Blood of Wolves

by Loren Coleman

  And starve another four or five clansfolk before winter finally broke and spring allowed for new foraging? Kern rocked himself to his feet, dragging the heavy war axe with him. “And what about Daol?” All they had found was a broken hunting bow and a raider with an arrow through his neck. “Maev and the others?”

  Cul stopped his pacing. “Weren’t you here, Kern? Vanir! Two dozen at least.”

  “Seemed like more,” Aodh said, hunched down on one side of the fire. He poked into the embers with a stick. A voice from the other side whispered, “Aye.”

  Two dozen could seem like more in twilight and fog, coming out of two directions. Cul shrugged it away. “Too many. We’d lose as many as we’d save going after them. If the raiders haven’t already bled the life from them in sport.”

  To be fair, it looked like a hard admission for the new chieftain to make. No doubt thinking about Maev more than the rest. But, “You will order Hydallan to chase you along the Snowy River country while his son is tortured and dragged off to the northlands?” Kern shook his head. Yet the old man might do it. Clan before kin. Daol’s father had shrugged aside the expulsion so easily, after all.

  “By Crom, Wolf-Eye, that is exactly what I mean to do!” Cul stormed over toward him, hands grasping at the air. “And it is not your concern any longer! You are outside the clan. I no longer see you.”

  “Well I do!” Reave jumped to his feet, greatsword in hand with its point dragging the ground behind him. Six feet of naked blade. “Kern means to chase down the raiders took Daol from us, then I’m with him.”

  In fact, Kern had made just that decision. Made it when he started back to the north, in fact, chasing after the raiders, intent on coming to the aid of his friends. He would not leave Daol in their hands.

  Nor would he allow Reave to sunder his standing in the clan.

  “Daol would not have you do this,” he said, stepping up next to his friend, voice hoarse and low. A shift in the breeze blew green smoke into Kern’s face, stinging his eyes. “It’s a fool’s adventure, Reave. Let me do what I can.”

  “Ten, maybe twelve raiders? You might need help.”

  Reave could never count. The Cimmerians had taken a good measure in the fight, but not that good. Cul had left two raiders for the crows come morning. Reave another, though with Kern’s help. Daol, apparently, a fourth. Maev, five. That left . . .

  “Nineteen,” he told Reave. “Or more.”

  “Settles it, then. Take at least the two of us.”

  “Three.” At fireside, Aodh shoved the stick he’d been prodding the coals with deep into the fire, stirring up a swarm of waspish sparks. He brushed them away from his face and stood abruptly. “I go as well.”

  Cul looked about to say something, but Aodh jumped in first with a sharp tongue. “Burok Bear-slayer was my chieftain eighteen years. I can nay abandon his daughter, then stand by his grave?”

  Aodh was also an aging warrior, Kern saw, and might also be wondering if he would be the next one forcibly expelled from the clan.

  So might Wallach Graybeard, whose hair was thinning on top and whose beard was shot through almost fully with iron gray. Who also stepped forward. He could not meet Cul’s dark gaze, but he did nod once. “I as well. Better to die a warrior than live in hunger and feeble age.”

  Not the best of omens, but Kern could hardly refuse the men to follow their own consciences. He looked from one face to the other, each one looking flushed in the firelight. Each one with a hard look of determination.

  “And me.”

  The young voice wavered and broke, though from his age and not out of fear. The boy, Ehmish. The one who had taken back the large trout to Maev. He couldn’t be more than fifteen summers. He also looked a touch scared, a hesitation in his dark eyes, but he stepped forward with one hand on the short knife belted at his waist.

  “No,” Kern said, shaking his head.

  It was more than Ehmish’s not being considered a man by clan standards—not until he made his first kill in battle. Every youth made his own decision when to join a war party. When to go looking for his manhood. But Kern knew Ehmish had no idea what he was getting himself into, life as an outcast. Chasing down Vanir raiders.

  A short life, most likely.

  “Show some sense, boy,” Cul snapped, eyes blazing dangerously as his small group fractured. “You’ve got no business with the likes of him.”

  “Oscur was my friend. He saved my life by pushing me on ahead. I can hunt, and I can scout. And I go with Kern Wolf-Eye!”

  Vengeance wasn’t what Kern was looking for, and began to say as much. Reave, of all people, stopped him with a shake of his head. “Better short help than no help,” he said of the youth.

  “Would you call me ‘short help’ as well, Reave Ox-heart?” Desagrena, stepping away from the fire. Her mocking tone made it sound like Reave might be the child. One of the men reached out for her—Morne—but she slapped his hand away with a stinging blow. “No woman should be left with the Vanir. Better to kill Maev than let her be taken.”

  At a loss, Reave could only shake his head again. “Soon we’ll be outnumbering the Vanir.”

  Not quite. No others stepped forward, and from the suspicious and even hateful eyes that chased out from the fireside, none would. Cul was left with seven strong backs, though Morne had a wounded shoulder. Enough to get Burok north. Maybe. If he borrowed more heavily from the village. And its stores.

  “We’ll take a wood hatchet,” Kern said, speaking to Reave but more for Cul’s benefit. Giving him some warning and room to object. Any fight that broke out between the two camps would only leave both sides too hurt to accomplish anything.

  “Flint and stone and a handful of tinder. Our own bedrolls and skins.” He shook his own. Empty. Well, snowmelt served almost as well. “We’ll take enough food for one good meal. We run down the raiders, and recover our own stores, or we die trying.”

  By Kern’s taking such a small bite out of what was left, Cul would not have to raid so heavily into the village stockpile. More lives might be spared.

  Not that Cul appeared ready to accept anything like a compromise. His hands clenched, no doubt itching for the cord-wound hilt of his sword. But not even the chieftain could compel clansfolk to stay against their will. He knew he didn’t have the steel behind him—not anymore—to prevent the others from taking more, should they demand it.

  “Take it and be damned,” he growled. “Follow this whelped creature from your village?” He glared at the other man, dark gaze challenging Kern. “You are night-born, Wolf-Eye, and you’ll be the death of them all. Take your spoils and chase off after the rest of the raiders, then. But don’t you ever cross my path again.” He ground each word between clenched teeth. “Not ever.”

  Kern knew enough to take a victory, however marginal, when he could. He nodded. The others set to collecting their own gear quickly. Ehmish brought Kern his bedroll. He slipped his improvised sling over one shoulder and carried the battle-axe in his other hand, gripping it at the balance point of the haft.

  He couldn’t help putting in a word of support for the rest of his lost village. “Do right by them, Cul. Do right by Burok.”

  “Winter take you, Wolf-Eye! I’ve never done otherwise.”

  Perhaps. To Kern, it hardly should matter anymore. He breathed deep, tasting the warm flavor of the burning greenwood and the crisp freshness of the night air both. The firelight danced around the clearing, casting shadows into the craggy faces of those who stood or crouched, watching him as they might a dangerous animal stalking the edge of the flames. He shuffled back slowly, never dropping his lupine gaze until he had stepped far enough away from the fire to taste it no longer. Only a light scent remained, burned down into his poncho and cloak, clinging to his frost blond hair.

  Then he turned and trotted into the darkness with the others stringing along behind.

  “How long to camp?” Reave asked, moving up on Kern’s side.

  “No camp. The Van
ir won’t get caught bedding down so close to people they raided. In case we do come after them. They’ll move through the night. So will we.”

  “We can’t see well enough to run through the dark.”

  Kern glanced sidelong at his friend. Even under the fog-shrouded moon, he knew his eyes would be noticeable. “I can,” he reminded the other man.

  Reave hesitated, then nodded. “Right.” He shrugged aside the concern as if it had meant nothing. “A man could wish for a few torches to light, though.”

  Next in line, Desa overheard. “Wouldn’t if we could,” she pointed out. “If they spot us coming, we’re dead.”

  “We’re dead anyway,” Reave muttered. Not that such dark thoughts kept him from falling into line behind Kern.

  Kern ducked a thin branch, which whipped at Reave’s face instead. Trotting along, he looked for the trampled snow that would lead them after the Vanir. See them coming . . . Something about that idea sparked a thought in Kern’s mind.

  It was something else for him to chew on, as his pack ran through the rest of the long night.

  8

  MORNING BROUGHT BROKEN skies and an occasional glimpse of the sun, a welcome rest from the heavy overcast which usually socked in Conall Valley for the winter. A light breeze wandered around with very little interest. Crisp and fresh. Not the cold sweep that usually came down off the higher peaks. Optimistic thrushes and a few chuckers danced in the highest tree limbs, calling for spring, but still no new buds on the trees or new grass peeked up through the white blanket.

  Sunlight, when it was there, glittered against the frost-crusted snow like a thousand tiny jewels. It brightened the harsh landscape and stabbed daggers into the eyes of the Gaudic rescue party whenever they looked too far ahead.

  Head down. Eyes on the trail. Kern knew that to do otherwise risked snow blindness. Painful eye strain at the least. Still he shaded his brow more often than necessary to gaze ahead. Once he thought he caught glimpse of the dire wolf, still stalking his trail. Or a dire wolf, anyway. But he didn’t worry with so many blades at his side. Instead, he searched for any sign of a Vanir rear guard.

  Before the Vanir caught sign of them.

  North and east the trail led them. Perhaps a touch more east than north, but the raiders held a fairly straight line of march right up to the foot of the Snowy River country. The white-capped highlands loomed very close, standing above sheer cliffs like clouds settled permanently over the mountains. A steady trail to follow, heading north. Also home to Clan Galla, the mountain nomads of Cimmeria, with their wild, primitive living.

  The trail was fresh. By midday it showed signs that the raiders could not be far ahead. A quarter day? Less?

  The strength of Kern’s small group was beginning to wane, however, with lack of rest and food catching up with them while the raiders gorged on fresh horseflesh. Kern’s meager scraps had been passed out, and the last strip of hide between his teeth all but chewed down into tattered leather.

  Then the trail split into two.

  At the site of a new rest camp, next to a bloodstained clearing. Even Kern, who had seen a similar slaughter the day before, also worried first for the lives of the captured Gaudic clansfolk upon seeing the scarlet-slashed ground. No bodies to be found, though, after running off a few black crows who protested with raucous caws. Just the stink of animal offal and the metallic taste of blood and the ransacked carcass of another horse. This one so hastily butchered that the Vanir had left large chunks of meat on the discarded bones and good strips of flesh and fat.

  Did the raiders know they were pursued? Or were they merely wary of it?

  No time for a fire, and Kern wouldn’t risk the smoke being seen even if there were. The ravenous pack fell on the gibbets and shards of horseflesh left behind. The meat had a bitter, gamy taste to it, but all of them had eaten worse. And less, which was often just as bad.

  Ehmish called for the others before they had swallowed more than a few bites. Accustomed to wait for his elders, the youth had scouted a quick circle around the slaughter site. Silently, he pointed out the two separate trails leading away from the camp. One southeast, and the other suddenly turning hard into the north.

  “Which one?” Aodh asked for the rest of them. He didn’t speak aloud the common fear. If they chose wrong, and the prisoners had been taken a different direction, there would be no hope of rescue.

  Reave frowned. “We follow them both?”

  Kern shook his head. “We split up, and we might as well have not come this far together.”

  He ran alongside the southeast trail for a hundred paces, then did the same heading north. The crows watched him from the trees, commenting—or simply complaining—loudly. He wished for Daol’s expertise in reading trail sign. Or Hydallan’s. It looked to him as if the larger party, and the remaining horses, went north. Maybe a half dozen to ten had turned southeast.

  Wallach nodded when he said as much. “Larger group went a-north, yea. Following a line along the Snowy River country.” The man didn’t know as much hunting lore as Daol or even Kern, but as a seasoned warrior he knew how to gauge the signs of men on the move. “Southern group traveling smaller and faster.”

  Someone had to choose. Everyone looked at everyone else. Eventually, they all looked at Kern.

  “North,” he said, sounding decisive. He didn’t need them squabbling about it after. Handing a small cut of meat to Ehmish, swallowing another shard of uncooked horseflesh himself, he choked it down and swallowed against the taste of blood. “We go north. You don’t move light or fast with prisoners.” You especially didn’t race for a difficult pass with such baggage in tow. It made sense to him.

  Reave hesitated. “If you’re wrong . . .”

  “I’m not wrong.”

  He couldn’t be. Too many lives depended on his decision.

  He also did not point out his second line of reason. That the smaller force was likely setting up a second ambush, thinking to take another bite at Cul’s host. Smaller this time; meant to hit, grab, and run rather than stand and fight. You didn’t haul prisoners on such a task as that, either. Not even for sport.

  They headed north. And by midday, caught their first sign of the Vanir raiders by daylight.

  Kern had jogged ahead, with Ehmish not far behind. Farther back, Reave led the others. Kern’s breath came ragged, and his throat tasted raw from exertion. His mind was beginning to narrow down, concentrating only on a point farther up the trail as fatigue finally claimed its due. The war axe in his hand weighed heavily, as did the broadsword across his back. He should have dropped the sword, but could not. It had been Burok Bear-slayer’s. Nor could he part with the war axe, thinking he would show better skill with the chopping weapon than he had with the long blade.

  Concentrating on such thoughts, however, he nearly missed the movement ahead, and might have given away the pursuit if he had.

  Kern dropped down into the snow, rolling to one side to get behind the skeletal shrub of a red bellberry bush. He stared through brown branches and a few blackened leaves that clung stubbornly from the previous fall, and counted twelve . . . fifteen . . . eighteen shadows exposed on a ridgeline not a league distant.

  Eighteen! Had the southern band circled back to meet them?

  Then he realized that at least four of them had to be the prisoners. In fact, trying to gauge them at a distance, he picked out a line of six figures. One was shorter than the others (Daol?), and one looked a mite leaner (Maev?). They followed in single file, very close together. Roped or chained in a line.

  “How many?” Ehmish whispered at Kern’s side, causing him to jump. He had seen Kern roll away from the trail and approached so stealthily the man had not even felt him there until he spoke.

  “Twelve,” Kern decided, heart pounding. He pointed out the slave line to the youth. “Our kin,” he said.

  “Now what do we do?”

  That was the question. One to which Kern had only the beginnings of a plan. He sent Ehmish b
ack to warn Reave to slow up, letting the raiders move farther ahead of them, then waiting longer in case a rear guard had been left on the ridge to watch for pursuers. They took the time to eat what little food they had left, harboring their strength, then set after the Vanir more carefully this time, not wanting to draw attention to themselves until they were ready.

  Reave was all for an all-out attack just after nightfall. “Ox,” Desagrena muttered under her breath.

  Aodh had a hunting bow and a handful of arrows. Kern carried the war axe. Every man and woman also carried a sword of some type. But it was the wood hatchet that Kern put to work first, cutting a long straight sapling and shedding its branches. Another hour’s work, waiting for twilight to pass, let him cut a half dozen short handles. Without any rope, they used strips of cloth cut from Kern’s blanket to fasten the handles to the sapling at intervals of one arm’s length.

  Desa cut small, tough strips from the horsehide they had picked up. With these they tied bundles of twigs, dead brush, and tinder, and more woolen cloth around the end of each short pole. Crude torches that might burn for a handful of minutes if they were lucky.

  Cimmerians did not count on luck.

  Darkness was not absolute, not with the broken cloud cover. A waxing moon shed silver light over the white-blanketed land. After a day of welcoming back the sun, Kern cursed the poor conditions for a midnight raid. Against the silver-white pale of the snow, five fast-moving shadows were sure to be seen.

  “Timing will be important,” he told his small band of warriors. They crouched down over a piece of ground cleared of snow. Kern used the tip of his knife to dig his plan into the earth. He drew a rough circle for the Vanir campsite, then put a row of six small x’s on the eastern side, between camp and the mountains.

  Young Ehmish listened, wide-eyed, as his part in the action was explained.

  “They will come for you quickly, and quietly as they can. Stay alert! We can’t spare anyone just to guard your back. You have to decide on your own when to run, and you have to run fast and far.” Kern caught the youth’s gaze, held it. “Don’t make me have to come back for you.”