Yea. It would be enough. Now was the time to return to his master. Grimnir waited, watching through his eyes, and was pleased. Was stirring. Was clawing his way forward, out of the dark depths that boiled with power and dark purpose in (Lodur’s) mind. Eyes of savage, golden fire, and a face twisted in rage. Rage and . . . fear?
But the Beast’s voice was terrible and laced with power of its own. And it screamed inside Lodur’s mind, shaking him from his feet. Hurling him backward to land hard on the frozen, unyielding ground.
“KERN!”
Darkness crashed over him. Pain throbbed across most of his body. And in his ears, the shout still echoed.
“Kern. Kern?”
He opened his eyes. One of them had swollen partly closed, but he could see well enough. See Maev, kneeling beside him. Still draped in her white fur of mountain ram. Kohlitt and Cul Chieftain standing over her. Their expressions running the gamut of concern, and confusion, and anger.
No longer in the chieftain’s tent, he’d been carried outside and stretched out over the hard, cold ground without benefit of blanket or mat. But he lived! Not sure why, at that, but it was a start to realize he was awake and whole and . . .
“Not . . . dead,” he said, voice a thin croak.
“Nay,” Maev assured him. Her smile was thin. Forced. There was a measure of relief in them now that he’d spoken, but only just. She shook her head.
“Not yet,” she said.
18
THE BODY OF the creature pretending to be Morag Chieftain was buried just after dawn. Still wearing Morag’s clothing, soaked as it was with its black, pungent blood, it was dumped into a shallow grave, covered over with dirt topped with several large stones to prevent the camp dogs from digging up the foul remains.
Someone stuck the bloody spear into the ground, as a marker.
There were no songs for the dead. No chants of Morag’s victories, or any valiant final stand that should naturally have accompanied the fall of such a long-ruling chieftain. No words were said. No honors rendered. The Murroghan worked quickly, quietly, and with a grim frown of distaste drawing at their faces.
Watching it, still under guard, Kern understood better than most how difficult this had to be. The lack of ceremony. Eastern clans used song the same way valleymen and western clans passed their histories and the names of great leaders along by lodge hall tales. The entrance flap to Morag’s tent should have been stained with the blood of mourning. His body given a tall funeral pyre, or sewn into a shroud for the long, hard trip to the Field of the Chiefs where he could be interred with other great chieftains of Cimmeria.
But Morag had obviously died years before. Within the Frost Swamp, Kern guessed. Though some argued it might have happened on the trail home, or in the years after. Even recently, after leaving Murrogh.
The arguments made little sense. But then it had to be hard to accept that the switch had been made so long ago, and a doppelgänger had not only taken over for another, but it had been a chieftain’s life. A chieftain’s family and duties to the clan.
And what must it be like for his wife, Kern wondered, who had shared her bed with the man, the creature. Deirdre made one appearance at the gravesite, just as the final stones were set in place. She no longer looked so self-assured. So polished. A touch of gray speckled the hair just above her shaved temples, and Kern doubted anyone could say for certain whether it had been there the day before. Cul accompanied her, but maintained a distance of respect. Everyone did. At this point, no one was certain what her position among clan and kin would be.
She walked up with strength in her spine, though. Kern admired that. As did many of the warriors who saw, no doubt. She stepped up to the cairn, staring. Then spat. Rejecting the thing that had masqueraded as her husband.
And might even have fathered a child on her.
Then she did something no man or woman could have expected. She leaned down to wrench the broken spear from the earth and stomped over to shove it back into Kern’s hands.
Power flickered in the back of his mind. Primal and unchained. Living darkness, still not laid to rest following his attack on Morag and the strange dreams that followed. Now it lit violet sparks at the edge of his vision, prickled the skin on the back of his neck, as if the bloody spear—the token of alliances—created some kind of threat to him.
The guards to either side of Kern stiffened, seeing a weapon back in his hands. But there was nay anyone about to gainsay Deirdre. Not at this moment.
Maev stepped forward then, leading Deirdre away. And with the necessities concluded, Cul dismissed Kern’s guards. Though he did draw and hold easy his war sword, the blue-iron weapon Kern’s warriors had returned to Cul after recovering it from Vanir raiders. Kern stared at the blade. If Cul recalled and appreciated the irony, he did not let it bother his voice. Calm and strong.
“I should kill you. Many inside this camp would breathe easier for it.”
Kern tensed, but not because he feared the threat. His reaction was involuntary, as the power flared with a sharp stab of pain. Tamping it down, smothering it beneath a false aura of calm, he forced himself to shrug. Stretched his head to one side to bare his neck for Cul.
“Need an easier target?” he asked.
The way he felt now, run out and beaten, it might be a mercy.
“Crom take you, Wolf-Eye! Do you realize what you’ve done? I must meet with the other war leaders now. The Gorram. The Borat and the Galt. There is nay idea of who speaks for the war host. Mayhap it will break apart, and with Cailt Stonefist bearing down on us. Best to be behind the stronghold walls at Murrogh.”
It would. If they could make it. “Cailt will run half of your force down before you could make it. It’s too many days, Cul.”
“Yea. We know that. But will the others worry for the war host, or their own lives now? There are nay many men could hold a host like this together. Who can be seen to carry that”—he nodded at the broken, stained weapon in Kern’s hands—“even before. I can lead Murrogh’s warriors, but they would not have me as chieftain.” What had to be a hard admission. “I’ve sent runners south, searching for Jaryyd Morag’s-son. But we do not have days to wait. We’ve hours, at best, to plan.”
“Nay,” Kern said. “There is nay plan to salvage this, Cul. Not when you must deal with Cailt now. Not with Ros-Crana loose on the plateau. If we have a chance, any chance, there is one course you can take. If you have the stones for it.”
“I’ll consider anything just now, Wolf-Eye. Even your dark advice. So let us have it.”
Kern swallowed dryly, thinking about what he’d seen coming out of the darkness. What he’d thought to spy from Grimnir’s plans. The Great Terror’s single fear.
But even if he had not seen all he believed, and it were nothing more than a pain-induced hallucination, he saw nay other way out of their current circumstance. Not without a terrible loss to all of Cimmeria. So he said it straight out.
“You’ll have to surrender.”
THEY CAME JUST before noon, Cailt’s army. Breaking from the forest to the east. Swarming along the edge of hills to the north. Twoscore. Then three. Soon, four. Some astride horses, bareback. Most afoot. They raised blades and spears overhead, calling down with savage yells, then beat those swords and shafts against their shields over and over again in an ongoing rhythm, creating a pounding, harsh, artificial thunder.
The same thunderous claps that had broken through the darkness in Kern’s dreams.
“There,” Hogann said, pointing. He stood on the far side of Cul from Kern, at the end of the line that included war leaders from the other small villages around Murrogh. As far away from “the Wolf-Eye” as he could get and remain part of the group. Circumstance had forced the Hoathi to make a temporary peace with Kern, but Crom take him if he’d make it easy.
Kern followed the man’s directions. At a small gathering of saddled horsemen up on the ridge. Five clansmen. One held a shield up on a tall pole, the target painted with small
totems from all the villages that had contributed warriors. Another raised the bearing spear of Clan Lacheish’s totem, dangling a ram’s great curling horn from the crossbar.
Nay method to tell at such distance which of the other three would be Cailt Stonefist himself. Still, Kern could well imagine the confused and suspicious expressions passing back and forth among the chieftain and his nearest companions as they gazed out over the spreading meadow. Mayhap their scouts had reported something of this nature. But who would have believed it?
Murrogh’s war host was nay ready for any battle Cailt would be expecting. Bedrolls and provisions bundled up into carrying packs. Swords in their sheaths. Chargers standing next to their mounts, and every warrior set in one of two column-lines, as if ready to begin the day’s run.
Which they were.
Cul stepped forward, leading a small procession of him and Kern, the other war leaders, and Deirdre, Cailt’s daughter, escorted by Maev. Kern had tried to convince Maev to remain behind. She’d had none of it, though.
“Better be certain about this, Wolf-Eye.”
The flares of dark power. The trembles of pain and deep cold wracking his body. Kern could only be certain that his control was, finally, beginning to give way.
“We’ll be the first to know,” was all he said.
Cailt’s war host was not so large as Murrogh’s, which might have been one reason for his caution. Or, mayhap the sight of ten clansmen marching forward on his line was enough to get his interest. Whatever the reason, he held his position.
And certainly, once he recognized Deirdre in their midst, he was not about to attack. Instead, he spurred forward, followed by his four closest advisors. Riding down the hill to meet with the Murrogh contingent. Close enough now to recognize the chieftain by the mantle he wore—snowy-gray ermine, worn thick over his shoulders in a rich display—and the strong, easy way he sat his horse.
It was an unequal meeting from both sides. Five men on horseback, towering above twice their number afoot. No one with weapons bared, not counting Cailt’s bearing spear or the broken shaft of the bloody spear that Kern cradled in the crook of one arm.
Cul brought his group to a halt while still several dozen paces shy of the bottom of the hill. Waited while Cailt Stonefist came down to meet them. Then, when the chieftain reined in, he stepped aside to allow Deirdre to join him.
“Think to taunt me with the child you stole?” Cailt asked. His voice was strong, and even. He stood up from his saddle, searching. He frowned. “Where is Morag?”
“Morag Chieftain is killed,” Deirdre said. Her voice still had sorrow in it, but it was strong. Cul and Maev had decided that she should deliver the news to her father. But hold back some of the details. “Dead. Your feud is over.”
That caused a moment’s quiet, then some whispered discussion among the five. Kern counted the two obvious warriors, each bearing one of the standards. Another man, as large as his chieftain, with a rawboned face and a murderous stare. War leader or champion? And an elder Lacheishi kinsman with long silver-white hair and pale, pale skin. Kern nearly thought him a Ymirish.
Finally, Cailt spoke again. “My feud is with the Murrogh as well as their chieftain. But I’ll take you home now. Come, Deirdre. There is no reason for you to stay any longer.”
Here was where Morag’s woman could destroy them. If she left now, if she denounced the Murrogh and punished them for what nay anyone could have known these last five years, they were done for.
But she knew her own duties as well. “I have a son, father. Your grandson.” Did Cailt see her shiver, wondering if she had birthed an heir, or a monster? “I stay because it is the thing I should do.”
“And I am here to end this feud because it is the thing I should do,” Cailt said. “And should have done years before.” Still, he had to be counting the men and women lined up on the field. Weighing Murrogh’s greater numbers against Clan Lacheish’s reputation for battle.
Then his gaze swept the near line and stopped on Kern. Blood roared in Kern’s ears.
“Have your own Ymirish advisor as well, yea? Hope that one shows greater courage than the creature who tried to run off on us this morn.”
Torgvall! Kern had seen him during the darkness and his dreamlike visions, escaping by horseback. Was it an indication that the rest of his visions had been real as well?
Cul stepped forward. “Kern Wolf-Eye does not advise,” he said. “He acts.” Another admission that likely twisted a dagger in Cul’s guts. “He acts against Grimnir and the northerner’s invasion of our lands.”
The elder man with the silver-white hair leaned in to whisper. Shook his head. Kern wished he knew what the man offered, as Cailt listened closely, then clucked his mount forward, leading his fist of horsemen right up to Cul’s line.
He dismounted, along with the elder man, and ground-hitched his horse as he stepped within a sword’s reach of Cul Chieftain and the others. This was no man afraid for his own life, not even against twice his own number. He stood as tall or taller than any warrior in line, with powerful shoulders and thick arms and fists like great hammers. On one side he wore a vambrace, protecting his elbow and forearm and easily used for a guard instead of the shield he’d slung over his back. Under the ermine mantle he wore a breastplate of blue-iron steel chased with silver. His kilt was closer to a northern skirt, leather backed by thick wool.
Cailt shaved his temples in a thick bar that nearly passed around the back of his head. His eyes were a dark gray very similar to Hogann’s. Not a great surprise. The Lacheishi often raided for wives on the plateau.
“You,” Cailt addressed Kern. “You fight Grimnir and the rest of his Ymirish?”
“Yea,” Kern answered. Not trusting himself to say more just that moment. “I do.”
The kinsman with silver-white hair nodded. Cailt’s shaman, certainly. “He speaks truth.”
“I was told that all the north belongs to Grimnir’s brethren. And all Ymirish belong to Grimnir.”
Kern might be many things. Including of northern blood. But one of Grimnir’s many blades to hold at Cimmeria’s throat he was not. “You have been lied to, Cailt Stonefist.” He paused, then decided to take a chance. “Grimnir uses your feud with Murrogh to divide Cimmeria, to hold us at a distance while he destroys the Hoathi and the last of the plateau clans. Then the Great Beast will come for you.”
Cailt hesitated. Glanced to his shaman, who stared fixedly at Kern with deep, deep blue eyes. He rubbed a large hand against the side of his face. “You claim to know much of Grimnir’s plans for a man who says he opposes the Great Terror.”
“I’ve chased this enemy across half of Cimmeria,” Kern said. “Across the Teeth and back again. Through Venarium and round the base of Mount Crom and over the Pass of Noose I’ve come. From Murrogh’s forests to the Frost Swamp. Yea, I know Grimnir and his Ymirish. And I know they’ve already struck the first blow against Clan Lacheish in your absence. Your village burns, Cailt Chieftain.”
It all came in a flood, once he let loose the dam. And this last was a gamble. Kern couldn’t say for certain the village he saw under attack was Lacheish, though it matched the descriptions he’d heard from travelers’ tales. The risk, however, seemed worth taking if it shoved Cailt back on the defensive.
Cailt spun around on his shaman, and the elder kinsman hedged. “He believes this” was all he could tell his chieftain. “Mostly. He doubts, yea, but he does not deceive.”
“A trick,” the large man on horseback called out. His hand slapped at the broadsword strapped to his side. “To make us worry, Stonefist.” He spat to one side, rejecting the Murrogh lies. “Grimnir’s plans! It was Torgvall who counseled we hold back.”
“And Torgvall who ran off on us this morn, nay forget that, Loht.” Cailt did not look to his man, but his tone was biting. “Yea, he counseled us patience,” he admitted. “But how do you lead a swine?”
Deirdre recognized the adage. “You push him away from where you wish him
to go,” she said.
Cailt considered it for a full moment, letting the tensions draw out. Then he glanced back to Loht. “Bring them,” was all he ordered. There must have been little doubt to whom he meant, as the warrior wheeled his horse about and kicked it into a gallop, heading back up the hillside. The chieftain of Clan Lacheish faced his daughter, Cul, and Kern.
“Convince me,” he said. “Tell me all there is to know.”
Kern held back very little. Something more than the shaman’s truth-sensing warned him not to deceive this man. And with everything he knew of Grimnir and Lodur and the rest of the Ymirish, he painted a fairly complete picture of the desolation and death being visited upon Cimmeria.
It took some time, especially when he reached his retelling of what he saw of Lacheish, and the destruction brought to it. Cailt asked many questions. The shaman hung on Kern’s every answer, as if ready to denounce him on the spot and, so, make it all untrue.
By the time it was over, the shaman stood on weak legs, shaking, sweating. “It must be true,” the elderly man said, looking as frail as his years suggested. “By Crom, let it be not.”
Cailt held himself rock-still for most of the telling. At times he paced. The small group slowly bent in around him, though he never once worried for it or ordered them back. It was as if the others simply were drawn in against their will. Kern felt the pull as well. The strength this man radiated. No wonder he had held his feud for so many years. Kern doubted there were few things this man would do half heartedly.
Cailt glanced down at the weapon held in Kern’s hands. “And this you have carried to every chieftain?”
“This is the bloody spear I brought from the bluffs above Conarch. It has tokens from every eastern tribe assembled, including, now, Clan Murrogh. And it is yours, Cailt Stonefist, if you lead us north against Grimnir.” He glanced at Cul, at Hogann and the others. “They will recognize no one else to lead them.”
And with that, the tale was ended. Cailt traded stares with every man. He showed no sign of being impressed with the story or Kern’s offer on behalf of the war leaders. He kept his own counsel well. He waited, until Loht could be seen working his way down the hillside with a dozen armed warriors.
Age of Conan: Songs of Victory: Legends of Kern, Volume IIl Page 20