Blood of Wolves

by Loren Coleman

  He stomped on the other man’s shoulder, then his ear, kicking him away from the table.

  Kern and Daol rolled over onto Brig, pinning him flat, while Desa slapped the hot iron against the front of the wound, then into the second arrow puncture as well. There wasn’t a lot of fight left in him after that. When they let him up, Brig simply rolled away and dropped heavily to the ground, eager to be free of his torture. He lay there next to the table, pounding a fist into the cold earth until the pain subsided enough that he could stand on his own.

  “He’s lucky that broadleaf head didn’t do much more than slice muscle and fat,” Maev told Kern.

  Brig climbed slowly to his feet. “If that’s luck, by Crom, small wonder I fare poorly at dicing.” He gave a choked laugh, and shoved himself away from the table. Trudging toward one of the fire pits, he stopped long enough to give Maev and Daol a nod of thanks and Aodh a wince of apology for the man’s beet red ear.

  With Kern, he simply traded a long, measuring stare.

  By evening the dead were in the ground and by midmorning of the following day the wounded had all been taken care of to the best of anyone’s ability. Taur also had a healer, fortunately, and she worked as hard over Kern’s people as she did over her own, sewing shut wounds and applying damp poultices that smelled caustic but immediately took the sting out of cuts and deadened bruises. She had spread a gray salve over the shallow cuts on Kern’s chest and arms. It cooled the raw edges of his wounds and took a bit off his infection fever as well.

  It was also her work that saved the life of the Brythunian. A merchant, as it turned out. Those had been his horses in the possession of the Vanir raiders. He didn’t begrudge their loss, happy still to be alive after the last several days. But he was in no great shape for hard travel. The Taurin healer recommended a litter and far too much attention to his wounds than Kern’s small band could give.

  He also had little interest in hunting down the raiders, which was why it was determined to send him south to Gaud, with Maev and any others.

  With many others, as it turned out.

  Liam, the Taurin chieftain, brought more of his clan’s rapidly depleting stores and twelve village elders with him to an evening meal shared with the Gaudic band. Liam Chieftain had more gray hair in his beard than Aodh, and diamond-hard eyes that had seen too much in his lifetime. He scraped his scalp bare, which was an uncommon custom in winter but not unknown. Bushy eyebrows and his ragged goatee more than made up for it.

  He carried a ceremonial arming sword to the cleared area—nothing more than a token of resistance. Perhaps, Kern decided, the chieftain was simply trying to match Kern’s own weapon. He didn’t explain that he carried the arming sword by necessity, not as a courtesy to their host.

  Kern also decided to leave Burok’s broadsword wrapped up in his bedroll.

  Talk had barely turned toward who would accompany Maev back to Gaud when the chieftain made his offer. “We can offer a limited amount of supplies—jerky and a few skins of ripe ale, dried vegetables—to those who are moving on. Consider it a ransom on the village.”

  Liam Chieftain opened a skin right then, in fact, and took a strong draught before handing it on to Kern, who drank. The ale was dark and tart, on the edge of turning after too long in storage, but it left a promise of summer on his lips. It also freed up his guard a bit, which in Cimmeria was not always a bad thing.

  “That’s not why we fought,” he said. “We can take care of our own, Liam Chieftain.”

  The man shrugged. “A simple gift, then. Something to help you on your way.” Again, the chieftain stressed the idea of the Gaudic warriors leaving. Soon.

  “You wish to know when we are quit of Taur,” Kern said. It was not a question.

  “Yea. That is exactly what I wish to know, Kern Wolf-Eye.” He glanced at nearby clansmen and kin. “We’ve known your looks on the face of Vanir raiders at least three other times this past year. Your appearance does not sit well with many here.”

  But other than having seen Ymirish come through, leading Vanir warriors, Liam Chieftain knew little else of the strange men. Kern nodded, then looked around the mix of Gaudic clansfolk and Taurin. As twilight darkened and fires glowed ruddy health on the faces turned toward him, he weighed his own choices against those of the others. “I plan to leave on the morrow,” he promised the Taurin and informed his people at the same time. “First light.”

  Maev shifted in her position near Kern. “Those of us able to return back to Gaud will leave by midmorning. We have wounded to tend. Any extra blankets and food you can spare, we will accept.”

  “It shall be done,” Liam promised. “Burok Bear-slayer was a good chieftain and a good adversary. His midwinter raid against our cattle herd showed daring and cunning. Cimmeria needs strength such as Gaud shows.”

  That, and much more, Kern thought. Looking from chieftain to chieftain’s daughter, Kern passed the skin to another warrior, then stared into the nearby fire. “You could both do better,” he offered quietly, broaching an idea that rattled around inside his head. He glanced over, saw he had their attention.

  “Gaud has great strength, yea. But Taur has shown itself to be strong in the way of planning and preparation.” He nodded toward the protected lodge. “Your food stores are deep. Your defenses are strong.”

  Liam stuck his chin forward proudly, but his eyes held a wary cast. “What are you thinking, Wolf-Eye?”

  “Looking at what you have done here, that both clans might survive and be stronger if they shared strength.”

  Liam stood abruptly. “What is ours is ours alone! It belongs to Taur.”

  “And how long could you hold off another Vanir war party? Next time they will not stop with a few huts, or a stable. Next time they will burn the rest of your village around your ears, Liam Chieftain. You do not have the warriors to stop them.”

  “Do not think we are so easy prey,” the chieftain warned, his face flushing with anger. Still, he did not argue against his clan’s current weakness.

  “How many of your people have struggled south in the last few weeks as raiders attack and burn and eat away at the strength of Taur?” Maev asked, standing. She angled her way past a few crouched warriors until she stood a good arm’s length outside of Liam’s reach. “If I see what Kern is proposing, he is not suggesting you give up anything. But that we trade. Our combined strength for food and defensive help.”

  Shifting about on a small camp stool, Kern pounced on the chieftain’s hesitation. “Your clan is dying. The raiders know it, and they will come back.”

  The man scoffed. “How can you be so certain?”

  A wolf howled out in the night, calling to distant kin or warning them away. Kern’s wolf, he was willing to bet. He listened to its yelping call, letting it die into a distant echo before he fixed each Taurin with his own predator’s stare. “Because that is what I would do.”

  That did not sit well with several, reminded only a moment ago how Kern resembled some leaders of the Vanir raiders. Many shifted uncomfortably in their seats. A few hands crept toward daggers, toward sword hilts.

  Liam rubbed at the smooth side of his check, just along the hairline of his goatee, thinking.

  “As would I,” he finally admitted. “Crom curse me if I didn’t. The village has lost too many, fled south. And we’ve lost more traipsing up to the northern skirmishes this year. The raiders are a plague, and we haven’t the means to fight them alone anymore.”

  “Then stand with Gaud,” Kern said. “Take your people south with everything they can carry. There is room. They will make room.”

  “You can promise this, Wolf-Eye? You are outcast.”

  “He is,” Maev agreed. “But I am Burok Bear-slayer’s daughter. Cul Chieftain must listen to me. If I leave Gaud, more would follow me here than would stay with him. They will accept you.”

  It was a dangerous commitment for Maev to make. Kern saw Brig Tall-Wood start, ready to jump to his feet and defend Cul. His dark glower,
though, and his lack of action argued that he did not necessarily disagree with Maev’s promise. Of anyone, she likely could break Clan Gaud.

  Maev’s words had the desired effect. Liam Chieftain stood and considered, and finally nodded. “I will think on this,” he promised Maev, then turned back to Kern. “But first, I will see you and your wolves away from Taur. At first light.”

  Kern held the chieftain’s gaze a moment, then nodded.

  But Maev frowned. “Where will you go?” she asked.

  He did not hesitate. “I will head north and west.”

  “The raiders broke for the northern trails,” Daol said, as if reminding his friend of something he should already know. He had tracked out away from the village for several hours and reported back the same information privately to Kern and to Liam Chieftain. Now he made it public. “A few scattered out on their own, but I saw signs that most followed in one large band.” Following the Ymirish, he did not have to say.

  “I intend to track them,” Kern admitted, staring at Daol. He shifted his gaze to Liam. “I will hunt them.” To Maev. “And I will kill them. If I can, I will draw the fighting from Conall Valley, away from our villages.”

  “How?” Maev asked, her voice tightly reined. “According to Liam Chieftain, the northern valley clans have failed to hold the raiders back all winter. What more can you do, Kern?”

  “I will push over the western pass, into the Broken Leg Lands,” he said. “If I must, I will take this fight all the way to Vanaheim itself.”

  Except for the crackling flames, silence reigned. Gazes roamed the fireside meeting as several clansmen took measure of one another, and of Kern’s promise. He had not arrived at it lightly. Looking back, to the moment he had turned north after the Vanir raiders, this had been the path he’d chosen. For himself, and those who had come with him.

  Reave simply shrugged. “Well, nay sense coming all this way for nothing,” he said. He swigged the last of his ale, tossed the dregs into a nearby fire, which hissed and spit. Desa was only one step behind Reave in agreeing, nodding her support. Wallach, too.

  Daol looked to his father, then accepted for the both of them. Hydallan couldn’t help adding, “You’d be starving pups within a week without us along.”

  Ehmish glanced around, looking trapped. A young kit on its own for the first time, being forced to make a decision that could mean survival or death. To his credit, he hesitated barely more than a few seconds. “Better what I have now, here, than what I might find when I reach the southern borderlands.” He shook his head, laughing silently. “I am nay Conan.”

  Aodh, too, continued to cast his lot with Kern. And Garret. Maev offered to take Nahud’r back to Gaud, but the Shemite demurred with a slow shake of his head. “There’s nothing left for me in the south. I will go north.”

  Even more surprising was when Brig Tall-Wood offered to stay. “If you will have me,” he said, barely able to meet Kern’s unblinking gaze. “If you are serious about going after the Vanir and keeping Gaud safe.”

  There was more in the young man’s request than that, and Kern knew a moment of suspicion. But having another experienced bowman along would be a fine advantage and outweighed his misgivings. He agreed.

  He also saw a measure of relief and cunning both pass behind Brig Tall-Wood’s eyes, and worried about it.

  In the end, Kern kept his original five outcasts, another four from Gaud, and Nahud’r. And four warriors of Taur who followed Brig’s promise to help defend their village by taking the battle after the Vanir.

  Their volunteering surprised Liam Chieftain, who suddenly traded more serious looks with Kern and with Maev, feeling the weight of the moment. Two of Taur’s finest warriors, Liam promised. And a strong woman who knew some herb lore and healing skill.

  The fourth volunteer created something of a stir. A man of twenty-odd summers and something of a local favorite, given the sudden sharp buzz of conversation that swept the circle. Like his chieftain, Ossian also shaved his head clear. And the hilt of his broadsword had a comforting, well-worn look to it.

  “You are certain?” was all Liam Chieftain asked.

  “As certain as should you be, accepting the offer of Bear-slayer’s daughter.”

  An outspoken man as well, then.

  “Your pack swells,” Liam said, guarding against any further question of the decision. He shrugged. “Perhaps you can accomplish something after all.”

  It wasn’t the strongest vote of confidence, but Kern would take whatever well wishes he could get. By Crom, his people would need them by the time this was done.

  If it were ever done.

  SHE CAME TO him one last time that evening, after the Taurin returned to their lodge and the fires had died down to beds of dusky orange coals.

  With so many empty huts in the village, most of Kern’s band decided to carry a bit of fire inside. Kern chose an untouched lean-to where a last scattering of damp hay provided some cushion beneath his felt bedroll, and the slanted roof above kept away any chance of snow or showers. His breath came frosty with midnight’s touch, and his skin puckered tight as if trying to conserve a warmth he had never felt. But he had spent worse nights, recently. And there were many such nights ahead.

  Best to keep prepared for them.

  Her footsteps, when he noticed them, came warily. As if she were still deciding. Or perhaps she simply searched for him, not knowing for certain where he’d gone. Kern sat up, woolen blanket scratching down his chest and pooling in his lap.

  She stood just outside the lean-to, framed in a rare patch of moonlight, not much more than a silhouette. A blanket held in one hand. Still fully dressed in the new kilt and cloak traded from Clan Taur.

  “You will really fight your way north?” Maev asked. She stepped under the roof, ducking beneath low crossbeams. “After the raiders?”

  Kern watched her spread the blanket out next to him, folding it to overlap with his own. “After him,” he said. Meaning the frost-man. “There’s more to these Ymirish that I have to know.”

  “To the Broken Leg Lands.”

  It was as good a place to die as any. Better than some, in fact. Conan had come down from the Broken Leg territory. It seemed the place of many odd tales and heroic legends. Why not one more? “It has to be someplace.”

  Her touch was warm against his pale skin. Maev had also bathed earlier, and now she smelled only lightly of sweat and fire smoke.

  Kern hungered for her. His body responded at the slightest touch. But he hesitated. “I thought we took care of this.” There would never be any knowing, now, if she whelped a child. That had been the whole point, hadn’t it?

  “I guess that’s for me to decide.” She sounded only a touch sorrowful. And a bit angry as well. “Isn’t it?”

  Gathering Maev to him, his large hands encircling her waist, Kern nodded as she suddenly bruised her lips against his. It was her decision. He had honored it the other night, and he could honor it now. And because she had already decided.

  Any well wishes . . .

  14

  KERN’S DIRE WOLF and a freezing rain saw the small band of warriors off the next morning. Daol pointed the animal out, his hunter’s eyes missing nothing even in the gray, wet, postdawn gloom. The wolf’s silver-gray fur lay matted against its body. The animal looked utterly miserable. Rather than seek shelter under brush or a half-fallen tree or some rocky outcropping, it stood on the same crest of hilltop that Kern’s warriors had fought from the day before, silent and still, watching. As if daring anyone to come after it. Or perhaps daring itself to approach closer to the village.

  Some among the Taurin muttered uneasily, seeing the strange behavior in an animal that tended to avoid humans. The Gaudic warriors shrugged it away, used to its appearances. They were more concerned with the weather, which was obliterating the snow cover but would soon make for a cold, wet slog into the northern foothills of Conall Valley. Already the smell of mud was turning rank in the air.

  A few goo
d-byes were made. Not many. Maev would not look at Kern, busying herself with the large group heading south within a few hours. Liam Chieftain did not plan to empty out his village, not yet, but he would travel south with Maev to open a discussion with Cul. That much, at least, had been decided.

  There were no marching orders. No big send-off. Packs were stuffed with food and drink, dry blankets wrapped in oilskin, and the assortment of miscellaneous gear that always followed people on the move. As the last tunic was pulled on and any final braces tied down, warriors began drifting to the northwest edge of the village, silently packing together.

  With Kern’s arrival the majority slowly traipsed off by twos and threes, spreading out along the muddy trail. Daol and Hydallan led, their experienced eyes searching out the best trails. Nearer the front than the back, Kern trudged behind Ossian and Nahud’r. Reave and Wallach and Desa paced them not far behind.

  Those who had lingered too long in the village rushed to follow, bringing up the rear.

  The Shemite, Kern saw, had wrapped a long woolen scarf around his head, laying it around his neck and over part of his face, then tying it into a kind of loose knot over his dark, curly hair. Only his eyes showed.

  Good for blocking out the cold winds, Kern decided. And capping in the body’s heat. Not so smart in a downpour of freezing rain, though, where you would spend most of the day with a wet cloth soaking your head. Maybe the man wasn’t quite so educated as he claimed to be.

  Civilization, it seemed, prepared one to live, but not to survive.

  He reevaluated his opinion before ever losing sight of the village, however, when the black-skinned man cut a spreading branch from a winter-stunted maple. Producing a small oilskin cloth from inside his tunic, he draped it over the smaller branches in blanket fashion. This he held overhead, to the short-lived amusement of the others. Icy water beaded and ran down the cloth, dripped over the trailing edges. Some of it dampened his arms, and it did not protect the legs of his southern-style trousers at all, which were soon heavy and dark with rainwater. But it did keep his head mostly dry. And therefore warm.