Blood of Wolves

by Loren Coleman

  “Sent back in disgrace?” Ros-Crana asked of those who had fought against him.

  Desa shook her head, oily locks swaying over her eyes. “An impressive fighter, that one. A head again taller than the one Kern described leading the raiders we met near the Pass of Noose. You do not set aside such a man so easily.” For some reason, this last comment made Reave shift about uncomfortably.

  Ros-Crana frowned, doubtful. But Kern considered it. Accepting a skin passed over to him from Ros-Crana, he took a swig. Dark ale, thick enough to stand a dagger in. He nearly choked on the strong drink, expecting something much lighter. He coughed back a gasp, feeling the alcohol burn up into his sinuses. A strong aftertaste of root ginger, added to a cask after brewing, clung to his tongue. He washed it away with a second draught. Then a third. Passed the skin along to Reave.

  “I have to agree,” he finally answered. “There must be another answer here.” He frowned, remembering. “If Ossian had not led forward the Taurin fighters, and we hadn’t outnumbered him two to his one . . .”

  “If, if, if.” Longtooth waved a hand, his patience wearing thin. “We all know now what has happened. What we do next, I care about.”

  “You have done enough. Grimnir’s wrath will come swiftly.” Narach glanced at the nearby cliffs, as if expecting the northern warlord to suddenly appear. When he turned his attention back to Longtooth, his eyes hardened. “Keep this one nearby”—he nodded at Kern—“and the demon will find you.”

  It was the second time they had implied a personal grudge between Kern and the legendary war leader. Sláine Longtooth scoffed. “This Grimnir may be a savage fighter, but he is no god, to know everything that has happened.”

  “He will know of the defeat you handed his followers in the Pass,” Narach bit back quickly. “That will be enough.”

  Many Vanir had staggered west ahead of Longtooth’s war host. Not everyone was stopped. A few stragglers always slipped past. One raiding party had been too large to risk intercepting, though it hurt Narach to watch a slave line of twenty clansmen being hauled north.

  “Twenty?” Longtooth growled. If they had swarmed down from the mountains, likely the slave line was made up from many of his people. “I would not leave one man in the hands of those animals.”

  “That is an easy decision for you to make, Sláine Chieftain.” Ros-Crana balled her large hands into raw-boned fists. “Would you have still tried forcing the Pass of Blood, knowing now what Grimnir would visit on Cruaidh?”

  “No one knows the future,” Kern said, seeing Longtooth’s fury building around a toothy snarl. “It does no one any good to worry about what might have been. It simply is.”

  “It was not an easy decision,” Narach promised, bridling at the implied rebuke to his honor. “There were risks I had to weigh against the good of the clan.”

  The Callaughnan shaman nodded slowly at his chieftain’s words. “They had a sorcerer,” he said. “You can tell by the dark clouds that lower themselves in the sky when they pass. Killing one of these men always invites the wrath of Grimnir.”

  Which was why Kern was supposedly a marked man. He had been the one to thrust a sword through a sorcerer’s heart in the pass. The men of Callaugh knew of that as well.

  “How?” Sláine Longtooth asked, biting off the word with a soured expression. Though Kern already had it reasoned out. And he was mostly right.

  “Warriors from Clan Maugh passed by yestermorn.” Ros-Crana spoke through clenched teeth. “They challenged for a small treasure of blue-iron weapons.” And Narach had put them up against some silver Vanir bracers and a torc with a single, large ruby set in the center. Spoils from the battle for the pass. “The Snowy River warriors put down two of my best, one of them for good.”

  They had also told a fascinating tale of Kern’s battle against the snow serpent that sounded a great deal like the one Nahud’r had spun out while walking over the stone arch two days before.

  “No matter.” Longtooth dismissed the tale and the Callaughnan’s caution all at once. “We hunt the Vanir, as they have hunted us for two years and more. If Grimnir wishes to come out from under the cover of his blizzard, we will see how mortal he truly is.”

  “I cannot help you there. I have never come up against him myself.” Narach’s craggy face hardened into a dark mask. Obviously, this was a hard bone to swallow.

  “I can tell you I’ve set some of my best warriors at Grimnir over the years when Conarch has called for aid. At first, I fully expected them to bring back the head of the Vanir war leader. This leader of the Ymirish. As more lives were fed into the maw, however, I merely waited for news that he had fallen to anyone. This year, I have hoped for even one of those warriors to return. None of them ever has. All Callaugh gets back are demands for more warriors, more weapons, and rumors of the beast-leader who will not die.”

  The rest sounded very familiar to Kern, and to Longtooth as well no doubt, who had experienced the northerner’s savagery firsthand. A hulking demon with eyes of golden fire and the strength of five men. No, ten. Immortal and unbeatable. The Vanir told similar tales of Grimir’s prowess and powers.

  It was the trappings of legend. It was hard to fight against a legend.

  But Sláine Longtooth seemed determined to try.

  “We have not fought our way over the pass for nothing,” he promised, fists clenched and barely held still where they rested against either leg. He rocked forward on his camp stool. “I tell you now, Narach Chieftain, I will not be pushed back to my valley by tales and superstitions. Grimnir is a living warrior. He can bleed, and he can be killed.”

  “Not by your likes, valleyman. If it were possible, a man or woman of Conarch would have accomplished this by now.”

  “Conarch!” Sláine spit the name aside as he might a slug of soured ale. “Always so full of yourselves. Conan’s birthclan. But Conan is gone, is he not? He left his people for Aquilonia. What has he done for us since but send foreign soldiers to ‘tame’ Cimmeria’s villages? Weak-willed children who run at the first sign of snow or the scent of spilled blood. A traitor to Cimmeria.”

  Narach rose slowly to a half crouch, hands grasping at his sides as if wanting to reach for the blue-iron war sword tied to his thick leather belt. “Aquilonia maintains still an ambassador at Conarch. It was their engin-eers who designed our walls.” The Cimmerian stumbled over the foreign word, but it did not hold back his pride in the accomplishment.

  Longtooth had risen along with Narach, keeping on equal footing. “So while you stay locked away safe in Callaugh, in Conarch, you allow the Broken Leg Lands to become a door to the rest of Cimmeria. The Vanir do little more than scrape the mud off their feet against you as they march through to murder and raid my valley and beyond!”

  “So you now speak for the entire valley?”

  “Better than your speaking Grimnir praises!”

  Watching the anger rise between the two prideful men, Kern knew before long they would come to blows. No Cimmerian stood up to such a rage of insults for long. Simpler warriors would already have broken the peace bonds to have at each other. Chieftains, apparently, enjoyed a bit more control. Or simply used the extra moment to rile their warriors up to the point of bloodlust.

  Even Daol, the man Kern counted on for a level head when battle rage took everyone else, looked ready to reach for his blade. Kern thumped him hard against the shoulder. Turned and pounded a heavy fist against Reave’s chest as well, drawing a glare and a question lurking deep in the larger man’s glacial blue eyes.

  Then Kern stepped away from the gathering, refusing to participate any longer and making that fact known in the simplest way possible.

  He walked out on it.

  Both chieftains stared after his affront. He felt their gazes boring into the back of his neck. Neither one spoke. It was Gard who found his voice first. “Kern!” he shouted. He asked for Longtooth, “Where are you going, Wolf-Eye?”

  Kern paused, looked back over his shoulder. He stood
near one of the torches that marked the clearing, and a cutting breeze whipped the bright fire close to his shoulder. It smelled unnatural. Acrid and sharp instead of the dull, oily flavor of a regular torch. From whatever the shaman had sprinkled over the brand, he guessed.

  He saw that Daol and Reave followed only a few steps behind, and Desa and Ossian after them. His warriors had already fanned out to form a guard at his back, severing him from Sláine Longtooth and Narach Chieftain.

  “I have not marched my warriors over a wintered land to spend their lives for your pride, Sláine Longtooth. Nor to avenge your son.” That rocked back the Cruaidhi chieftain as if slapped.

  “We’re here for Gaud, and for Taur. And for ourselves. And if our path is not to be with you, we’ll find our own way. And you”—Kern looked to Narach and Ros-Crana, taking brother and sister in together—“you can remain locked behind these walls, or you can strike at the hand that chokes our land and enslaves our people. It’s your choice. It’s been your choice for better than two years now.”

  “So what will you do?” the female war leader asked. “Where do you go from here, Wolf-Eye?”

  “North,” Kern said at once. “The trails all lead north. Grimnir is the head of the Vanir serpent. Strike off the head, and the body dies. I’ll chase him through the Eiglophian Mountains and into the frozen wastelands of Nordheim if I must.”

  “Snow and ice and storms are what you’re likely to find, Wolf-Eye.” But Narach’s voice was thoughtful. “How do you hope to find Grimnir?”

  Turning away from the leaders, stepping through the ring of fire and acrid smoke and yanking free the cord of leather that peace-bonded his arming sword to its sheath, he gave the chieftain of Callaugh back his own words.

  “He’ll find me,” Kern promised.

  “I’ll make certain of it.”

  25

  IT HAD BEEN a good run, Ehmish decided. A short, but full, life.

  Slung over Reave’s shoulder like a canvas sack of turnip roots, the young man bit down hard on the insides of his cheeks to keep from crying out as every hard, jostling step, every breath, sent new flames of fiery pain ripping out from his wound, burning through his entire body.

  Blood soaked his slashed tunic, slick and warm between the fingers of his left hand as he tried to pull the flesh closed over exposed ribs. Two ribs shifted under the pressure, lighting up his left side with bright agony, his breath shallow and rapid through the torture.

  “Crom, give me strength,” he whispered, voice ragged in his own ears.

  Then he wished he hadn’t. Crom did not listen to weak men. His favor had given the Cimmerians everything they needed to survive the oft-harsh northern lands. Cunning and strength, and the will to face everything a hard life might throw at them.

  That strength still allowed him to hold on to his blade, the broadsword he’d traded up for after the battle in the Pass of Blood. The fingers of his right hand locked around its hilt as if it were a lifeline tossed down a cliff face to him. His muscles trembled with strain as he held the flat of the sword pressed against Reave’s back, careful not to let the point fall downward to slice at the back of the running man’s legs. His cunning and his will kept him silent in the gathered darkness, chewing on the meat inside his cheeks, tasting the salty bloodflow and swallowing it back rather than give away their position with even one inadvertent cry.

  To ask for more gainsaid those gifts.

  Crom had at least seen to it that Ehmish would die a man, and not a boy in the eyes of his friends. His kin.

  Beneath him, Reave seemed to sense the young man’s regret. He tightened his grip across Ehmish’s back. “Sure and you’ll be fine.” His whisper was loud and strong, despite having run a good league with twelve stones’ weight on his back. His earrings jangled together with each heavy step. “Hold on, Ehmish. Hold on.”

  The mournful horns of the Vanir blasted around them, deep and long as they shattered the night. Calls of fury that echoed off the cliff face at their right. Ran among the trees behind them and moving forward of their path on the left. A single answering blast directly ahead!

  “Penned!”

  This from Desagrena, who paced closest to Reave in the bedraggled line of warriors. Desa had her broadsword naked in one hand, and carried Reave’s Cimmerian greatsword by a leather strap wrapped around the balance point of its blade in the other.

  Harsh, bellowing breaths, the squelch of disturbed snow, and the thudding of booted feet against hard, rocky ground were all that answered.

  Shadows jumped and danced all around Ehmish. He counted five . . . six others by the cloud-dimmed moonlight. Mogh and Ashul on Reave’s left. Old Finn right behind, limping as he ran. A glancing blow with a spear shaft swelled his gout-inflamed knee like a knotted oak branch. Desa. And Aodh and Brig Tall-Wood just beyond her. Brig helped Aodh, letting the older warrior lean on his shoulder for support, Aodh favoring a sprained ankle. Brig held his own right arm in tight against his body, stemming the blood where he’d taken a gash along the inside length.

  Ehmish could not count those who ran ahead of the pack. Kern, he knew, led the way. And he thought the rest were still alive as well. Battered and bloodied, certainly, but alive.

  How many of them would see morning, that remained to be seen.

  It had taken two days for the Vanir raiders to realize there was a wolf in their midst. A wolf who walked upright and led a bloodthirsty pack. Leaving Callaugh behind, Kern’s wolves had moved north, slowly, in a weaving line that staggered from glen to vale to mountainside camp, searching for the flame-haired Vanir and their Ymirish allies. Finding them. Setting on them in a series of short, bloody ambushes that left an easy trail for Sláine Longtooth and Narach Chieftain to follow and sent ahead a message that the raiders were now the ones being hunted. The small band of warriors collected small scars and snow blisters, and a great deal of battle spoils in weapons, food, and gear.

  That day’s target had been a slave encampment near the old Conarch mines. Daol and Brig, with their sharper eyes, had scouted it out in the waning twilight. They counted half a dozen fresh heads set up on pikes. Local clansmen, or one of the smaller groups that had broken away from Longtooth’s war host. Not that it mattered, as dead was dead.

  They also witnessed the arrival of reinforcements. Raiders staggering in by pairs and small knots. And a Ymirish to lead them. The invaders were organizing, coming together, recognizing the threat in their midst.

  And it had been Ehmish’s job, again, to pull them apart long enough for Kern’s ambush to work.

  Reave stumbled down a short, fast slope, nearly tripping over some loose stones. He sank to his knees too fast, and spilled Ehmish forward among icy snow and hardscrabble rock. The young man grunted in a sharp exhale as he bounced against his left side, ribs afire.

  “Easy, easy!” Desa snapped at Reave, dropping down at Ehmish’s side and rolling him back to his right. “Clumsy ox!”

  And Kern was there, bending down on one knee to get a new look at the wound. His yellow eyes gleamed in the dark, as if trapping what little moonlight filtered through the uneven clouds overhead. “It’s bad,” he promised Ehmish, watching the younger man bleed out over the hard, snow-covered ground. “But you can survive it if you hold on a bit longer.”

  “I’m fine,” Ehmish grunted through teeth clenched so hard his jaw hurt. He swallowed against the metallic taste of blood. Setting his face into a grim mask, he applied more pressure to his hurt. There were rough patches chipped into the sharp-edged bones that pressed against his fingers. The wound ran from the outside of his left breast carving down toward his hip, flaying skin and muscle away from the protective cage of ribs.

  Ashul checked the wound again. Clucked. “Lucky he didn’t slip a blade between those ribs, by Crom.”

  Looking for anything to take his mind off the pain, Ehmish glanced around. Saw the yawning darkness of a cave opened up in the nearby mountainside. They had reached one of the old Conarch mines. A good, defe
nsive position.

  Ehmish glanced back up at their leader. “Get them out of this, Kern.”

  Raider horns sounded again, coming from all sides. Some were distant. Others, much closer. The way they bounced off the cliffs and sharp slopes, mixing together into a long, deep, mournful wail, it sounded to Ehmish as if the entire countryside had risen against them.

  To others as well.

  “Woken the whole north,” Wallach Graybeard said, tugging at the thick, coarse hair under his chin. “Must be more campsites nearby than we thought.”

  Another blast from the horns. This time a wolf’s howl answered them, driven to a distracted fury by the disturbance in the night. Ehmish did not doubt it was Frostpaw. No one did.

  Kern nodded as if answering the creature. “We make our stand here. We have good cover, and we can retreat into the cave if needs be. If they come at us in small knots, we pull them down quickly and easily.”

  “And if they comes at us all at once?” Ossian asked.

  Kern shrugged, his shoulders hunching and falling beneath his threadbare winter cloak. “Not so easy,” he said.

  While Ehmish watched, and winced as Desagrena used long strips of leather to tie a thick fold of clean muslin over his wound, Kern and the others set about making “spiderholes.” That was what Ehmish himself had named them, and Kern adopted the term without argument. They were the younger man’s idea, after all, wrenched out of the harrowing flight he’d made when luring the raiders from that first camp so long ago. Then, he had slipped down and rolled himself under some low-hanging brush, shaking snow over himself to blend in better with the ground cover. This time they were made with blankets and skins anchored against the ground on one side with a few large rocks. A man lay on the earth, with the cover draped over him, then was camouflaged with scoops of snow and a fallen branch or skin of bark.

  He called them spiderholes because the idea reminded him of the trapping spiders, which dug out of the earth during the summer and autumn. Large as a robin, they were, with long, spindly forward legs for grabbing and shorter, stronger back legs for digging.