Blood of Wolves

by Loren Coleman

  Reave and Desagrena arrived together, Kern saw. From a semisecluded patch of stunted cedar. Her acid glance burned Kern’s cheeks with a touch of blood. Then she nodded sharply and turned to bash a fist against Reave’s shoulder. “Watch his back, Ox-heart.”

  Reave swatted her on the ass as she went for her gear.

  “Ox-heart?” Kern asked his friend, as Daol and Hydallan stumbled out of their bedrolls and readied themselves.

  Daol’s ears perked up, and he eyed Reave with his gray hawk’s eyes.

  “Yea, well.” The large man shrugged. The gold hoops in his ears jangled together. “That was nay the part that interested her before.”

  The three men all managed tight grins, but not at Desa’s expense. What wasn’t being said was actually the more important. For the moment they were simply friends and could have been back in Gaud discussing the hunting or the prospects of a summer raid. And when they suddenly nodded at one another and turned north in tight step, no one even thought to step between them. Kern’s warriors simply formed a heavy fist around them as the pack thrust themselves to the fore of the march.

  For better or worse.

  They would see the day through together.

  EVEN FROSTPAW DARED show himself closer to the assembled war host than Kern would have thought, waiting out in the trees. Sometimes running ahead of them as if eager to hunt with the pack, or trailing behind to pick up scraps from their passing.

  Kern worked his sword arm through the exercises Wallach Graybeard had taught him before Taur. Jab, block, and lunge. The swordplay and the march quickly loosened his muscles, but, down deep in his bones where not even summer’s high sun ever reached him, winter remained Kern’s constant companion. Even as the army rose up above the fog, tracing the edge of a high, peaked bluff and looking into a clear sky devoid of clouds, Kern shivered and mopped away a cold sweat only.

  He caught more than one in his band casting longing glances south and east. Where the early-morning sun peeked over the western Teeth of Conall Valley.

  Home.

  But Hydallan, Kern saw, tasted the air with short, ferretlike bites. Like his son, the aged tracker and hunter knew the tastes and smells of Cimmeria. Senses as keen as any wolf’s.

  “Smoke,” he said, glancing down into the dirty gray fog that socked in the lower valleys and glens.

  The wisps that tore loose of the heavy blanket were dark and sooty, and obvious once the older man pointed them out. Ros-Crana didn’t waste any time when called up to the front of the march, nodding as Hydallan pointed out to her what her own nose had already told.

  Conarch was burning.

  If there were any doubts, the stragglers confirmed it as they came across first a displaced family, carrying their children to high ground and safety, then some few warriors sent on a dead run to call for aid from the nearby villages. Surprised to find a war host of Cimmerian warriors already on their way, the warriors quickly folded themselves into the ranks and let word spread that Grimnir had stormed down from the ice caverns of the nearby mountains, calling together a host of raiders and Ymirish warriors and sorcerers. They had struck at Conarch first, determined to set the Cimmerians back on their heels before raiding south for Callaugh, and the great war chief of the north had called down mighty beasts. Creatures of great strength, and others that struck out of the fog with lightning reflexes and sharp claws.

  The tales grew in the telling, and rather than worry over them, Kern pressed his people harder, faster, kicking through the icy crust of snow, ready to come to grips with this terrible legend.

  Eager for the end.

  The trail widened as it turned down toward Broken Leg Lands and Clan Conarch, dropping toward a narrow bluff that overlooked the deeper glen. Rock outcroppings chewed their way up from the ground like teeth through meat. The snow made footing treacherous, always hiding a loose stone or a small hole where a leg could be snapped like dry kindling. In some areas, the snow had drifted up in knee-high piles.

  The fog slowly burned away under the pale sun, thinning even as the war host descended into it again. The curtain swallowed them back up, reducing the rising sun to nothing more than a dim light in the sky and the Cimmerian warriors to ghosts among the shadows of rocky mounds and sparse trees. Soon, there was no trail at all. Simply a wide slope down which they pushed toward the besieged village. Without being ordered, Kern’s people stepped up to a brisk walk, then an easy jog. Behind them, the Cimmerian war host fanned out into two lines. Valleymen on the left. Callaughnan and their allies on the right.

  And ahead, a wild, banshee trumpeting and the mournful blasts of Vanir horns rolled together to wail like demons loosed over the land as the two armies drew together. More stragglers fell back onto the army’s position, seeking a new strong line, drawing the Vanir after them and away from the village stronghold. Swordsmen and archers. Pike-bearing guardsmen. Shield maidens.

  A fist of Aquilonian lancers rode up on their war-horses, wheeling around Kern’s small band with their long lances lowered and faces wary beneath conical helms. They didn’t recognize the Cimmerians, that was certain, but they also knew that Kern’s people were no Vanir.

  Kern gave them a heartbeat’s pause, until Ros-Crana ran forward to wave them aside. “With us,” she called to the Aquilonians. “Wolf-Eye!”

  It was enough for them. The leader of the trio raised the tip of his lance in salute, and they reined their mounts in next to Kern’s pack. Kern saw a few uneasy glances, and heard one man say to his captain, “Wolves.”

  “From Conan’s em-bass-y to Clan Conarch,” Ros-Crana told Kern, falling back toward her own people as they shook out into a ragged battle line. The Aquilonian word sounded strange in her mouth, but Kern took its meaning to be something like a gift of men.

  More yells and shouts from the thinning fog. The slope lessened, running down onto the bluff’s small plateau. There Frostpaw discovered the first Vanir, the wolf jumping through a sheaf of winter-dry brush and flushing the raider out from his own spiderhole. The animal growled and snarled, rolling out of the brush and in a pile of fur and leather and steel.

  Snapping jaws tasted blood as the Vanir howled in pain. He kicked out with one foot and dazed the large animal enough to scramble back to his feet, sword raised overhead and ready to smash his blade through the wolf’s skull.

  An arrow took the raider in the chest, right through his breastbone.

  Brig Tall-Wood lowered his hunting bow, having beat Daol to the mark by mere heartbeats. “Wouldn’t do to have them claim first blood on us,” was all he said.

  Not that it would be much longer.

  There were sounds of battle reaching them now, with clashing steel and the calls and cries of warriors in the grips of bloodlust. An arrow flew out of the gray curtain raised before them, at random no doubt, and stuck into the earth not far from the Aquilonian horsemen. A horse reared, but its rider clung to its large back without being thrown.

  Kern slowed his people from their trot back to a walk, then to a stop as a large shadow moved through the gloom at them. At first he thought it was another of the large granite rock columns that stood out like petrified trees on some ancient dry wash. But this one moved. And when it lifted its head, there was another banshee wailing of trumpets and horns. Lithe shadows patrolled around its feet, blending into the fog, moving with a hunter’s grace.

  One of the smaller shadows leaped forward, suddenly revealing itself. A saber-toothed cat. White as the snowy pelt of an ermine.

  The snarling yelp of Kern’s dire wolf rose up alongside the cat’s high-pitched, savage scream. The saber-tooth had found Frostpaw trapped between the two armies, and now the two creatures fought their own prelude to the battle to come. They dodged and slashed at each other, and the Cimmerian advance stalled, waiting as the larger shadow lumbered out from the gray curtain and made itself known.

  A mammoth, covered in ropes of shaggy, coarse hair and strong as ten oxen. It plowed forward with a large form astride its n
eck, raising weapons overhead in challenge. A giant form. A true beast that walked upright, like a demon with blazing eyes of golden fire. The tales had not been so tall, after all.

  At last, Grimnir stood revealed.

  Giant-kin!

  Frost-giant. One of the legendary true sons of Ymir. Easily half again as large as a regular man, with a thick hide the color of old, rotten snow and heavily muscled arms that could tear a warrior in two. His eyes did spark like yellow fire out of a face more bestial than human.

  But this was no mindless creature of the deep, deep north. There was intelligence there, and purpose in the way he held his weapons. He raised a warhammer overhead with his right hand. In his other, he wielded a battle-axe one-handed and pointed it at the Cimmerian line.

  “Crom’s blood,” Brig Tall-Wood said aloud.

  From deeper in the gray swirls and sworls of fog, more shadows suddenly darkened into distinct outline as a large host of Vanir raiders massed to either side of the wooly mammoth. Large burly men, with dark, flame-red hair or the more golden touch of captured sons from Asgard, almost all with thick beards, which helped protect faces from the harder, icy winds of the Nordheim wastes. They wore full tunics and kilts banded with leather and studded with tiny metal spikes. Shaggy cloaks made from goat’s wool, and metal caps with the horns of any number of beasts.

  And Ymirish. Grimnir’s faithful. A dozen . . . two! Two dozen. Frost-haired and heavy, deep-set features, with the same yellow eyes Kern knew from staring into summer ponds or silver-polished steel. They came to battle bare-chested to the elements. Some of them handled large mastiffs, being held back at the moment while waiting for the snow-cats to draw aside after killing Frostpaw. Others pumped weapons overhead, encouraging the Vanir.

  Two of these frost-bearded men hunched together near the mammoth’s side. Crom take Kern if the shadows and the fog didn’t congeal around them to form a dark, heavy band. An unnatural appearance that twisted a small rope of fear somewhere deep within the mind. Each had two large orbs tattooed over his chest. Too far to make out detail, Kern already knew. Glowing, feral eyes.

  Sorcerers.

  And these weren’t Grimnir’s only warriors. The sounds of a heavy battle could still be heard far behind, as a rear guard held more of Clan Conarch’s warriors back from the bluff. There had to be scores more lurking within the snow and fog. Hundreds.

  Grimnir had drawn together a war host capable of hammering the Cimmerians back over the mountains. And beyond.

  27

  GRIMNIR ROARED A throaty challenge. His frost-giant’s voice carried like the rumble of an avalanche, or the crack and deep growl of a calving glacier. The mammoth pulled back its long snout and trumpeted a new blast, echoing its master.

  Horns brayed, and the large canines barked and growled to be released.

  Cimmerian warriors all along the ragged line shouted back in defiance. Some shook their own weapons overhead. Others hiked up their kilts to waggle at the raiders, insulting the northerners’ manhood.

  By the handful and by the dozen, voices took up the roar. Kern shouted his own throat raw.

  Reave unslung his bedroll and tossed it behind as so many were doing along the line, dropping their packs and shedding weight for battle. He unhooked his giant greatsword, and raised it in front of him.

  Daol stuck arrows point first into the snow-blanketed ground, and put another three between his teeth.

  “Let them come at us,” Kern called to his warriors, and any ears that were close enough and open to his words.

  There wouldn’t be much chance for fancy plans or surprises this day. Once the fighting began, only strength would out. Kern unslung his shield and gripped it in his off-sword hand. Rather than worry about the short reach of his arming sword, he drew forth Burok’s broadsword. The weight was unfamiliar in his hand but felt good regardless.

  “Wait for them. Wait!”

  But farther down a few of Ros-Crana’s warriors had charged out in front, swords held overhead as they ran at the raider line. Not to be outdone, more than a handful of Sláine Longtooth’s men also broke away for brave and heroic charges.

  Brave and heroic deaths. Kern grabbed Ashul, who had jumped forward thinking a general attack was being sent. A scant few heartbeats later, a serpent rose up from the snow and slammed into the Callaughnan.

  Two men, gripped in rolling coils. A third fell to the demonic serpent’s icicle fangs.

  Cruaidhi warriors fared no better. As if brought to life, a patch of the thinning fog suddenly lashed out with sharp, soot-stained tendrils, flailing at the fistful of men. Two of them reeled away, screaming in sudden agony, hands clawing at blistered faces. They stumbled and fell as if struck blind, then thrashed upon the snowy carpet, dying.

  Three others made it through, and were swallowed up by a pack of mastiffs and Ymirish bearing war swords. The dogs tore at legs and gut. Blades rose and fell and slashed angrily at the remaining trio.

  One Cimmerian managed to take two of the great-shouldered mastiffs and a Ymirish with him, splattering new blood over white snow.

  The others fell without any enemy souls preceding them into death.

  The insult was more than most could bear. As if released by Crom’s own hand, the Cimmerians stormed forward in a sudden rage that their brave—if foolish—companions had been slaughtered so easily. Cruaidhi or Callaughnan or Conarch, did not matter. They bellowed their dismay and their challenge, and surged forward in the same kind of haphazard charge Kern had witnessed over the Pass of Blood. No order or thought. Anger and haste sufficed, and Crom’s will to reach their enemy and throw them down just as easily.

  The Vanir broke into a forward charge as well. Some Ymirish moved across the line, bolstering thin pockets. Others grouped around the war mammoth as their monstrous leader slid down to earth. Grimnir towered above all but the mammoth, which he sent stampeding forward.

  No choice now. “Take them,” Kern ordered, breaking into a loping run that crossed the snow with ease.

  He angled toward one side, thinking to help Frostpaw before the large wolf was brought down by a pair of cats, but the animal was more cagey than that. Throwing off one saber-tooth’s attack, the large wolf savaged one cat’s foreleg with a strong jawful of sharp canines, then bolted. Trapped between the two war hosts, however, it was all the wolf could do to dodge back and forth, snarling its fury and building bloodlust.

  Kern let the animal alone.

  Running. Feet pounding the earth in cold, dull thunder. Behind him, Kern heard the violent thrum of taut bowstrings released together. Long shafts whispered overhead through the fog and taint of woodsmoke. Then spiked down among the raider line to drop two men back to the ground.

  Battle cries varied up and down the line. Calls of Callaugh! and Cruaidh! dominated, but there were a few voices close to Kern screaming out Gaud! and Taur! as well. Unable to think of any village as home anymore, his lips parted and he bellowed “Crom!” for himself, and for Cimmeria.

  The Vanir had archers as well, and most of them with the stronger war bows that allowed for faster, flatter shots. Kern saw a group bear down in the direction of his small pack.

  “Shields!” he warned, and barely in time. He thrust his own up as they released, and two hammerlike blows slammed into its metal facing.

  Ossian turned another shaft. Reave took a glancing shot, and the blood flowed freely as it cut deeply where his bull neck met his shoulder, but the shaft passed by to stick in the wood facing of Nahud’r’s small buckler.

  Without breaking stride, the dark-skinned Shemite simply sliced his scimitar over the face of his shield, snapping off the shaft before it fouled him in close combat.

  Closer. Fur-lined boots kicking up snow and arrows whispering quiet death between the two lines. The horsemen of Aquilonia charged past Kern’s warriors, just in time to put themselves between the Cimmerians and a close fist of flame-haired Vanir. Their lances scythed through the tight knot, and, when they rode on, there weren�
�t more than two left standing.

  Reave took one head. Ossian and Nahud’r the other.

  That bought Kern’s people time to close on their enemy and to still be in one solid knot as the two lines crashed together with all the force of a hammer striking an anvil. At that moment, Cimmerian war cries matched the Vanir horns and curses.

  Then bodies slammed into each other, and swords fell against edge, shield, and flesh.

  A riot of shouts, strikes, and screams.

  The sheer momentum of the charging armies drove deep wedges into both sides. Warriors ducked and dodged. They ran over lightly defended patches and flowed around knots of stronger defense like white water breaking over sharp rocks. Kern’s pack was a certain breakwater, smashing aside the Vanir line as the entire group hammered forward. Reave led, his greatsword swinging in deadly arcs, with Ossian nearly at his side. Kern and Nahud’r and Desa charged after. The others ran at their backs and sluiced the northern raiders away to either side as the pack staggered forward, slowing but never stopping. Not until two flame-haired warriors challenged Reave with tall shields and pikes.

  Suddenly, Kern’s pack was surrounded by Vanir. From all four sides the northerners came at them, jabbing and slashing with reckless courage. Their nasal language called down the curses of Ymir, god of the north, and Grimnir, whose terrible name was invoked about as often.

  A large man rushed at Kern with a wild yell of “Oathbreaker!” There was no mistaking his sense of betrayal, finding a man colored as a Ymirish fighting on the side of Cimmeria. Kern thrust his broadsword ahead rather than slashing with it, adding reach to the blade. Sliding it past a Vanir shield and between two ribs.

  The other man screamed in fury and agony, and tried to hammer Kern away with the war sword he swung overhead like an axe.