“I think he didn’t finish,” she said. “I can nay say why I feel that, but I do.”
And she could almost hear the echo of Grimnir’s angry roar. Felt a touch of his sudden rage and the peril of his distraction.
Saw the charge of power that had shimmered in the air over the Field of Chiefs, cracking the sky in a harsh clap of thunder. It shook the ground. One Ymirish sorcerer keeled over as the darkness took him forever. All their work, lost, with nay time to begin again.
And there was Grimnir, picking himself up off the ground where the discharge of sorcerous power had thrown him down roughly. Staring south and east, and knowing where the distraction had come from.
Roaring a single name at the heavens . . .
She swooned. Stumbled. If Sláine Longtooth had not been there to catch her, support her arm, she’d have lain out over the ground in the same place where Grimnir himself had fallen.
“Easy, woman. Easy.”
He tried to sit her down, back to the cold stone of one of the large megaliths, but Ros-Crana shook her head. Staggering under the weight that had struck at her just now, working off the deep, deep cold settled into her joints, her muscles, she forced herself to keep on her feet until they had cleared the eyetooth stones. Then she sagged to the ground as Dahr and Carrack and several Cruaidhi warriors jogged up to see what was the matter.
Ros-Crana recovered her strength quickly. She climbed to her feet, ignoring the offered hands, the concerned frowns and the sidelong glances.
“Get the host together,” she ordered Dahr and Carrack. “We move, running the night and all of the morrow.” The two men hesitated for barely a heartbeat. “Now!”
Both fled to carry out her command. Longtooth nodded his own men after them. Leaving just the two chieftains, once again. “What?” he asked.
“Whatever Grimnir planned, the work was interrupted and lost. It killed one of his sorcerers. Don’t ask me how I know, Sláine Longtooth.” She shivered, recalling the ripple of power tearing through the air above the Field of Chiefs. “Just be thankful that it is so.”
“How did it happen? What interrupted it?”
“Not what. Who.” She shook herself. Threw off the last of the chill that had settled in deep, deep. “Only one man could make Grimnir that insane with rage.” The name she had heard bellowed at the skies.
Kern.
“He’s still alive,” she said, staring south and east across the plateau.
“And Grimnir is moving directly for him.”
20
IN HIS LIFE, Kern had never thought to see a Grand War Host.
It assembled on the plateau’s eastern steppes, north and west of the Frost Swamp but still east of the final peaks of the Black Mountains, just after first light, while morning dew was still fresh on the tall, sharp-edged grass of the sward and an easy, dry breeze promised a good day’s weather. Murrogh’s strong force had arrived the day before, bringing the warriors and still bearing tokens from half a dozen villages. Gorram. Galt and Borat. And at this dawn came the war host of Clan Lacheish, eighty men strong and representing the best warriors of the north-plains clans.
This many men and women he had not seen gathered in one place since the last battle against Grimnir, on the bluff above Clan Conarch. Everywhere Kern looked, there was activity. Weapons inspected for rust, for nicks, being stropped against hand-sized hunks of black whetstone. Water carried in leather buckets from the nearby creek, always careful to dip above any man or woman coloring the stream. Bedrolls being tied up for travel. Horses fed.
And where men and women gathered, there were contests. Feats of strength. A few blows exchanged to settle honor debts or simply for the entertainment. Dicing, yea. Kern saw one man lose a fine dagger with a ruby the size of his thumbnail set in the pommel. Another ring, sketched out where the tall grasses had been beaten back or pulled from the earth, the bones running hot, cost two women a friendly grope.
Kern wondered, at the end, how many kin were going to find themselves picked up and carried off to a rival clan.
But by far the largest exchange was not in gambled treasures or honor, but trade. Two good knives for a leather vest studded across the shoulders with blue-iron spikes. Golden rings for silver armlets, much like the ones Kern wore. And tales and songs. Those were high stock among the easterners. The story of Cailt Stonefist’s challenge to become chieftain was worth at least as much as the song for Deirdre’s capture, as told from the Murrogh side. And one could always throw in a legendary exploit of Conan to sweeten the deal.
His battle against the wizard-king of Golamira.
Conan’s brief marriage to the black pirate queen.
The warrior’s victory at Gorram Village, where Conan fought through an entire morning, slowly retreating up the mountainside and leaving a trail of dead bodies at every step . . .
Kern hurried on, tall grasses whipping at his legs.
Not everything was so easy, however. There were bloody fights as well as bruising ones, and one killing that Kern heard tell of, though the other man involved was cast out from Lacheish for violating Cailt Stonefist’s pledge of alliance. There were also a great many hostile stares and dark mutterings wherever Kern went. Hands reaching for blades, or balling into heavy fists. People knew who he was. Some even accepted him with a simple nod or a word passed. Most, though, had lost kin and kind to the Vanir raiders and their Ymirish masters.
Not much for Kern to do about such feelings. He always passed on quickly, never staying in one place long enough to be challenged. Or, for those looking for him specifically, easily found. He moved from group to gathering, listening in, and watching. Counting the number of times he saw fine leathers traded for wine, and mead. Or extra swords, a spare shield, some heavy furs . . . for food.
This last was the problem that concerned Kern most. The Murroghan host—more specifically, Morag—had not planned actually to set foot so far north. And Cailt Stonefist had sent back many of his supplies (and a few dozen warriors) to bolster the survivors at Lacheish.
Cailt had dismissed Kern’s concerns when he brought them up the night before, the chieftain arriving on horseback far ahead of his main force. “Tomorrow we hunt, and we feast,” the leader promised.
Though Kern had seen very little in the way of active game bounding across the steppes, Cailt had sounded very certain. And Hogann, who knew these lands as well as any clansman could, had nodded.
“Something to witness,” Deirdre promised the doubters among the group. Mainly warriors who had come up from the thick, well-stocked forestland surrounding Murrogh.
So far, nay anyone had found a reason to doubt Cailt Stonefist. So none questioned it further.
“Kern!”
His name brought a few heads turning and silence from several nearby knots of warriors. The dark power surged, feeling out for any threat, any challenge. Since that morning, after Morag’s doppelgänger’s death, it had never quit him. Never allowed him to smother the call completely, banishing it as he had once before. It was one of the reasons he avoided the others.
One of many reasons.
But it was only Ehmish this time. The boy trotted up with a wary expression, suddenly aware of the uncomfortable silence that surrounded them. Kern pulled him along with a glance, working their way across the encampment.
He said nothing. Let Ehmish keep up or fall back as he wanted. Waiting for the other to speak first.
“Kern, Jaryyd has arrived. And his men with him. They look for Cailt.”
That could be trouble. Had anyone told Jaryyd how Morag had been a creature of the Frost Swamp? Or had they merely told him that Morag was dead, and Murrogh’s war host pledged to Cailt Stonefist of Lacheish?
He nodded. “Find Daol. Find Aodh and Brig.” Jaryyd had always seemed to get on well with the hunters. And those three had also been close to hand when the feud was set aside.
“Nay anyone knows where Brig took himself off to,” Ehmish complained.
“Ossian, then!
And rouse the others.”
“Why for?”
“When I know, you’ll know. Off with you!”
With a glare, Ehmish turned and ran for the western edge of the large encampment, where most of Kern’s warriors had set up their own small community. As usual, preferring their own company.
Used to it, by this time.
Kern had not meant to be quite so hard on Ehmish, but ever since his return the questions had come faster and with sharper points to them. His warriors wondering what had happened and why Kern had not told them his plans ahead of time, and what chance did they really have of finding Ros-Crana, creating a lasting alliance with the Lacheishi, and routing Grimnir’s hordes.
For the first, he was not of a mind to speak of it. The latter . . . as he’d said, when he knew, they’d know.
Just now, he knew he had to find Cailt Stonefist and Jaryyd Morag’s-son.
THAT MORNING BRIG Tall-Wood had hitched up his leggings, grabbed his bedroll and blade, and decided to take some time in a walk around the war host’s encampment.
At the fire pit, Ossian used a charred stick to scatter the last of the morning coals. He’d piled a few last flat cakes on a rock at its edge, and when Brig stomped by, the Taurin stabbed one off the top with his dagger and offered it. Brig hesitated, waited. And then, teeth clenched hard enough his jaw hurt, took the oatmeal cake from the blade and traded it for a nod.
No one else bothered him. And by the time he’d lost himself in the bustle of the breaking camp, he’d already lost his taste for food.
He could nay take it much more, he decided. The heavy silences that followed him around. Followed them all around, really. But then there were those long pauses when he spoke with the others, that little shrug when they made up their minds to talk with him, and the way they then acted as if nothing had ever happened.
As if it did not matter that he might have, at most any moment, challenged Kern. Or, by simply not pulling his own weight among the warriors, let the Wolf-Eye die under a Vanir blade. Or under a mammoth’s feet. Or in the clutches of the snow serpent on the Pass of Blood.
When Kern rode off on Valerus’s horse below the Frost Swamp, Brig had expected to be challenged right there. Kern had seen the truth about him, and certainly others had as well. But Kern’s only comment among his preparations was to pull the other man aside, and whisper, “Still alive, Brig Tall-Wood.”
Despite Brig’s best efforts? Or acknowledging his ultimate choices?
Unable to answer it for himself, Brig could only follow his gut. There had been a note of finality in Kern’s comment, and Brig couldn’t say it did nay bother him. So he’d gathered his bedroll and a fresh flask of water and set out after Kern not a moment after their leader had ridden away.
“What do you think you’re about?” Daol had asked him then, seeing Brig’s preparations.
Now? Was that the accusation Daol did not put on the end of his question?
“You think he’ll nay need help?” Brig asked in return.
There had been the first long pause, and to be fair the only one he’d gotten from Daol. Then the other man gave that little nod Brig had come to know so well these last days and quickly stripped his own kit down to the basics. Bedroll and blade. Light food and plenty of water.
It had been a long, hard run.
And now, with it over and Kern returned to them, the Men of the Wolves waited. Milled about, as if uncertain of their direction, their purpose. Among such a large gathering of clans and kin, it was easy, too easy, to lose their sense of purpose. Brig wasn’t certain how much longer they could wait.
Not that he expected to find answers among the different groups who diced and bartered and traded songs for stories, blades for food. A diversion was what he’d sought. But the games of chance and tests of strength held no appeal for him this day, and Kern had heard—and helped build—enough legends of mighty Conan to have his fill of stories as well.
Nay many of them believed anymore that their own adventure would end with anywhere so neat an ending as the Cimmerian legend always managed.
So he wandered. He ate the scorched oat cake slowly because his body needed the energy. Chewed absently. Struck a trail through the swordgrass not already trampled by others and was thankful for his leggings as the sharp-edged grass slapped at him with every stride.
That was when he spotted a familiar face, lugging deadwood branches of pine and hemlock. Topknot. A spider-shaped tattoo on his shoulder. Clan Galla. Brig knew him for one of the men who had chased north with Kern’s wolves, looking for their kinsmen. And there was another, also with his arms piled high of evergreen branches, though his looked still to be fresh, green wood.
And another.
If diversion was what Brig sought instead of answers, he had found it. Bending his path through the tall sward, he followed after them to the outskirts of the encampment where Tergin and a small party of others worked to uproot grass over a wide clearing near one of the small creeks. They grubbed on hands and knees, getting down below the sharp blades to grab up the grass stalks and rip out handfuls at a time.
The Galla saw Brig’s arrival, and many traded nods of greeting with him. No pause. No hedging. If for nay other reason, Brig decided to stay. Even help as the mountain tribesmen built a good-sized fire in the center of their clearing, and began to pile it high with tinder-dry branches to create a blazing bonfire that might have warmed dozens of men at night but seemed a wasted effort and a danger among the grass sward during the day.
A few men stood nearby with leather buckets already full of water. And others were wringing out a large blanket they had doused in the creek. Precautions, in case a stray spark set the grass afire? But the grasses were too wet, and Tergin had planned well; there was too great a distance between fire and sward.
“Planning for a large cooking fire?” Brig asked, breaking the silence. He knew the Galla could go for the entire day without talk. And often did. If he wanted to know, he needed to ask.
Tergin watched as his warriors added more branches. The flames danced higher than his head, and the crackling roar of dry tinder being consumed brought a small circle of onlookers to surround the Galla. Standing closer to the flames than most, Tergin let the heat work against his face, his bared chest and arms. Soon, sweat glistened against his skin. And Brig’s.
“Cailt Stonefist needs more warriors,” he finally said. As if this answered Brig’s question.
“And a fire will help this?”
“Yea.”
Brig had seen stranger things, he decided. And watched as the green stick branches were hauled over to be thrown atop the crackling blaze. Then armloads of the wet grasses he’d watched the Galla tear from the ground. More branches.
“They’ll smother it.”
“Yea,” Tergin said again.
And they did. Burying the flames until thick, acrid green smoke roiled out of the fire. Their audience backed away, eyes tearing. The Galla crowded in closer, and Brig with them, squinting into the stinging smoke. Feeling the green scent burn up into their nostrils, scratch at the back of their throats.
Then Tergin called for the blanket.
Brig remembered then Kern’s tale of being taken to the Galla campsite. That Tahg Chieftain had claimed to know how many Vanir pursued them up into the Pass of Noose by the smoke from their campfires. As Brig or Daol or Hydallan might read trail sign, knowing the size of a herd by counting prints, or broken twigs, or the width of a trampled bramble, so the mountain clansmen often looked to the skies.
Now Brig stared west, where the Black Mountains rose to snow-dusted peaks, and wondered.
The large, dampened blanket was spread between four men, Tergin among them. At a rush they threw it over the blaze, bringing it down and holding it until they might have smothered the fire themselves, but really they waited just long enough to build up the heat deep inside and contain the smoke.
Then, they stripped back one side to let a heavy cloud roil out and up.
Again, and again. When the blanket began to dry, warriors splashed water from their leather buckets over it. The sky overhead filled with a drift of artificial clouds. Small ones. Long, large ones. Brig saw nay pattern to it, but trusted Tergin knew his craft. And after a time the work was rewarded when one of the Galla stopped and pointed.
Far up on the slopes of the Black Mountains, a long column of smoke rose in a dark, waving banner.
Then another.
There was a great deal of pointing and excited talk among the crowd as well. Some pushing. Some arguments. More than a few suspicious glares thrown at the sweating, struggling Galla. To some, Brig knew, it might seem like sorcery. And the clansmen knew enough to want no part in what they did not understand.
He debated stepping back to explain it, but the idea was interrupted when a blaring horn sounded from the center of camp. Nothing like a Vanir war horn, Brig knew, counting four short blasts. Looking toward the center of camp, he saw several tall banners being waved. One black. One red.
The hunt was about to begin.
And just in time. The crowd dispersed, black looks traded for cheer and expectation of a good day and a large feast at its end. Most of them, anyway. There were still a few distrustful glares spent on the Galla, who continued to work their fire so long as it poured out thick, green smoke.
“They aren’t certain what this is,” Brig said, as if apologizing for the other flatlanders. The horn sounded again. Again with four summoning blasts.
Tergin shrugged in Galla fashion, tipping his head to one side, then back. “They can ask,” he said. A glance at Brig as he, too, moved away. “You did.”
So he had. And, Brig realized, at times the solution was just that simple. Isolation and silence could be overcome, after all.
Age of Conan: Songs of Victory: Legends of Kern, Volume IIl Page 22