Age of Conan: Songs of Victory: Legends of Kern, Volume IIl

by Loren Coleman

  And then another, as his mind opened to the storm.

  Kern understood instinctively what Lodur and the others had done to create and keep the storm shroud pulled over the plateau. How they had fed it, and tapped into that reserve as needed. Connected through that coursing power, and their blood, Kern felt Lodur struggling inside the lightning, railing at the storm, his grip slipping, and knew he might wrest control from them now. He was more powerful at that moment, at his birth, than he would ever likely be again.

  He felt the life force of his warriors surrounding him. Reave and Daol closest, but another five also struggling against the Vanir. They leaped through his mind like small, guttering torches in a dark night.

  He also felt the wild spark at the back of his mind that was the dire wolf, Frostpaw. Knew that with a nod he could seize control of the beast and break it to his whim.

  And three more ahead. Valerus. Wallach Graybeard. Brig. Wallach’s torch was a mere whisper of the others. A dampened flame; its strength eaten away by the corruption now raging through his entire body. Kern could give him back his health, he knew. Rip the disease from him. Heal over his wounds. It would inflict all the pain normally required in months of healing, but what a simple cost to live again and an enticing taste to consider, as Kern would certainly share in the agony.

  It repelled but tempted at the same time. His Cimmerian heritage, at war with the Ymirish. He only had to choose strength over weakness. His blood over his beliefs. And mayhap he would have.

  If he believed that such unnatural power was ever to be trusted.

  Kern took a struggling step as time reasserted itself. Then another.

  He was running again. Or still. Vaulting the tangle of warriors where Reave wrestled for his life, then was free of the struggling field and running past Lodur. Kern felt the Ymirish pushing back against the lightning strike, caught in place by a web of his own foul sorceries as he pitted the same deep reserve of energy against as Kern had tapped for. The lightning crackled and burst about him. But slowly, from the blade shoved through his gut, he was dying.

  Lodur might preserve his life by healing his wound. He might do so by casting away the storm’s shattered balance.

  He could not do both.

  Certainly he could no longer maintain his hold on the wyvern, which shrieked with maddened fury and stooped one last time over the field.

  And Kern could only do the one thing he’d sworn he’d do.

  He cast his shield aside and ran forward, never looking back, as Grimnir roared his final challenge.

  With blazing, feral eyes and a twisted snarl, the Great Beast laid about with his battle-axe and warhammer. As with the lance still shoved through his gut, Brig Tall-Wood and Wallach Graybeard had done little more than enrage him no matter how deep their cuts. His blood stained their weapons and splashed across the ground, yea. But his was a strength beyond anything faced before. Rooted in the blood he shared with all the Ymirish, and especially with his sorcerers, Kern knew.

  Kern closed fast, heartbeats away, but still too far to do anything as Grimnir slashed his war axe at Brig Tall-Wood.

  The warrior managed to dodge aside from the first blow, but stumbled and sprawled full length over the ground when he tried to slip around behind Grimnir. The beast’s warhammer fell—

  —and would certainly have crushed him if Wallach Graybeard hadn’t leaped forward to push Brig violently aside, taking the smashing blow instead.

  The sidelong blow picked Wallach up and hurled him several lengths, broken and already dying. Kern felt his man’s pain. Felt the blood filling his chest. And could do nothing about it. What he owed he owed also to Ashul and Finn. To everyone who had died at Conarch, at Gaud, and along the entire trail. He could not save them all.

  Including himself.

  Kern moved with a feral grace, driving in low beneath Grimnir’s next hammerblow, rolling and coming straight up into the giant-kin’s shadow. He’d been here once before, on the bluffs overlooking Conarch. He remembered. A long, drawn-out duel where Kern had been overmatched at every turn. In strength. In skill. It had been all he could do, then, to stay alive.

  But nay this time! Here was the assembled strength of Cimmeria. Chieftains and war leaders. He need only strike one blow for them. Just the one.

  Almost without thinking, he reached behind and pulled the bloody spear from his belt. Put one hand at the broken end of the shaft. And drove it into Grimnir’s chest with every last measure of strength he possessed.

  All his hate. The pain. The warmth he’d only begun to experience.

  He loosed the storm’s power, drawing away even from that which held Lodur trapped. The lightning burst into a thousand tiny fragments.

  He channeled it through himself. Added to it the strength it had fed him.

  And more, he refused Ymir’s dark call. He pushed it all away, letting the power course though him and from him, holding nothing back. Letting it burn from his system, scouring his blood of his Ymirish heritage, giving it all back and Crom take him if he’d leave a trace of it behind.

  Everything. Pushed onto Grimnir with one single purpose in mind.

  Severing the link.

  Kern collapsed, unstrung and spent, at the feet of Grimnir. Unable to do much more than roll weakly aside, out from under the monster’s dark shadow, as the Great Terror staggered back, stumbled, and dropped to one knee. Grimnir’s final roar turned into a great, choking groan. It seemed the entire battlefield held its breath at that moment. And then the Cimmerians moaned as the fire-eyed demon climbed slowly back to his feet.

  Hands clutched around the lance in his gut. Slowly pulling it free.

  “You did what you could,” Brig said, crouching next to Kern, blade out and ready to defend the fallen man. He laid a hand on Kern’s shoulder. “Crom’s blood, I thought you’d killed him.”

  “Not by myself,” Kern said weakly. He tasted blood in his mouth. Felt as weak as a newborn. He held back the darkness by force of will, watching as Grimnir’s wounds opened and began to bleed freely once more, seeing the gore that stuck to the lance’s shaft, causing the northern warlord’s hands to slip, and fresh blood seeping out around the bloody spear Kern had nearly fused into the beast’s chest.

  Great no more.

  “He’s mortal.”

  And whether the nearby warriors, the war leaders and chieftains, heard Kern, or saw it on Grimnir’s face, they moved in against him with blades and hammers and axes. Weapons rose, and fell, battering down Cimmeria’s greatest enemy. Knocking him to hands and knees. Inflicting a dozen lethal wounds and having at him for as long as their enemy continued to struggle.

  Until Cailt Chieftain staggered up, raised his Cimmerian greatsword overhead, and brought it down across the back of Grimnir’s neck once. Twice. And the head rolled free. Dropping to the ground. Lying there with a final snarl twisting his face.

  And great, golden eyes staring across into Kern’s.

  Now. Finally. Kern could stop running.

  EPILOGUE

  THE SUN PEEKED through broken storm clouds, low on the horizon, ready to disappear somewhere far beyond the Hoath Plateau, Conall Valley, and the Broken Leg Lands. Its slanting rays warmed the sky with tints of gold and red. Cast those final moments of fair light across the emptying battlefield.

  Kern watched the dying sun, sitting on a cold bench of crumbling sandstone at the foot of a rocky upthrust. The first, best place he could find once he’d recovered enough strength to take himself out of the way. And now he did not move. His mouth was dry, tasting of blood and dirt. His long, frost blond hair hung limp and heavy with sweat. Every muscle trembled with fatigue.

  He sat with his legs splayed out, his shield and sword recovered but hanging heavy at his sides as if he no longer had the strength to lift them. He didn’t. He could barely hold himself erect.

  But he had seen it through. That much he could say.

  He’d seen it finished.

  Grimnir and his dark sorcerers ha
d been the northern army’s greatest advantage. The Vanir could never have matched the Grand War Host’s strength otherwise, even counting their greater numbers. Now, with that leader fallen and those powers lost to them, the northerners broke and fled. A few Ymirish warriors attempted to rally the war host, but each one was soon overwhelmed by the clansmen’s resurgent strength.

  Cailt Stonefist collected two more heads with the same golden eyes Kern shared. Jaryyd Morag’s-son led his men forward on a sweeping run, laying about with his warhammer, shattering several strong Vanir positions. And Cul raced alongside, protecting the man who was certain to become the new chieftain of Murrogh, his mighty blade collecting heads as well.

  Of course, all three men saw Kern, still alive, lying near Grimnir. None of them offered a hand, though Cailt Stonefist traded a short stare with Kern, and nodded, if reluctantly. There was more than a little uncertainty showing on Cailt’s stoic face. As if he still were not certain what he had witnessed.

  Cul also looked but didn’t seem to care one way or the other. As always, Kern was beneath his notice. Now more so than ever.

  Of all the chieftains and war leaders, only Sláine Longtooth and Tergin of the Spider’s Teeth tribe bothered to approach Kern at all. Each man crouched near him, held Kern’s golden stare a moment, offered a grim smile, then left to continue their hunt of the reeling Vanir.

  The slaughter, as might be expected, was terrible. Finally, the smarter and most able among the remaining Ymirish gathered to them the strongest arms they could find and fought their way free of the battlefield. They would be a problem still, but not this day.

  For his part, Kern sat in the dust for a time. Listened to the storm break and the howl of the winds die out, while he stared at Grimnir’s corpse, making certain he believed absolutely the northern warlord was dead and wondering how he himself had been spared when he’d pushed everything into that final blow. As above Conarch, pulling Grimnir over the cliff’s edge with him, Kern had again offered up his own life in order to end the threat to Cimmeria. It had been rejected.

  By Ymir? Or Crom?

  As every Cimmerian knew, it was nay good questioning the gods. They never answered.

  Struggling to his feet, Kern staggered over to where Brig Tall-Wood knelt with Reave and Daol and Nahud’r next to Wallach Graybeard. Someone had already closed the veteran’s eyes.

  Brig looked up and gave Kern a curt nod. “Still alive, Kern Wolf-Eye?”

  “Still alive, Brig Tall-Wood.”

  There were so many men who would not be able to say that after this day. Kern stood there, staring down at another of his wolves. Wallach was beyond pain or any final words, so Kern gave the man the only tribute he could.

  “He died well,” he said. Everyone nodded, and he put a hand on Brig’s shoulder. “One of us.”

  A moment of further silence was all Kern could afford. Dead on his feet, he walked over to recover his discarded shield. Found his sword lying in the dirt near where he’d struck down Lodur. No sign of the sorcerer, but Ros-Crana was there. Bent to one knee, leaning heavily against her blade, which she’d driven point first into the earth. Her skin was pale. Her face drawn and haggard. But she lived.

  And Lodur?

  “He pulled the blade free after the lightning shattered,” Ros-Crana told him. “Cast it aside. I thought he might be recovering, Crom knows how. Tried to reach him. But that creature beat me to it.” And she described the wyvern, maddened and terrible, diving down over the field to find its tormentor. “Grabbed him in its talons. Flew south for the Black Mountains.”

  There ended the last of Kern’s immediate worries.

  “What will you do now?” he asked her.

  Ros-Crana looked up at Kern. Her grip tightened on her sword’s hilt, and she seemed to wrestle with what to say to this man. Or waited for him to say something first. Finally, she shrugged. “I guess I’ll go home. I’ve done most of what I came here to do. Except to say this. You were right. Before.” She nodded. “My brother thought so as well.”

  Though it seemed such a small thing to have come so far, over such a hard road, to do, Kern knew her words were no small admission. And mention of her brother the highest praise.

  Ros-Crana stood then and called for her seconds. And with them, she set off to count up her dead and salvage what she could, what she needed, from the battlefield.

  Which left Kern to seeing to his own men. He sent Reave and Daol to go back for Hydallan and Aodh, and Old Finn’s body. Had Brig and Nahud’r scour the nearby battlefield to see how many more of Kern’s wolves they might find. He then removed himself from underfoot. Found his seat at the base of the small upthrust. And collapsed.

  Never in his entire life had he thought to be so tired. So completely drained of strength. He checked his flask for a swallow of water, but found nothing more than few dribbles. Tossing it aside, he listened to the receding din of battle. Knew when the last Vanir had been driven from the flatlands, and the chase had moved to the plateau.

  He watched the storm shroud break up into a patchwork of dark clouds and wondered if it would rain.

  He waited while the battle ran down into a final, limping halt, and the last of the day faded.

  Ehmish and Gard lived. That was the first news brought back to him, by the men themselves. The young man was battered and bloodied, but alive. And he walked on his own two feet, as a man should, when the two limped up together.

  Gard Foehammer offered Kern a cloudy stare. “Saw Sláine Longtooth,” the tall Cruaidhi said. “Offered me the fox’s tail again.”

  Kern managed a weak nod. “You could start over, among your own kin.”

  “Done that once before, and see where it got me. Two lives is enough for any man. I’m fine where I am, Kern Wolf-Eye. And someone has to look out for the boy.”

  Ossian and Danon lived as well. And Garret Blackpatch, though he had a sword thrust through his leg and would nay walk on his own for some time. Some of the Callaughnan helped him along, then left without a word.

  Desagrena stomped up on her own, searching Kern’s face carefully.

  “He alive?” she asked. As if the question mattered nay one bit to her.

  Kern nodded.

  “Yea. Thickheaded ox. He would be.”

  She set about with Ossian, salvaging any gear they could from the battlefield. Good weapons and small treasures and other trade items. Foodstuffs and heavy cloaks whenever they could find them. The night would be cold, and possibly wet as well. And the wolves had dropped most of their own supplies out on the plateau. Someone would have to retrieve them.

  Valerus volunteered, riding up with two Murroghan chargers flanking him. “Lost you on the field,” he said. He glanced between his new companions. All that was left from his first charge? Or new recruits? “We just kept riding. Figured you to catch up eventually. Being on foot and all.”

  Which accounted for nearly everyone, once Aodh and Hydallan were helped back to the building camp. Then Brig finally found Mogh, buried under a pile of dead bodies back on the upper plateau. Alive, though barely. Broken ribs, a knife still stuck in his shoulder, and a cracked skull at a guess. Nothing likely to improve the man’s sour mood.

  By then the flatlands had been all but emptied of the Vanir hordes. A few wounded raiders to put to the sword as they were found. The winds had died down to a normal breeze, and hardly anyone glanced at the sky anymore.

  Most clansmen not out on the plateau began to think about the night and cleared large areas among the dead. They dumped the bodies of Vanir into large piles. Laid every clansman out respectfully, kinsman or nay. Started fires. Scrounged for food. And some began composing songs to the dead, and songs of victory. They would pause in their work, and chant a line or a verse to try it out. Most had to do with the legendary strength of Cailt Stonefist, whose strong blade struck the head from Grimnir’s shoulder. Murroghan warriors who saw their next chieftain swinging a mighty hammer on the battlefield. Even the Gorram, who saw the final lig
htning fall and knew they had triumphed over the hard road that started at their mountainside village.

  Off to one side, tucked against the rocky upthrust, the Men of the Wolves were forgotten now.

  Though not by all.

  She found Kern still in place, slouched forward as if lying back might very well be the end of him, watching the sun as it first slipped beneath the breaking cloud cover, then sank toward the horizon. He did not hear her. He hardly bothered to turn his head anymore. By then, his muscles had grown so stiff, he wondered if he hadn’t actually died and his mind had simply not caught up with it yet.

  He noticed Maev not at all until she walked past his line of sight, blocking the sun for the moment.

  “Made it back,” she said. Eclipsing the dying light. “Again.”

  She wore the same white wrapping of combed wool. Carried a blanket of shaggy, brown fur in her arms. Raven dark hair, parted down the middle of her head and ragged cut below the shoulders. She wore a stone disk, hollowed in the middle, on a piece of cord about her neck. A symbol of her pregnancy.

  Kern stared through her a moment. It was getting so very hard to think. He rocked his head to one side, staring up at her.

  “Not everyone,” he said. “Not this time.” Wallach Graybeard and Old Finn, at the least, would never run with the pack again. Aodh and Mogh and Garret were still questionable.

  Maev moved out of his view and around him. Draped the fur over his shoulders, his upper arms, and pulled him back into a slouch. He had no strength left to resist, even if he’d wanted to. And he didn’t.

  “You did what you could, Kern.” Her tone was hardly warm. Resigned? Or mayhap only tired as well. “You always have.”

  “Was it enough?” His voice was cracked, and weak, but grew stronger with every word. “Cailt Stonefist leads a force in one direction, keeping the Vanir of a mind to retreat. Jaryyd of Murrogh splits off in another. Already, it seems, the common cause is being forgotten and dropped by the way.”