Blood of Wolves

by Loren Coleman

  “And Grimnir came for us because of that.”

  “But . . .” Kern counted the surviving clansfolk by clumps. “Your army. You could not have lost two hundred men. You said half of them returned, but I see very few warriors left.” And not enough gravesites to account for the rest.

  “You do not see Sláine Longtooth here either. That is because the chieftain has our war host up inside the pass right now.” If it were possible, the Cruaidhi warrior looked grimmer. “Our best men and women, and some we dragooned from nearby clans and communities. And more on their way. I’ve runners carrying a bloody spear to every village and farm within three days of here. Conall Valley must answer.”

  They would, Kern knew, if the bloody spear arrived. Smaller clans and villages were compelled. Clans of equal size or position to Cruaidh would send whatever force they were able to muster on short notice. It was custom, and law. Even long-standing feuds must be set aside to answer the greater threat.

  Gaud and Taur, already hurt so drastically by raiders and the long winter, would have still sent warriors. But three days? Sláine Chieftain was obviously not willing to wait.

  Kern drew in a deep breath, tasting damp ash on the air, and sweat. He would have given a great deal just then for a heated kettle of water, a skewer of venison— horseflesh, even—and a dry shack where he could roll up inside his felt pad. But he sensed those things were not coming anytime soon. Besides the fact there wasn’t a standing shack anywhere in the settlement, he sensed that they had finally arrived at the moment Gard had angled for since their short-lived standoff.

  Stooping, Kern snagged an exposed rock and pitched it off to one side. The smell of overturned earth was very strong, so close to the burial field. “You want our aid in opening the pass,” he guessed.

  “I do. Any band to survive the trek you’ve been on is a force not to be taken lightly. Sláine Longtooth plans to clear the pass and hunt Grimnir into the Broken Leg Lands. He will need every last man.”

  Whether he knew it or not.

  Somehow Kern felt those words hanging between them, unspoken. He glanced at Daol, at Desa, two of his more astute warriors. Daol’s look was guarded, wary. Desagrena stared through long strands of oily hair with a look of outright disbelief on her face. They had picked up on it as well.

  “Your chieftain decided not to wait for more warriors.” Of course not. A thought dawned, bright and clear as fresh ice. “He wishes to avenge his son.”

  “He may not be thinking with the best mind,” Gard admitted. “But make no mistake, he is a warrior born and has survived longer than any ten chieftains you could name. I don’t know what more sixteen men can offer, but if there is a chance, I will take it.”

  “Fifteen,” Kern said absently. Then, “It seems a strange request to come from a man who was ready to run me through with a pike.”

  “I have very few warriors left to me and fourscore clansfolk to protect. Your warriors had naked blades. I wanted no injuries, and no illusion as to who was in charge of Cruaidh.”

  Kern crossed arms over his thick chest. Every muscle ached, but even though he knew Gard was tensed for action Kern felt he could get his shield around before the Cruaidhi ran him through with the pike he still carried. “You are here with only two warriors. You must be very certain of yourself, Gard Foehammer.”

  “Or very certain of you, Kern Wolf-Eye.” The settlement’s protector deliberately turned his back on Kern, walked between two graves, leaving fresh prints in the black soil. The scent of sour earth was strong. Like mud left standing too long without drying in the sun. Two men with shovels worked nearby at the hard-frozen earth.

  A third man with his back to the small group, slight and bent with age, turned his hand at a pickaxe with surprising strength.

  Gard looked back, shrugged. “You could kill me now, that is true. But you would not.” His laugh had little humor in it. “Even if you tried, you could not hold Cruaidh with sixteen warriors.”

  “Fifteen . . . and how can you be so sure? From a few stories told by freezing outcasts wandering in out of the storm?” He glanced at Daol, at Reave. “Maybe they lied. Maybe we all lied.”

  There was something else going on. Something hidden. Kern sensed it, like a trap lying below the silky blanket of snow. His guard was up, as he stood amidst the burial fields and several open, unfilled graves.

  But Gard had another purpose for bringing them out here, other than any implied threats. “The man who first talked of you had no reason to lie.” He reached back, laying a hand on the shoulder of the man with the pickaxe. The bent frame stiffened, as if caught out. Slowly he turned.

  “Any man who would give up a rare meal to a clansman cast out,” Gard said, “would not stoop to betraying a clan in need.”

  Perhaps not. And Kern knew when he was beaten. Old Finn stared across the head of his pickaxe, a sheen of honest sweat matting iron gray hair to his forehead. He looked leaner than when he’d left Gaud. Leaner, and tough as old leather. The light behind his milky blue eyes burned brightly.

  Kern didn’t bother with welcomes or recriminations. He simply offered his hand, and smiled when the old man took it with his own—the gnarled fingers still had surprising strength in them. Gard Foehammer had been right after all.

  Sixteen.

  18

  NO MATTER HOW badly Gard Foehammer might have wanted to press Kern’s small band after the Cruaidhi chieftain, Kern was physically spent and in need of at least some minor attention for frostbite. He didn’t have the deep white patches of Reave or Ossian, or half the others in fact, but the edges of his ears and high over his cheekbones required treatment. If left alone, the dull, waxy patches would turn bone white, then gray. As gangrene set in, bits of flesh would eventually go black with dry rot.

  Kern remembered Burok Bear-slayer, and his final days as the gangrene turned wet and septic. It was an end he’d rather avoid.

  Ashul worked hard on some of Cruaidh’s more desperately wounded, so it was Desagrena who volunteered to see to Kern that evening. No healer, she certainly lacked the caring touch of Jocund or the healer Kern had seen at Taur. But she knew how to dress a wound and care for frostbite. Pulling her dark, oily hair back from where it usually hung in her eyes, she inspected the frost patches on Kern’s face. Poked at them with a sharp finger. Kern felt only a numb pressure.

  “Could be worse,” she said, poking harder, then pinching the skin until Kern finally yelped. “It’s not too deep.”

  A good thing. The Gaudic woman might have gone for her dagger to probe any deeper into Kern’s damaged flesh.

  “She do this for you?” Kern asked Reave, who shared the cramped tent with him.

  The large man nodded glumly, frowning as he remembered. “Yea. Though I think she pinched a mite harder.”

  “And you squealed twice as much,” Desa shot back, her viperish temperament still in place.

  She didn’t go for her knives. Instead, she wrapped damp rags heated on an outside fire over the damage. Kern’s ears stung painfully as blood returned to the cold-affected areas, settling eventually into a throbbing ache. He woke up to lessened pain the next morning. Also to Reave’s elbow digging hard into his side.

  Kern extracted himself carefully from the tangle of blankets and limbs. Before leaving the small tent he smeared horse fat over his cheeks to protect them from further damage and dabbed a bit on his cracked lips as well. For his ears he cut a long strip off his felt pad and tied it back around his head like a scarf, knotting it securely behind his neck and letting the ends trail down his back.

  The mist had cleared overnight, but thick gray cloud cover overhead still muted the dawn to a murky gloom. Old Finn and Daol tended a small fire not too far away, readying it and a camp griddle for flat cakes. Ossian sat with them, stropping his knife against a leather strap, sharpening it.

  Closer by the creekside, Ehmish, Aodh, and Mogh did some sitting-up exercises to warm themselves. Kern joined them, and soon felt the chill in his bones
loosen its grasp.

  Loosen, but never let go.

  “Three of Gard’s runners returned late last night,” Aodh said, grunting as he stretched down to reach for his toes. “A dozen warriors in tow. Each.”

  “That fast?”

  He nodded. “I was up, coloring the creek, when the first arrived. Volunteered to help them make some cloth lean-tos for sleeping. Never quite finished as more bodies turned up during the next watch.”

  Ehmish nodded toward another area swept clear of snow. No tents. Just a small pile of packs and bedrolls, with a couple of large men sitting on them. “They came in this morning. Five men and women from Clan Maugh. Heard them talking. Said they didn’t want to let the Cruaidhi have all the fun.”

  Maugh. Kern knew the settlement. High up north in the valley, about as close as one could crowd the Eighlophian Mountains without being snowed in for eight months of the year. Hard men and women. Gard was lucky to have them.

  “What do you think?” Kern asked.

  Aodh bent down, finishing some squat stretches. His old joints cracked and popped. “Maugh?” He chewed on the ends of his salt-and-pepper moustache a moment. “I don’t like those fellows much, but they’re impressive with a sword, I’ll give ’em that.”

  “No,” Kern shook his head, “that’s not what I mean.”

  He nodded everyone back up toward the fire where Nahud’r had joined the others. The dark-skinned man threw Kern a rag torn from an old blanket. Kern blotted away his sweat before the morning air settled a chill on him, then passed the cloth to Ehmish. Brig Tall-Wood crawled out from under a shallow lean-to of planks laid up against the stone ruins of one of the old bridges, scratching himself, yawning.

  Daol and Finn handed out flat cakes. Hot. Kern bounced his from one hand to the other, cooling it.

  “What do you think?” he asked again. His question included everyone.

  Silence. Then, “Hundred . . . hundred fifty men up in the pass? Another fifty ready to head off after them?” Mogh hawked and spit to one side. “I think we’re suddenly small game in a large forest.” It was the longest speech he’d yet to make in front of Kern.

  Ossian shrugged, rubbed some animal fat over his head in a greasy smear. “We was heading toward the Broken Leg Lands anyways,” he said, scraping a sharpened blade over his pate, slowly, in even, measured strokes. The thin smear of fat protected his skin, but was not enough to soften the stubble. It rasped dryly against the blade. “Fifteen men trying to sneak past or a few hundred forcing their way through—either way, we gets where we’re going.”

  “Come too far to call it off now,” Old Finn offered. “Not like I can go back, anyway.”

  Not like any of them could, in fact. Kern tore a piece of flat cake away and popped it in his mouth. It tasted of stale grease and oats, but it was warm and would fill the hollow growing in his stomach.

  He stared west, into the cold haze that had settled over the rising Teeth of the mountains. The Pass of Blood lay in between his band and the Broken Leg Lands. So much of what they could and would do depended a great deal on what was happening up there in the mountains.

  “Daol?” Kern asked.

  But his friend was already wolfing down what remained of his own food, rising from a squat near the fire. “I know,” he said, anticipating Kern’s question. “I’ll see what I can find out from Gard.”

  Not a great deal, as it turned out. Gard remained busy seeing after newly arrived warriors and preparing them for the trek up into the mountains. He did admit to sending runners westward, to check on the chieftain’s progress. None of them had yet to come back, which could mean the fighting went well, and they were pressing farther through the pass than anyone had expected.

  Or badly. And the chieftain had need of every man who came along.

  He would be getting them. By noon, another fifty warriors from outside Cruaidh had swelled the struggling settlement, which looked more like an armed camp now than the valley’s largest village. Axes hammered in all directions, chopping firewood for dozens of fires. Swords were scraped against sharpening stones. Warriors tested themselves against one another in several makeshift arenas.

  There were a few real clashes between clans with centuries-old feuds. The skirmishes usually ended at first blood before anyone truly got hurt, but even that did not bode well for clansmen assembled under the bloody spear.

  “No strong chieftain here to hold them in check,” Ossian complained. “They answered the call of Sláine Longtooth, not Gard Foehammer.”

  The best Gard could do, in fact, was let it be known from the start that he’d set his own warriors on any clansman who maimed or killed another inside Cruaidh. Kern was glad for that promise. He did not miss the glances of suspicion and outright hatred that followed him around the settlement.

  Feeding the assembling war host was a larger problem than a few squabbles. Most brought with them enough for a few days . . . a week at best. An extended campaign over the western pass would take better supplies, though. The villagers were already on starvation diets, and several dozen clansfolk—men and women, young and old—volunteered to leave with the growing army to relieve pressure on the kin left behind or simply to get better rations for themselves.

  Fortunately, nearby farms and villages were also scraping the bottom of their larders and dry pits for the last of their dried meats and autumn roots. A few scrawny packhorses, loaded with whatever scraps could be spared, were led into Cruaidh close to noon. The horses were butchered directly after being unloaded, their meat cooked and wrapped in oilskin for preservation. Bones were split open for their marrow, and boiled into a broth that everyone shared at the midday meal.

  There wouldn’t be much left in Cruaidh once the army departed.

  That included people.

  Kern expected a visit during the day, but did not bother sitting around to wait for it. When Gard Foehammer eventually searched him out, the Cruaidhi found Kern and his warriors exercising with some weapons practice near their temporary camp at the creek’s side. Wallach Graybeard officiated, having taken on the role of training master. He’d set half of them trading strokes against one another. The other half he left to call out advice and encouragement and jeers.

  Several were taking wagers for honor in the current sparring match between Kern and Reave, a mismatch if ever there was one. Reave’s greatsword had twice Kern’s reach. The shield Kern had taken from the Vanir evened the odds only somewhat, but each time he turned away an attack, it felt as if his arm might shatter.

  Kern saw Gard amble up and ground his pike against the frozen earth, letting the spear lean back against his shoulder, crossing his arms over it, waiting patiently. Kern had no time for conversation. Sweating freely, trying to work his arming sword through Reave’s guard, he merely grunted in the Cruaidhi’s direction, then thrust for Reave’s ribs again, and again.

  Each time he was turned away by a hard parry as Reave whipped the greatsword around in magnificent arcs.

  “Speed,” Wallach called out. “Speed versus strength.”

  Twice Kern slipped inside of Reave’s reach, but both times the larger man kicked him away. Kern was learning to whittle the other man’s defenses down, but slowly. Too slowly. The arming sword grew heavier with each passing moment.

  Finally, taking advantage of Kern’s flagging arm strength, Reave managed to slap the flat of his blade against Kern’s sword arm. Kern stepped back, defeated, gasping for breath which came raw and cold. Several warriors cheered for Reave’s display.

  As did Kern. It had been a great display of skill, and he was happy to have the bruise rather than be missing an arm. Still gulping for air, he thrust his arming sword point first into the frozen earth, letting it stand on its own for the moment. He blotted the sweat from his face, careful to avoid smearing away the horse fat protecting his cheeks. He caught Gard’s eye, and saw the village protector gauging him carefully. Rather than stand under the attention, he nodded and gestured him forward at Reave.


  “Care to have a go?” he asked, getting control of his panting.

  As good a way as any to break the awkward moment. And to be completely truthful, Kern was eager to see how the other man wielded his pike. It was a strange weapon of choice for a Cimmerian.

  Gard hesitated barely for the span of a heartbeat. “Don’t mind if I do,” he said. Grasping the pike in both hands, he raised it overhead in salute and a limbering stretch. He left it up there as he moved forward into the training area, angling the spear’s butt end back down at Reave, like the stinger of a wasp.

  Wallach Graybeard smiled, then hid the expression behind his hand as he scratched into his thick, gray beard. He nodded Reave forward. Obviously, he wanted to see the pikeman in action as well. Reave shook a spray of sweat from his brow, his dark braids slapping across his face, then against the back of his neck. The Cimmerian greatsword came up in a half-guard position, ready to parry or thrust home.

  And Gard suddenly leaped forward with his pike thrusting out, easily half-again the reach of Reave’s sword, looking for the Gaudic warrior’s heart.

  Reave beat the pike aside, barely. Smashing aside Gard’s next thrust, he spun inside, sword slapping at the Cruaidhi’s legs. But Gard grounded his pike in the way and Reave barely missed tripping over it.

  The spearman had a unique style about him, Kern recognized, treating the pike as much as a staff as he did a spear. Perfectly calm with batting aside a sword strike or rapping the polearm against an exposed knee or elbow. Forcing an opening where he suddenly thrust for the heart, or the throat, or the groin. Always for a critical injury.