. Too much left to do. I have to go.”
“And I guess I have to stay.” Her blue eyes searched his, as if waiting for an answer. Some second choice for either of them.
But once decided, Kern was not about to give up the path stretching ahead of him. He’d already given Murrogh enough of his time. And Maev had the right of it; she belonged here, didn’t she. Here and safe and with a future that looked past the next meal, the next battle.
Such were their lives, now.
So he nodded, then stepped past Maev. Setting off with a determined stride that carried him from the commons, the community, and, eventually, from Murrogh. Never trusting himself to look back.
Not once.
BRIG TALL-WOOD WATCHED Kern part ways with Maev. Saw the flash of mixed anger and disappointment before she was able to smother it. Wondered if Kern had said something to hurt Burok Bear-slayer’s daughter, or if she had failed to say something of importance to him.
From where he stood, it could be either, or both.
Whichever it was, it had passed quickly between them. An awkward moment in an otherwise cold relationship. But then, how could they know anything else? The news had come home with Maev, along with the others Kern had rescued and sent back to Gaud. That she had lain with him, woke up beside him, at least twice. The once, right after her rescue. Brig had not been there that night, but he’d heard the whispers. And he’d seen it himself their last night in Taur.
And here Maev fetches pregnant with Kern Wolf-Eye’s child.
Or was it?
It left him wondering what might have happened, had Kern suddenly accepted Cul’s declaration to break with tradition. If he’d decided to stay.
He glanced at the man standing next to him, and saw Cul Chieftain watching her as well. Wondering the same thing? Mayhap he was.
Or, mayhap not, as Cul shifted his gaze at Kern’s retreating back. “Still alive, after so many weeks. So many months.” Cul spoke softly. He shook his head. “I never thought you could fail me so readily.”
Brig unstoppered his flask and took a deep pull of the warm, leather-flavored water. It would be a long, hard run until dark. His body needed the water, but two leagues along and he’d have to force it down as his stomach tightened. He swallowed. And again. The two men started walking, passing by Maev without a nod or a word, Brig bringing up the rear of the departing warriors.
“It never seemed to be the right time,” he finally said.
“What right time?” Cul hissed. The scar on his face, carving a twisted path from his chin to the right corner of his mouth, flushed dark in warning. “I wanted Kern dead, Brig. With or without Maev coming back, that wolf-eyed creature was never to return to Gaud.”
“Then mayhap you should have challenged Kern and killed him yourself.”
Where was that defiance coming from? Did he wish to remain an outcast for the rest of his life as well? But it was out before Brig thought to rein himself in, and so he stood up for it as a man should. “I say there was nay a time for it. You were not there.”
“Nay time? Not in weeks of travel? If half the stories are true—and even that I am not certain I believe—you saved Wolf-Eye’s life over the Pass of Blood. And mayhap you nearly got yourself killed for others in that pack time and again.”
Truth. Brig had considered it an easy task. At first. But Kern had surprised him, the outcast being thrust into leadership when his entire life all he’d ever wanted was simply to belong. Accepting that heavy mantle of responsibility, and doing well by every man and woman who chose to follow him after the Vanir. Doing well by kin, by clan, and by Cimmeria itself. Crom’s mighty blade, but Wolf-Eye had been everything Brig had thought a leader should be.
Brig had been unable to turn treacher at first, always caught out in the wrong moment, the most difficult of circumstances. Then he’d been unwilling to carry out his chieftain’s order, his honor at war with his duty.
And, finally, he’d chosen not to follow through. Thinking that they would never see Gaud or Cul Chieftain again had made that choice easier.
Finding Gaud a ruin, and so many of his kin slaughtered, had made it hard again. Part of Brig had even accepted the destruction of Gaud as Crom’s punishment for failing his chieftain, though the stronger side of him knew that Crom did not care for the affairs of mortals. Cimmeria’s god had done his part, making his people strong enough to challenge life and take it on their own terms.
If Brig chose to be weak, it would be for others to punish.
Like Cul.
“I sent you north, Brig. It was on my command that you left. And you were the one man among them all who would have been welcomed back to Gaud.”
In time to be slaughtered, or sent running, with the rest?
Cul seized Brig’s arm, yanked the other man to a halt. “So why does Wolf-Eye still live?”
“He earned it.” Brig jerked his arm free. “Every step along the way, Cul Chieftain.” Almost he’d left off Cul’s honorary. Almost. But Brig could not deny that Cul was still chieftain of Gaud. He glanced at th
e ground. “I could not take from the man that which Crom’s gifts earned.”
“You mean Ymir’s blood. The foulness runs in Kern’s veins as surely as it runs through Grimnir’s black heart. Do nay forget who he is, Brig. Do nay forget who you are.”
Nay. Brig could not forget anymore what he was. What Cul had made of him. An assassin without honor. Damned to winter’s ice if he obeyed. Damned just as readily if he didn’t.
“Listen to me,” Cul told him. Pushing him along again, the two walking past the low fortifications that protected the lakeside stronghold. “We have the men we need. Morag Chieftain would have ridden out in a few days. A week at most. Now Kern leaves early, and he still carries the bloody spear used to rally so many warriors. It raises questions.”
Brig would just wager that it did at that.
“Morag has told the others that the Men of the Wolves move forward on his order, as a vanguard for our war host. But Kern must not detour into the mountains or move so far north past the Frost Swamp. Keep them in the valley, Brig. Do what you must, but keep them here and ready to turn back when we send riders.
“And if Kern falls, by any hand, you will take command of that pack and stand ready for our orders.”
“To move north,” Brig said, nodding. But Cul remained silent. “For the Hoath Plateau.”
Cul stopped, and nodded Brig onward. “Stand ready for our orders,” he said again.
Brig watched the other man move away. Looked for the confident set of Cul’s shoulders. The proud bearing he’d always looked up to in Gaud. Talbot, Brig’s brother, had once pointed out that a leader—a true leader—could be seen in the way he carried himself as well as in the way he cared for his people. And Brig had noticed, since finding the Gaudic survivors, that Cul Chieftain did not look so large and fearsome anymore.
Did he pale so greatly to leaders such as Morag, or T’hule of Clan Conarch, or Sláine Longtooth? Even Ros-Crana. Great men—great leaders—whom Brig had been fortunate enough to meet.
Age of Conan: Songs of Victory: Legends of Kern, Volume IIl Page 10