Ehmish nodded.
“That leaves the rest of us to take the Vanir campsite.” He drew a small arrow on the southern side of the Vanir, and four circles on the western approach. “Nay telling how many will be left behind. Enough to guard the prisoners and defend the camp.”
“Four, mebbe six, was me,” Wallach Graybeard said, chewing on the long hairs of his moustache.
“So we might have an advantage.” Kern nodded. He pointed at the arrow with the tip of his blade. “Aodh, you get a head start on the rest of us. Work your way within bowshot. Be ready to cause trouble and make sure you’re not shooting Daol or one of the others full of arrows. You will also be closest to Ehmish, and it’s your call if you need to go help him or come down after us.” He waited until the other man caught his gaze, and the meaningful glance toward Ehmish, and nodded.
It was one thing to impress the boy with the seriousness of his part. It was quite another to abandon him out there.
Kern unstoppered his skin and drank a long pull from the leather-tasting snowmelt, swishing it around in his mouth as Hydallan had taught him long ago. Best way to take the edge off a thirst. Swallowed.
“We give Ehmish a few minutes to pull the raiders apart, Aodh the chance to stir up the camp, then we hit them hard as we can.” He drew a line from the four small circles into the Vanir camp. “If you spot the slave line, and its rope, cut the line and throw someone your knife. Keep them with you! Remember, none of them know our plans or how we’ll match up afterward.”
Desagrena brushed locks of oily hair from her face, and nodded. “We grab what we can of their food stores and supplies, and we break away before the rest of the Vanir return. They will expect us to head back south.” She lifted her gaze into the heavens, and found the Pole Star peeking out at the edge of a cloud. “We can do this, Kern Wolf-Eye.”
“For our friends,” Kern said gravely, “we don’t have a choice.”
EHMISH CERTAINLY DIDN’T have a choice. He’d given up that right when he’d stood up for Kern Wolf-Eye, against his chieftain, and volunteered to run north with the rest of them. After their kin.
After Maev.
A stupid fish. That’s what it came back to. Kern giving him back the trout, which Ehmish had snagged from the basket-trap set in the stream’s freezing waters. Telling the young man to give it directly to Maev. Ehmish knew there was something wrong then, with Kern heading south, but the strong gaze of Kern’s wolflike eyes had held him, pressed in on him, and (to be honest) had basically frightened him into it.
Maev accepted the fish with sad eyes and a wry smile. If it was a joke, Ehmish hadn’t seen it. What he had seen was that it was important to Burok Bear-slayer’s daughter. Her approval of the gesture had certainly outweighed Cul’s dark glower, and settled around Ehmish’s shoulders like a mantle of armor.
Where was that armor now?
As the moon slipped behind a thick pile of clouds, the moment Kern had told him to wait for, Ehmish struck the flint he’d been given with the haft of his knife, chipping sparks into a small pile of tinder. When it caught, he quickly dipped one end of a small blanket strip into the brief flame.
Using the burning cloth to light all six torches, he touched off the tinder and twigs Desa had tied to the poles. Shouldering the sapling, feeling its weight press down into his shoulder, Ehmish balanced the long pole carefully to keep it from dipping down and snagging the ground. The bark was smooth except where the hatchet had skinned off a branch. Pitch, smelling of winter’s slow-moving tar and fresh-cut wood, stained his hands. The torches crackled with lusty strength. He hadn’t thought they would provide so much light. It suddenly felt as if every raider in the northern valley could see him. Ehmish’s instincts told him to run. Far and fast, as Kern had told him. But that would come later.
Right now, his job was to draw the raiders out of their campsite, pretending to be the entire rescue party moving by torchlight.
He didn’t feel like part of the rescue. He felt like a large target. “Imagine what it will look like from the raider camp,” Kern had told him, and he tried.
Much smaller than the raiders’ campfire, which had been a small lick of orange flame in the distance before they scattered their embers for the night. Ehmish stared at the three torches burning in front of him, how they dipped and wavered as he staggered forward through the thinning forest. And three more behind. Six sparks of light, dripping ashes and glowing cinders. To the Vanir, they had to look tiny and distant, carried by six individual hands.
And Kern had imagined it all without the aid of any fire for comparison. Impressive. But Ehmish still felt as if he’d been stuck out on a shaky tree limb, trying to keep his balance over a very long fall.
He wondered if that was how it always felt, to be a man.
Not that he was one yet. Or was ever likely to be, with his mind wandering. It was nearly too late, in fact, by the time Ehmish sensed the raiders approaching. A glowing cinder landed on the back of his neck, stinging him just above the collar of his winter cloak. It sharpened his focus for a moment, and suddenly he felt the eyes on him from somewhere far out in the darkness. Kern had warned him . . . quiet and quick. But the torches were barely half-burned when he heard the first stick break in the stillness. Somewhere up ahead!
Was it time? Should he give it another moment? There were no more sounds to warn him. Ehmish knew he’d have to rely on his instincts. And every one of them screamed at him. Run!
As he’d been instructed, first the young man ducked down and back up, bouncing the long pole hard against his shoulder a few times, causing the torches to waver as the blanket ties loosened. One of them up front twisted over, falling to the ground. Looking like it had been doused against the snow. Close enough! Ehmish dumped over the entire contraption, putting the torch heads into the snow and making sure each one had hissed out its last breath of life.
Darkness plunged in, wrapping around him like a smothering blanket. His eyes had grown too used to the torchlight! Kern had warned him to squint, and stare at the ground more than the burning brands. He’d forgotten.
Shuffling to one side, eager to put some distance between himself and the raiders’ attention, Ehmish tripped over a log half-buried in the blanket of light snow. It pitched him over, dropping him to hands and knees.
The frozen touch of the ground stung at his exposed fingers. Crawling forward, near panic, the young man cast about wildly for any sign of danger. Branches scraped at his knees and he smelled scorched snow from where the torches had fallen, but he heard no sign of movement and saw no shadows against the dark backdrop.
Think! It was Kern’s voice in his head, taking hold and thrusting the panic aside. What is going on right now?
The raiders saw the lights doused. They would pause, going to ground in case their quarry had acted on impulse rather than out of fear. So they weren’t moving either!
But they were in front of him. Behind him, too, likely. Ehmish was supposed to run east, but crashing blindly through the underbrush and snapping off dry branches was a good way to bring every one of them after him. Move carefully. Move quietly. Those were warrior’s ways.
Fortunately for him, Ehmish was not a warrior. Yet.
With roars of challenge, the raiders suddenly leaped forward from hiding, crashing in from three sides. Ehmish stood and bolted east, the only way open to him. His eyes had adjusted enough that he avoided the dark pillars of the trees, though branches snagged at his cloak and whipped at his face. He ended up running with hands outstretched to protect his eyes.
But he wasn’t going to outrun the Vanir, Ehmish realized. Especially as he was leaving them an easy trail to follow. He veered toward the thicker stands of trees, where the snow was thinner and would not tell his passage as easily. He considered climbing high, but somewhere he had heard how that was a natural instinct, and the first mistake an unseasoned man made. From a tree, there was nowhere left to go.
Always better to go down. For cover.
&nb
sp; Over there! Where the trees thinned again, spreading out to create several small clearings. The snow was thicker on the ground, but so were a few patches of underbrush.
One hedgelike stand held up a large blanket of snow from the ground, leaving room beneath its branches for a small man to hide. Ehmish dodged in that direction, taking large, jumping strides to keep his footprints to a minimum. Then he grabbed up his cloak, wrapped it about him as best he could, and rolled under the tangle of branches.
Some of the suspended snow fell down on him, and Ehmish took inspiration from that. He reached out and swept long armfuls toward him, building a small wall that might hide his legs. Then, grabbing a thick branch, he shook the brush and brought more of the crusted snow down around him and on top of him.
Pulling the edge of his cloak over his head, he waited.
He waited while footsteps thundered against the frozen ground not a sword’s stroke distant. Waited while the raiders called to each other in their flat, nasal language, all around him.
He waited until he heard the first wounded cry in the distance, which would be Aodh and his bow, and longer while the Vanir shuffled around him, torn between pursuit and a return to camp. Ehmish waited until the forest was filled with the sounds of distant fighting, and the footfalls of the Vanir had all faded away.
And then he waited some more.
9
DODGING AROUND THE back side of a simple lean-to tent, hunched over, Kern stayed low to the ground. The sharp, ringing clash of steel against steel and grunts of exertion drew him around the corner at full speed.
He ducked under the lean-to’s support rope. Raced into the clearing.
To nearly be trampled by a runaway horse.
The Vanir’s entire camp boiled over with chaos. Warriors roared their battle cries or called out the appearance of a new threat. Prisoners yelled to be rescued. A pair of horses, freed from their tether lines by Desagrena, raced about inside the circle of trees and tents, trapped, frenzied. One bled from a cut along its left foreleg, bawling up a storm with its high-pitched cries.
Slipping around the flanks of the wounded animal, careful of its lashing hooves, Kern came at the blind side of a Vanir warrior battling Wallach Graybeard at the center of the raider camp. The two men circled around a large stone ring, inside which the embers of the raiders’ fire still glowed a dull orange. The raider, a large man, belted with a metal cuirass and thick furs, wielding a bastard sword with furious energy, easily outmassed Wallach by several stone’s weight.
Wallach kept his broadsword in the way of the Vanir’s brutal chopping strokes, but wasn’t able to strike back with anything more than halfhearted slashes before the raider was on him again.
Kern struck the man full-body on, shoving him away from Wallach. Tripping over the fire pit stones, the raider rolled through the burning embers with a cry of pain and rage. Kern went after him, circling the fire pit with the haft of his battle-axe gripped tightly in both hands. But when he struck at the raider, the red-haired warrior easily ducked the clumsy blow.
His second cut and a third did no better than slice the air again, though they kept the raider dancing among the live coals.
A return slash nicked Kern’s wrist, stinging him, but he turned most of it against the axe’s thick handle.
He jabbed the axe head at the raider, trying to hook him with the back side of the sharpened flange. An awkward motion, which missed. Surprisingly, Kern was finding the battle-axe hardly as comfortable as a wood axe would have felt in his hands.
Not that it mattered so much when Wallach leaped into the fire pit and laid the raider’s flesh open just over his ribs. The Vanir hissed in pain, but did not drop his sword.
Wallach’s next slash took the man’s hand off at the wrist. Kern’s sloppy overhead chop ended a howl of pain, cleaving through the man’s head, wedging the axe’s thick blade in the raider’s skull.
The stench of crisped flesh and singed furs burned at the back of Kern’s throat. He tried to pull his axe head loose, but only succeeded in dragging the raider’s body half-out of the fire pit. His gorge threatening to rise, he placed a foot into the mess of blood and brain, ready to pry his weapon free. Then realized he wasn’t having a great deal of luck with it regardless.
Dropping the haft in disgust, he reached back and freed Burok’s broadsword. And from the strap over his left shoulder he unslung the small, bronzed-faced shield he’d salvaged from his last battle. With these he quickly chased after Wallach, who had run for the slave line.
Thin rope bound the five prisoners’ wrists and hobbled their ankles together. A chain stretched from neck to neck, attached to thick leather collars that secured at the back. When Kern arrived, Wallach was sawing at Daol’s bindings. The small man gasped in pain and relief as his hands were freed and circulation returned. He struggled with his collar, numb fingers fumbling with the clasp.
Swatting Daol’s hands away, Kern worked it himself. A simple twist of a metal toggle, which popped through a riveted hole and the entire collar and chain fell away from Daol’s neck.
Daol actually hugged the other man, grateful for his rescue.
“Thought you’d be dead in the snow,” he said, voice hoarse and breaking from lack of water. “Where’s Reave?”
Kern didn’t know. Wallach did. “Saw him chased off by a pair of raiders. Two more went toward the horses, and Desa, but Aodh got one of them through the heart.”
Daol paused over the collar of the next slave in line. A man with ebony skin and bright eyes, and very, very far from home to be trapped in Cimmeria. “How many’d you bring with you?” the young hunter asked, amazed to hear so many familiar names.
“Not enough if the other raiders make it back before we’re done.” Kern had looked over the line of prisoners and found the one missing. “Maev?” he asked, an icy fist punching him in the gut.
Daol startled as if stuck with a knife. “He took her.” He cast about, trying to orient himself. “North end of camp. Other side of the hanging felt.”
Kern had seen the makeshift wall, but had not been close enough to look behind it. Figured it to be the local trench. Had Maev been there, bound and gagged, the entire time? He drew the knife from his belt and tossed it to Daol.
“Find Reave or stay with Wallach. Grab whatever supplies you can.” He set off at a sprint, glancing back only once. No sign of Aodh, who should have gone after Ehmish. Desa he noticed scavenging from among packs and slings on the south side of camp. “Gather them and get them out,” he shouted back to Wallach.
He went for the hanging sheet of felt. It lay over a cord strung between two tall pine, on the north side of camp as Daol had said. Kern didn’t bother running around, or trying to lift it as a raider lying in wait might guess. He swung the heavy broadsword up and around, slicing through the thick material, cleaving it nearly in half and forming a door in the privacy screen.
Then followed the sword through, ready to take a blow against his shield.
There was no one there. Just an abandoned bedroll and a large shaggy fur blanket no doubt come with the raider from Nordheim lands. A horned helm rested on a nearby branch, forgotten in his haste to leave. But he had taken Maev with him, or come back for her in the confusion in the camp. Which meant the other raiders might not be far behind.
“Grab and go,” Kern yelled back over his shoulder, plunging after the two sets of tracks in the snow. Moonlight was strong enough to read the trail. “Go now!”
He should have grabbed a pack on his way through. Or returned for one, and maybe find Daol to help him track after the missing pair. He’d also left behind the battle-axe. Kern had his bedroll tied around the middle of his back and a few meager scraps of raw horseflesh wrapped in the oilskin. He had his sword and shield and not much else.
He wasn’t turning back now.
His winter cloak streamed out behind him as he sprinted down a short, shallow slope, crashing through a light stand of brush at the bottom. He used his sword to clear a
bit of tangle from in front of him, hacking at the skeletal branches as if he bore a machete and not a battle-quality weapon. Out through the far side, he saw the wide prints of the raider and the shuffling trail where Maev either stumbled along or was dragged.
Even if the raiders’ leader had fled with the initial onslaught, he could not have better than a few moments’ head start. And why drag along a prisoner? There was only one use Kern could think of for separating Maev out from the others, but not while running. Every ten paces, Kern had to make up time on them.
Then the moon slipped behind the clouds, and he was forced to slow or lose the trail altogether.
“Maev?” Kern called out loudly. He feared losing the trail, or slowing too much, against what the raider might do to her if she called back.
“Here! Over here!”
The shout did not come from too far away, around a small screen of scrub pine and hemlock. Again, rather than go around, Kern came through the evergreens with sword in front of him—to find Maev in torn clothing and a haunted look in her eyes, tugging uselessly on the rope that bound her collar to a tree. Her wrists were tied together, making it difficult to undo the knots. And, of course, she could not reach the clasp at the back of her neck.
She spun around as he crashed into the small clearing. “Kern! Kern he’s—”
But Kern understood at once that Maev had been dragged along as bait and as a distraction at the same time. Staked out in the clearing to give the raider a chance to strike from behind. He dived off to his right, arms flailing, as the Vanir burst from cover with bloodstained bastard sword already stabbing for Kern’s side.
It scored off Kern’s shield, more by luck than design, turning the point away from his kidney.
Kern hit the frozen ground hard, losing his broadsword, rolled and came up with shield between him and his attacker. Expecting one of the flame-haired Vanir or a close cousin of Asgard with their fairer skin and golden hair.
Blood of Wolves Page 8