And four prisoners with hands bound before them.
New pain spiked through Kern’s temples, and at first he had eyes only for the lead captive. A tall Ymirish with the build of a warrior to rival Cailt Chieftain, or, among Kern’s pack, perhaps only Reave. The man’s golden eyes blazed with hatred. A dark, purple bruise covered half his face, and his arm was bound in a splint.
He saw and recognized Kern as well. And maybe something in Kern’s eyes, as sparks leaped and danced between them. Kern tasted deep, raw ice. And steel. Recognizing a piece of himself in the other man. Their shared blood.
Distracting, at the least. It wasn’t until the Lacheishi group was near the bottom of the hill that Kern realized that the other men behind the Ymirish were easily recognized as well. For an entirely different reason.
“Daol! Aodh!” He saw the two men look up. Move apart. The man behind them was just as familiar. “Brig!”
Three shadows, rising up on the hillside. All with bows. They had been inside his vision as well.
Men of the Wolves.
“Your warriors?” Cailt asked. Kern nodded, momentarily struck dumb. “They described you to me this morn. I accepted what they told me as lies and barely listened.” The chieftain nodded once, curt but strong. “As it turns out, they kept their honor. I do nay often make mistakes, Kern Wolf-Eye. But if these warriors are yours, you may have them.”
He nodded, and the three were released. Loht swung down from his horse and used a sharp dagger to cut the leather stays bound around their wrists. As simple as that.
“And the Ymirish?” Kern asked.
Cailt’s smile had little to do with humor. “He was one of mine.” Another glance, and the tall Ymirish was wrestled over to stand before the Lacheishi chieftain. “Is what this one told me truth?” he asked. “Did Lodur betray me?”
“Stonefist Chieftain.” He showed no fear. His voice was strong and steady, and he sneered at Kern. “As I said. I rode north to find his war host.”
The shaman leaned in. Hesitated. His blue eyes stared hard into the face of the frost-bearded warrior. Shook his head.
“Did Lodur betray me?” Cailt asked again. Pushing for a direct answer.
The Ymirish started to answer, then looked to the shaman and hesitated. Kern leaned in, also waiting, willing Torgvall to answer. Warmth flushed over Kern’s scalp, and Torgvall startled. Then,
“Never to my knowledge,” he said carefully.
“Lies,” the shaman whispered.
“Lodur burns my village?” Cailt’s calm was glacial, never once raising his voice. Barely a whisper of emotion on his face. He might be discussing the spring’s hunt or trade with a merchant. “You knew this?”
Sparks jumped in Kern’s vision, pressure surged against his temples, splitting his head.
“Nay!”
“Lies,” the shaman said. More certain this time.
Cailt Stonefist looked to his champion, Loht. The large man appeared completely undone. Clearly, he had once believed Torgvall. But no longer. His face darkened in a threatening storm. His grip on the hilt of his sword was strong enough to whiten the knuckles.
Kern stepped forward, power raging, singing in his blood again and begging to be released. The other Ymirish, though larger, shrank back as if burned. Kern pressed. “You were to keep us at each other. Until Grimnir finished with the Hoathi and turned against Lacheish. Weren’t you?” He all but shouted this last.
“Nay!” Now Torgvall sounded desperate, all the calm and strength fled from his voice. “Cailt Stonefist, I have served you well. Grimnir has nay interest in your clan or your people or—”
“Lies, lies, and more lies!” The shaman turned and stormed away, clearly unable to stand in the face of such treachery any longer.
“Where were you to find Lodur?” Cailt asked, his voice nearing a whisper.
His treachery unveiled, his confidence shaken in the presence of the shaman, and Kern, Torgvall let his anger burst free. “I would not know!” he yelled at Cailt. “If I did, chieftain of sheep, I would tell you to watch you rush to your own death. You head there regardless. Lodur knows you come now. As does Grimnir. He sees through our eyes, every one of us!”
Cailt moved so quickly, with such grace and power, Kern barely saw it coming, and would have expected it from Loht. The Lacheishi chieftain was standing there one moment, immobile and steady in the face of such rage. And in the next he had drawn his broadsword and slashed, once, quickly and violently across the Ymirish’s shoulders. Striking his head off so cleanly, so smoothly, that it rolled for a moment in the fountain of blood, and Cailt’s sword was back in its sheath before the head ever hit the ground.
“Think Grimnir saw that?” Cailt asked. Now he let his voice fill with rage.
Moving to his horse, he vaulted into the seat and reined up right next to Cul Chieftain and Kern. He looked down at each man in turn. Finally, he nodded.
“I must see to my kin and clan, but my war host moves north for the plateau.” Kern shifted, ready to renew their offer, but Cailt cut him off with a glance. “You’ve carried the bloody spear this far, Kern Wolf-Eye. You carry it farther. Carry it to the end and drive it through Grimnir’s black heart, if you are able. I will be there to see it. That I swear.”
He looked to the rest of them. The southern clans. His daughter. Clearly, he was not finished with this matter of honor. But he knew where his priorities as chieftain outweighed those as a man.
“You offered me the bloody spear as a token of peace. That is nay what it should ever be. I do not release our feud, men of Murrogh. Not now. But I set it aside in the face of a greater enemy. You go as you will. But I give you my oath. Any man I meet on the plateau, he is my ally.”
With that, Cailt reined his horse around and drove it hard up the hillside, calling to his men to rally. Rally at their campsite. Rally for Lacheish, and Cimmeria!
The blood pounded in Kern’s ears, as loud as any of Grimnir’s challenging roars. He reeled with the tempting thrill of power, and the pain of holding it in check, brought the fingers of one hand up to his temple, pressing hard as if he might hold back the surge. And he smiled through the pain.
Grimnir had made mistakes before. He’d make them again. But, Kern believed, one of the very worst the northern war chieftain had ever made was to make Cailt Stonefist his enemy.
Finally, the man whom Kern had searched for across half of Cimmeria.
The one who might unite the clans.
19
MUSCLES BURNING AND the sting of sweat in the corners of her eyes, Ros-Crana dug in on the slope with all fours, scrabbling crosswise from one loose-packed trail to the other. A dry fall of dislodged stones rattled and bounced their way downhill. As if the Vanir did not already know right where they were, shouts chased after them from around the bend. Half a dozen. A dozen. She couldn’t say for certain. There hadn’t been time to count heads with arrows smashing into the rocks around her head.
“Keep moving,” she said, gasping for breath. Her voice cracked, and she dry-swallowed. “Come on. Come on.”
A small, stunted clump of heather grew out of the hillside. She grabbed for it, to pull herself up another few lengths. It ripped out of the soft earth and left her sliding backward, dislodging another fall of rock and dirt.
Carrack, just behind and beneath her, cursed as several of the sharp-edged rocks bounced off his shoulder and one side of his head.
“Careful!”
She spared him a furious glance. “Stay back from me if it worries you,” she snapped.
An arrow whistled in, digging into the slope right at Carrak’s feet. They both glanced back, saw the lone archer far back on the trail, just this side of the bend. Reaching for another shaft. Yelling in his native, nasal language for the others to hurry. He had them.
Carrack redoubled his efforts to climb after her, ignoring the cascade of stone and earth that struck at his face and chest. “Not likely, by Crom.”
Clawing their way u
phill and over, uphill and over, both fought for every handhold, every desperate ledge. Where the trail suddenly gave out from an earlier slide, neither warrior hesitated. They threw themselves across, digging in for a new purchase and climbing, scrabbling for the upper edge.
She reached it first, hauling herself over the edge, rolling to one side and reaching back down for Carrak. He caught her hand, and she heaved back. Yanking him forward and up.
Nearly clearing the slope before the arrow caught him in the meaty part of the leg.
Two more arrows slashed overhead as they both crabbed clear of the drop-off. Ros-Crana risked one glance back. Saw five . . . six . . . eight Vanir and still more spread along their back trail. Fighting the slope, same as they had, in order to catch them.
“Never knew the Hoath Plateau . . . could be so amusing,” Carrak said, fighting to keep his breath even. He checked the groove slashed through his thigh. A shallow, bloody trench, dug by the arrow’s glancing blow. “Have to come here again . . . someday.”
Ros-Crana fought for her breath as well. “Have to survive this trip first.”
She untied the flask from her hip, poured a quick splash of warm, leather-tasting water into her mouth, then threw the container to Carrak. Risked another glance.
“Not much more,” she said.
He shook his head. Passed back the flask. “Good to go.”
This part of the run they had it easy. Downhill, most of the way. Around a sharp bend, then another. They heard the first Vanir gain the edge behind them. On a small rise they glanced back, saw him already on the run after them. Forty . . . maybe fifty strides. She’d forgot to count. The next man just now throwing an arm over the ridge.
The dry wash was just ahead. A wide arroyo carved by spring flooding, just now it was dry and littered with the usual castoffs. Branches. Small trees. Round, waterworn rocks. They raced up to the edge and jumped down, landing in crouches a full length below. The bank here had been undercut, creating a small lip above them.
Above, on the trail, they heard footfalls. One set.
She grabbed Carrak by the shoulder, pulled him back with her into the shadow of the overhang. Both warriors drew their blades. And waited.
Not for long. The Vanir did not bother to hold up for his companions. Did not check before he leaped. He landed right in front of them, war bow gripped in one hand, arrow in the other, still fighting to nock the shaft.
Carrak hamstrung him across the back of the legs. Ros-Crana waited until he’d flopped over and opened his belly like a gutted boar, spilling his intestines over the rocky ground. Her new war sword handled light in her hand, as if it weighed half as much as her old blade. A true pleasure to put to use.
They left the raider, screaming and dying, behind them.
“Slow them down just a bit.”
Not too much. The Vanir would not bother wasting time on a dead man. A mercy blade through the heart was the best that one could hope for. But they did pull together, not wanting to repeat the archer’s mistake of getting too far out in front alone. By the time they were climbing out the far end of the wash, Ros-Crana looked back and saw that at least ten raiders had grouped up to come as a pack.
And then slowed. Shouts of warning raised, then died on their lips.
Stumbling to a stop with wild glances left and right as a dozen, a score, twoscore warriors suddenly swept up on either side of the arroyo. Bows and spears held at the ready. Boxing the raiders in with no hope to fight their way free.
One Vanir reached an arrow out of his barkskin quiver. And died the next instant, pinned to the ground with half a dozen arrows. As did the man who threw himself at the side of the shallow trench, thinking to get at one of the enemy with his blade.
No one else tried.
Ros-Crana left Carrack at the end of the wash, leading a small group of Coragin warriors who waited to plug the gap should the raiders try to run for it. She walked calmly back down the upper edge of the arroyo, behind her line of warriors, watching the Cruaidhi across the way enjoy their part in this little trap.
Sláine Longtooth waited on a ledge directly above the trapped men. Studying the haunted, shamed looks on their faces.
Enjoying every moment of it.
“Good to see you again,” he said. “Thought maybe the dogs had you this time a-sure.”
“This rabbit still knows a trick or two.”
“Never would have believed it. And that’s twice we’ve led them into a similar trap, thank Crom.”
“Thank Kern,” Ros-Crana told him. It was Wolf-Eye’s tale of a similar trap his wolves had set in the Breaknecks that had inspired her. And the Hoath Plateau was full of blind draws, good twisted trails, and shallow washes such as this one to lead a merry chase.
She looked down into the soulless eyes of her former predators, now her prey. Selected one at random. He looked to have no more or no less intelligence than the others. And asking for their leader was a waste of time and trouble.
“That one,” she said. Then turned away from the wash.
The singing of bowstrings and the screams of dying men chased after her. Strong in her ears, even after they finished questioning the one survivor and then put him down as well. Still echoing as they hiked back to the Field of Chiefs.
The Field of Chiefs was a place of power to all Cimmerians, where the most powerful chieftains met at times, and where more than once a long-standing feud had been settled by a fight to the death. It had to be nearly as important to the Vanir. Here marked one of the final battles—some legends said the final battle—between Ymir and Crom.
Set at the southern feet of the magnificent Eiglophian Mountains, it was a cleared field of beaten earth with rune-carved stones set in a strange pattern. Dozens of small “eyetooth” bluestones framed the basic outline: vaguely star-shaped, with two of the six spines sticking out farther than the others. Then, twisted off center in the star, was a circle of sandstone megaliths. Hewn out of rock very common to the nearby Eiglophians, the megaliths were each as tall as a man, massive slabs that would have required the strength of half a hundred men to move.
But they were still not the great mystery.
That would be the Standing Stone, set off center within the megalithic circle. A massive, stark, black shaft of rock. Smooth from the polish of mighty hands, or over centuries of weathering, no one could say. No one knew the type of rock it was, or how it came to be standing on the Hoath Plateau, or even the why of it. One legend claimed it was a missile in that long-ago war between Ymir and Crom. Another, that it was the anvil rock for the forge of Crom.
Ros-Crana had seen it once before. She’d had no answers then or now. All she knew was that the Field of Chiefs defied explanation.
And that Grimnir had been at it.
“What do you think he planned?” Sláine Longtooth asked, walking up behind her, joining Ros-Crana among the strangely carved megaliths, in the shadow of the Standing Stone itself. His voice wasn’t a whisper, but it was softer than he normally spoke.
“Crom?” she asked, looking at the standing column of black rock.
A snort of laughter. But again, a soft one. “Grimnir.”
There had never been any real doubt, not in her mind, that Grimnir had taken to the Hoath Plateau. All signs pointed east from Cruaidh, and if she ever did wonder, the violent destruction of several farmsteads and a few small villages along the way always reaffirmed that the Beast, the Great Terror, had been through ahead of them.
And patrols were strong, ready to summon a host to defend the plateau’s more obvious access points. Scaling the cliffs above Spider Lake had given hers and Longtooth’s war host a chance to prepare, and fight on their terms. Or so they had believed then.
They quickly learned the Vanir were not ready to take on such a large force loose in their midst. Discovering this not long after Hult Village, where their combined host of one hundred strong had surrounded and slaughtered and taken the heads of a Vanir patrol numbering only twenty-five, includin
g a Ymirish warrior. It was the only real opposition they found as they moved hard and fast for the Field of Chiefs, everything else being scattered campsites and a few lone scouts.
Ros-Crana had wasted an entire day, in fact, scouring the land around the Field of Chiefs. Certain Grimnir would be waiting, preparing, and ready to defend this landmark.
Now, walking around the Standing Stone, she wondered.
“Something,” she said.
Grimnir had not made the Field of Chiefs his camp. Had not hammered at the megaliths in his usual style of wanton destruction. Instead, he’d built a sturdy wooden tower to rise up next to the Standing Stone, lashing stripped alderwood tree trunks together with strong leather cords that were wet, stretched, so when they dried—and shrank—the structure would not shift easily. All to raise a narrow platform, barely large enough to stand upon, almost even with the top of the shaft.
She had climbed up there, once. Found nothing more sinister than some burned leather stays, a loose timber in the platform, and an abandoned war sword forgotten atop the Standing Stone. A blue-iron blade with a fine edge and good balance, she’d kept that for herself.
She saw no reason to climb up again. Even that first time, she had not felt right about challenging the height of the Standing Stone.
“He treated the Field with something like respect after taking it away from the Hoathi and their allies.” Her voice came slow and measured. Thinking aloud. “This was different. He did not come here to destroy. There was a plan.”
“The Vanir,” Longtooth said. “He knew nothing. Was not even part of the host Grimnir brought here to do this work.” He kicked the base of the wooden tower. All that time and effort to trap a couple of men for interrogation, wasted.
She nodded. “Still. This was important to him. But either he completed his work here, or mayhap something interrupted it.” One hand resting on the hilt of her new blade, she raised the other to rub the prickling flesh on the back of her neck. Then turned in a slow circle, as if some new sign would show itself among the strange carvings or from the Standing Stone.
Age of Conan: Songs of Victory: Legends of Kern, Volume IIl Page 21