He considered this, stepping back into the bustle of the encampment, getting caught up in the new activity but not completely losing himself in it. Not this time. That, he’d already tried. He’d gone looking for diversion.
He might have found the beginning of an answer.
NOT TOO DIFFICULT, Kern discovered, to find Jaryyd and Cailt.
The leaders had gathered near the center of the large encampment, where the many different bearing spears had been stuck into the ground in one long line. No one totem was raised significantly higher than the others. None stood forward of the rest. Kern saw the ram’s horn of Lacheish between the spider’s teeth of Galla and the wolf’s pelt of Clan Laeda, a Lacheish ally. It was a careful, well-thought gesture, Kern decided.
The wolf pelt itself did give him a heartbeat’s pause.
Though not so much as seeing Jaryyd Morag’s-son stepping in to slug Cailt Stonefist hard in the mouth.
Now Kern ran forward, hand on the hilt of his short sword and mouth suddenly dry as baked wool. Waiting for blades to be pulled and the slaughter to begin. Knowing that at any moment the call would be raised and the battle between Murrogh and Lacheish, avoided the other day, would spill across the encampment here and now.
Except that it didn’t. There was a cheer from among Jaryyd’s warriors, and not much else. Then Cailt waded back in, and his huge fist came around hard and fast to smash against the side of Jaryyd’s head.
Jaryyd never tried to duck the blow. Kern saw the explosion of pain cross Jaryyd’s face. And Morag’s son stumbled to his hands and knees. Cailt stood above him, surprised, likely, that the younger man was still conscious. He held down a hand and helped Jaryyd back to his feet.
“Well struck,” Jaryyd said. Shaking his head. His left eye was swelling shut, and a large bruise already spread across the side of his face.
Cailt Stonefist smiled through a split lip. Spat blood to one side. “The hunt is mine,” he said. And laughed.
Now it was the Lacheishi who cheered. One man with shaven temples retrieved a red banner, another held overhead a black. The cloth flags were long and tapered. The poles extra tall, to be seen from a greater distance across the sward.
Cailt picked up the curling ram’s horn, held it to his lips, winced, and passed it to Loht, the Lacheishi champion, who blew four strident blasts. The campsite buzz of conversations increased, and the men and women hurried now to finish their stories, to collect winnings or close a barter, and to grab up their gear in preparation for the day’s hunt.
Jaryyd waited next to Cailt, both men eyeing each other as if they’d like another exchange of blows. Each gave Kern a measuring stare, seeing the frost-haired man trot up with his frown of concern.
“Nay worries, Kern Wolf-Eye.” Cailt spat blood aside again. His teeth were stained red when he grinned. “A matter of honor only.”
Jaryyd was not so casual. Setting his thick-muscled legs in a wide stance. Hands on his hips. Looking Kern in the eyes, holding that golden gaze (something not many men did overlong) he held his peace a moment. Mayhap remembering that Kern had guested at his camp, and vice versa, and each had always paid the other respect even if he hadn’t been made welcome.
Finally, he said in a careful tone, “Some say you killed my father.”
Pressure built at Kern’s temples, at the back of his head, with the implied threat. Kern smothered it, waiting. “I killed the creature who pretended at your father’s face.”
“That is another story I hear,” Jaryyd admitted. Though he didn’t sound as if he quite believed it. Yet. “We are not through, you and I. But first we will see who Grimnir’s war host spares. That, at least, you spoke truth. The Vanir were a greater threat than any of us believed.”
“At times it is hard to know what to believe, Jaryyd Morag’s-son.”
“Or whom to trust.” He turned away then, and Kern did notice Hogann and several Hoathi join Jaryyd’s men. He looked back only once. “After,” he promised.
Fair enough. Kern also did not miss the suspicious looks sent his way by other men who followed Jaryyd. Certainly they would remember Kern’s involvement in trying to heal the breach between father and son. Some of them had to wonder if this were Kern’s solution, to bring all of Murrogh’s strength back under one man. The tale of the doppelgänger was, Kern admitted, a far-fetched story if one had not been there to see, to hear.
The Hoathi knew, of course, and believed. But what would they say about it so far as Kern was concerned?
Four more blasts from the horn, and now the entire camp came alive as the bearers of the red and black banners separated on a run to head out east and west from the bearing spears. Kern waited, knowing he should return to his own warriors, but wanting to observe, and catch a further word with the Lacheishi chieftain.
“This hunt will supply us with enough food for the next few days?” he asked.
Cailt traded glances with his champion, then his daughter, who had joined the small gathering. It was Deirdre who answered. “This hunt will provide food enough for weeks, should we need it.” A downcast glance. “Though we do nay expect Grimnir to give us such time.”
Nay. The Great Terror would not be far. And it was time to warn Cailt Stonefist. “Grimnir may know already where we are,” he promised. “And come at us sooner than we think.”
“Because he sees through your eyes?” the leader asked. Saw Kern’s start of surprise. “Torgvall admitted the same, did he not?” As calm as he might be discussing the day’s hunt, Cailt talked of Kern’s possible—if unknowing—aid to Cimmeria’s enemy. He shrugged, as if he had not yet made up his mind. “Our other choice, of course, is the same courtesy we showed Torgvall.”
Strength flooded Kern’s body as the dark power sang. Wrapped in a calm voice or nay, it knew a dangerous threat. Kern swallowed hard. “I would prefer to find a different solution,” he admitted.
Cailt laughed, though not necessarily in favor of Kern. “As do a few others who have come to speak with me, Wolf-Eye, arguing in your defense. As Jaryyd said, we shall see what happens, shall we?”
“Yea,” Kern agreed. Unable to ask for anything more.
At least, on that subject.
He watched as the Grand War Host of several hundred men shook itself out into a ragged line, being stretched between the two retreating banners, never having seen anything like it. The line grew thinner, and longer, over time, until there was one warrior for every ten paces or so. Half a league, at least, they stretched across the sward. Kern expected his warriors to be caught in the procession somewhere out on the red-banner wing. Looking for him? Mayhap they were. But they’d keep. They’d keep.
Now, with a nod from Cailt, Loht blew one long blast to start the hunt moving forward. At each end of the line, the red and black banners waved, and moved ahead, pacing the hunt.
“There is more life than you would think on the steppes,” Cailt said, leading his large horse forward by its bridle. No other charger had mounted yet, waiting for the host’s leader. “Some large game—elk and deer might cross—but mostly small game, which is hard to hunt with a bow. Even traplines aren’t as useful within the tall grasses.”
Kern could see that, stomping forward through the sward. He had finally given over to eastern tradition and had cloth wrapped about his legs. Not for any threat of cold, though, but the sharp-edged grasses, which actually cut at unprotected flesh. One shallow scratch, even two, was hardly worth complaining about. But over hours, the grass blades could leave a man’s legs raw and bleeding.
“We move forward for a league, two, beating the brush and driving all game ahead of us. Then we bend the wings around and forward. Forming a large cup.” He held his hands before him, heels touching, then slowly bent his fingers forward. “By afternoon, the banners will be far ahead of our position, then we wrap them in.” He closed his fingers, forming a large circle with his hands. “Tighten it down, wade in, and we’ll have enough game trapped within our trap to feed the host for weeks. No
thing escapes.”
Which was part of Kern’s final concern. “Nothing,” he repeated. He felt a flush on the back of his neck. “That is one thing I’d like to bring up with you, Cailt Stonefist.”
“Your wolf.”
Did nothing escape the attention of this man? Any chance remark or blurted comment took firm root within his mind, it seemed. And he drew conclusions faster, tied them together stronger, than any other chieftain Kern had ever met.
What if he had turned north, and brought the bloody spear to Cailt Stonefist instead of to Murrogh? What might have been accomplished then?
What if . . .
Kern shook his head, avoiding the questions piling up in the back of his mind. “The wolf is not mine.” No more so than a warrior could be thought of as “his.” Certainly not in the same way a blade or bedroll was owned. “It is . . . has been . . .”
“A totem.” It sounded so simple, coming from Cailt. “I know. And I won’t tell you that there are nay a few who believe we should take this chance to be rid of it. But my command has been very clear. If a large wolf is seen, it will be left alone unless it clearly is not marked as yours.”
Would that stop Hogann, or Cul, from risking Cailt’s wrath?
“On pain of death, Wolf-Eye.” Cailt all but read Kern’s mind. “I do not make idle threats.”
That surprised Kern, Cailt going so far to protect what many considered a dangerous beast. Even Kern was never too certain about the animal, knowing better than to ever turn his back on it. A wolf was still a wolf, no matter how odd it may act at times.
And was a Ymirish, then, still a Ymirish? Was Kern still Grimnir’s tool, a son of Ymir, even if he stood on the other side of the field and raised his blade against the Vanir?
In the end, would he be able to deny the call of his own blood?
Hard questions that plagued him as he shifted down the line, looking for his warriors. He knew from many of the dark, sidelong glances he caught—and all the ones he didn’t, but were marked by a flare of pain and pressure at the fore of his mind—that he was not the only one asking them. And should the answers not be to the liking of Cailt Chieftain, then what?
Kern looked back down the line, saw Cailt Stonefist now astride his horse and leading the center forward at a slow pace. Remembering what the war host’s leader had let drop between them, of the fate that had fallen to the Ymirish, Torgvall.
Remembering as well, Cailt Stonefist did not make idle threats.
21
TWO DAYS AFTER the hunt found Kern crouched at the edge of a low mesa, leaning out over the fall, his gaze roaming across the steppes. A collection of small rocks in his hand, he tossed one, then another, out over the abyss. Marking time. The delay, then the distant clatter of each pebble skipping down along the face.
A sharp wind kicked gritty dust off the mesa’s dry top, swirling it over and around him in a tiny cyclone. He squinted his eyes against the dust devil.
Pitched another stone.
Listened to the fall.
After rolling out his bedroll in the late afternoon, he had climbed the ridge to escape. Ducking the questioning glances. Needing one moment to slip out from beneath the heavy silences that had followed him for several days at meals and on the march. And to see. To look out over the Hoath Plateau’s eastern lands and wonder where out on those desolate plains they would find Grimnir.
Or where Grimnir would finally find them.
The morrow, Kern decided. One more day.
The news might not be good, but he did have a view he could appreciate. Here the Hoath Plateau leveled out between the Eiglophian Mountains along its entire northern border, and the rise of the Black Mountains to the south and west. Having lived for so long in Conall Valley, Kern had always looked upon the Black Mountains and their Snowy River country as great, looming peaks. Now, caught between them and the Eiglophians, he knew the Blacks for the foothills they really were.
The Eiglophian Mountains were massive. A barrier separating Cimmeria from Vanaheim, and Asgard, and even parts of Hyperboria to the far, far east. Winds whipped down from those ranges, carrying a cold with them that could only come from such snowcapped peaks, or from the northern wastes that stretched beyond their rise through Asgard and Vanaheim. Cold enough for hailstones, the day before, but those clouds had moved on quickly.
The sky this day spread a brilliant blue field overhead, running into dark clouds many, many leagues to the west. The breeze was dry, but still crisp with the reminder that spring had not yet blended into summer. Not this far north. Not so high over the Valley or Murrogh Forest, either one.
But a good, clear day. And from here Kern could see over leagues of rolling hills and open grassland. A few narrow, blue ribbons stretched into the distance; streams and small creeks, crisscrossing the open land. Occasionally, he knew, another mesa might rise up out of the plateau. But for the most part, there should have been a great deal of open land out there where warriors could lose themselves. Even so many.
Three hundred warriors at least, all counted. And they were not done building. Men and women continued to trickle in from all directions. Hoathi and Maughan and warriors from half a dozen other villages Kern had never heard of, who had somehow found out about the Grand War Host being put together under the leadership of Cailt Stonefist. And the Galla, of course. Warriors from one tribe after another. A half dozen to ten at a time, they came down off the Black Mountains in answer to Tergin’s signal fire.
They all came, with swords and spears and shields and often little else except the desire to stand against the Vanir invaders who had wrecked and ravaged their way across Cimmeria for too many years.
And by all reports, still not strong enough.
“Thinking about jumping, pup?”
Hydallan’s voice startled Kern, who had neither seen anyone begin the climb from below nor heard an approach. Too lost in his own thoughts, yea, but still, seeing the entire pack spread out behind him, all sixteen, set him back a pace. Even Valerus, though the southerner was nay a good climber. And Wallach! With one hand missing, the arm turning black and septic, he’d nay reason to make such a climb.
“How did you find your way up here?” he asked.
Daol smiled. His gray eyes bright and alive, like a hunting falcon. “Ehmish and I scouted a good trail ahead of the host. An easy hike, with very little climbing.” His voice sharpened. “If you’d been around, you’d have known.”
“Busy,” Kern said, returning his attention to the scene below, to the anthill activity of so many men and women as they fetched water, checked their weapons and their armor, and built up many, many cooking fires.
Food was hardly a problem anymore, with the success of Cailt’s hunt, and few clansmen saw any reason to hold back with good meat to stake out over a fire. Kern still found it hard to believe the war host had stirred up so much game. Closing ranks across a wide stretch of the sward, the red and black banners finally bending around to close the circle, they had then tightened the noose to strangle the creatures within just as Cailt had planned it.
Finally, the grasslands had been unable to hide them all. Strange, to see a puma running side by side with a stag, and among a stampede of hares and quail, fox and pheasant and, yea, wolves too. Predators and prey were all among the hunted now, and had no time for their usual chases. Pacing, bounding back and forth, and occasionally making a break for an edge of the closing noose.
The puma made it, coming in low and fast, leaping past a startled Hoathi who picked up a set of bloody stripes for his slow blade.
The stag did not.
So much meat was not about to escape the war host’s grasp, and half a dozen arrows brought it down in a tumble. Then it was out swords and to work as well. The slaughter was frenetic and bloody, and left behind tired arms and the warriors spattered in so much blood one might believe they had already come against Grimnir’s hordes.
But nay. That was not the case, yet.
Kern studied the western h
orizon again. Felt the stares burning into his back and tamped down the threat of power that whispered to him, as if he’d need it to defend against his own.
They stood back of him, waiting him out. Not one of them said a word, or moved to join him. But neither were they going to retreat and leave him be, he knew. His only decision was to slip over the edge of the drop, and climb for the lower steppes. But he knew they’d be waiting for him there. Or back at camp. Or on the field of battle.
And he owed them better than that.
He stood, tossed his final few stones out over the drop, and left them to rattle and clatter away in a fast, violent fall.
“I’ve had some things to think over,” Kern said.
His heels hung out over the drop. The gusting winds tugged his long, frost blond hair out to the right in ragged streamers. Whipped more dirt off the mesa and swirled it around him in another quick dust devil. He swallowed against the gritty taste and the tight knot in his throat. Finally, stepping away from the cliff, he walked over to the waiting pack.
Stopped soon enough to leave a wide gulf between them. Several steps that not anyone seemed willing to cross. They waited, as if expecting more from him.
Always, always expecting more.
“I’ve nay any need to explain myself,” he said.
That struck at a many of them like a slap. Daol and Reave, who had stood by him since childhood. Desa. Aodh. Ehmish, whom Kern (and many of them) watched over like a son. Hydallan, who had acted as much a father to Kern as he’d ever known.
Wallach Graybeard, pale and sweating and feverish, with dark pits for eyes, having given more to the pack than anyone save Ashul’s sacrifice in Gaud. Kern saw the old veteran recoil and felt the worse for it.
The man should have been back in Murrogh getting his arm shaved and cleansed and maybe—maybe!—saved. At least made comfortable for his end. Kept warm and preferably drunk. Not hauling himself atop a mesa after a full day’s run, tying a tourniquet around his arm, higher and tighter every day, so he could buckle his cuff over the black stump without the unbearable pain.
Age of Conan: Songs of Victory: Legends of Kern, Volume IIl Page 23