“We do not follow that mongrel.” There were nods, but fewer shouts of agreement. A few eyes shifted from one side to another. “Bloody spear or nay.”
Ros-Crana’s voice, when she spoke, was icy calm. “But was it Kern Wolf-Eye or Clan Callaugh who carried a bloody spear to your lodge hall table?” she asked simply.
He opened his mouth to speak, then paused. It was that small delay, she knew, that undid him. None of his own people could see the sudden pain that flared in his once-powerful gaze. They all stood behind him. But she saw. And he knew. And others heard the weakness as he conceded the point.
“You brought it, Ros-Crana Callaughnan.”
“And what clan staved off starvation among Corag’s people when Vanir burned your winter stores two years back?”
He swallowed. Hard. “Your clan.”
“Who was first to send warriors, and offered to help you hunt Ellai’s tormentors to their death or his own?”
“Your brother.”
“What did T’hule Chieftain offer you then?”
“Nothing.”
Now she stepped a solid pace closer, sword still raised across her body, until only an arm’s length separated her and Wellem Chieftain. Either one might slash out now and break the fragile peace. “And who has a greater war host now camped ’round your walls, Wellem, than the Vanir ever set against you?”
Some fire returned to his eyes, but it wasn’t the same argent fury she had once known in him. “You would not—”
“I would!” Third insult. Interrupting him. “My people have spilled blood and gone hungry for you, and when we call for your support you grovel for the scraps thrown by T’hule Chieftain instead?” She felt her blood heating up, rising color in her face. “I will have your loyalty, or I will spend every last man sworn to me on that hillside to raze Corag to the ground. Look carefully, Wellem. Standards from five villages hold over that war host. Villages from every direction, surrounding you.
“Where is T’hule Chieftain now?” she asked.
Sword points lowered among a few of Wellem’s kin. One man actually turned and shuffled away!
The other chieftain stared in open surprise at her vehemence. “The hatred you have for me and mine must run deep.”
Stupid, self-centered mule! “The hatred I have for you, Wellem, is mere annoyance compared to the fury I know for Grimnir and the pain he has visited on us for far too long. I am merely willing to destroy you. But for Grimnir and the chance to strike at him one last time I would burn your village to the ground, tear Mount Crom apart stone by stone, and chase him across the poisoned desert and round and round the northern wastes before I give him up again.”
The rage fueled her. Drove her. Picked up her voice and flooded strength to her arms. It wasn’t until she managed several calming breaths that she saw she had taken the last few steps into Corag, backing Wellem up against a wall of his own people, leaving him looking stunned. Overwhelmed.
He nodded. Just once. A signal of surrender. “You will ask me to lead out how many warriors?” he asked.
“I’ll ask you to name a war leader who will bring twenty strong arms under Corag’s eagle’s talon. You are so worried for your walls, stay with them. I have set a protector over Callaugh, and he will answer if either the Vanir or Clan Conarch press from the north.”
One of the larger men, who had come out at Wellem’s side, stepped forward and out from beneath his chieftain’s shadow. “I will lead them,” he said. And looked at Ros-Crana. “If you will trust my arm at your side.”
There was a touch of defiance in his voice, of overconfidence, but she nodded, and so did Wellem. Neither of them missed the fact that the new war leader of Clan Corag had simply named himself. That coming back from battle, if he came back, there would be no keeping him from replacing Wellem as chieftain. He knew it. And maybe—the idea strutted across his face so plainly—it was a good thing he would be home to shore up his weakened base and take a stronger hold over Corag.
“If that is all?”
But one weak leader lessened all the clans, and Ros-Crana was not through. Ruthlessly, she quashed any measure of pity she might feel for her cousin and forced one last burden at him. “There were four arrows shot at my feet,” she reminded him. She had one more, to even things up. “Three of them might still be good. Mayhap my war host will need every last shaft.”
She had everything she needed now. She read Wellem’s final defeat in the slump of his shoulders. She had no doubt that he would see her in a Challenge Circle if they both lived through the coming months. But for the moment, he would suffer her judgment and her sentence. He nodded, and stepped past her for the open gate, to collect the three arrows still stuck out in the mud and return them to his archer.
Nay other way to do it, she knew. The Corag war leader realized now that she would tolerate nay one measure of resistance. At least, not from him. His warriors would fight all the harder for it, for her, and to erase the stain on their personal honor.
And if Clan Callaugh required aid in her absence, Kohl, her appointed protector, would not find Wellem standing in his way.
A strong position all around.
And with such strength, she thought. They might all have a chance.
22
RIVERS SWOLLEN By rains and snowmelt rolled and crashed in a never-ending froth of white water, chasing Kern and his warriors down out of the Black Mountains. So used to the sound, the dull, angry roar ahead was lost on them until Ehmish, out in front of the pack as he so often was, stopped and dropped into a crouch to splay his hands over the flat surface of a half-buried boulder.
Kern watched him pull a knife, stabbed it into the hardpan next to the rock. Cupping his ear to the end of the handle, Ehmish listened. Then nodded. Safe enough, apparently, as the young man simply wiped the blade against his kilt and shoved it back in its scabbard.
No one asked, and he volunteered nothing.
Very quiet he’d been, in fact, since the Galla returned Daol and Kern to the others. At first there had been much shouting, and the rasp of blades being drawn free, but relief at having the two men back among them and Kern’s assurance that Daol likely owed his life to the Galla went a long way in calming his pack’s fury.
Ehmish took it all in stride, as if he’d never doubted Kern’s return. And if something else was eating at him, Kern passed it off as concern for their chief hunter and tracker, who had been teaching Ehmish his craft very patiently, and left it alone. A man’s business was his own. And he worried as well. Daol still traveled in the cradle fashioned for him by the Galla, carried most often between Reave and whoever wished to take some time on the other end of the litter. Sweating, even through the coldest nights. Shivering under the sun’s touch. He had his wits back, though, and was able to talk between long bouts of sleep. His skin was still pale, but the poisoned wound on his back seemed to be healing. It had left a blackish scab, and Kern knew that when it healed it would have a puckered, burned look to it.
Lucky to be alive. Then again, that was so true of them all.
What Ehmish had learned, listening to the ground, became obvious to them all soon enough as the water’s call became a deep, pounding roar that rolled up the mountainside like new thunder. It reminded Kern far too much of the throbbing pain still splitting his head, but he knew it for what it was. Waterfall.
Soon they worked their way down a treacherous, steep slope, covered with thick, leafy fern and nothing to hold on to but water-slick branches as they chased the falls in its desperate plunge. A light, refreshing mist washed over them. Not so heavy as a light rain. Bracing himself behind the trunk of a large red cedar, Kern caught himself turning his face up into it, letting it wash the day’s sweat and grime from his brow. The thunder rolled around inside of Kern’s head, drowning out the whispers and echoes of doubt that had plagued him for two days, ever since he’d been half-strangled and hauled up the side of that ledge.
No, ever since his time in the Galla chieftain’s t
ent. A flash of violet lightning leaking in from outside . . . or had it? It was there, like an afterimage burned behind his eyes. Swimming with bits of cold, blue flame that flared up whenever he blinked down hard, bringing with them a memory of that rush of power, of certainty, that had come when he’d thought about fighting his way from the Galla encampment. It had been a close decision.
He also remembered something like it when he’d been standing among his murdered kin in Gaud. Sparks driving painful knives into his skull. A mixture of rage and warmth and strength in him. He remembered feeling the presence of the other Ymirish before he could have ever known. And that far-off flare of pain when he’d worried about Grimnir.
Had he come close to striking out then? Blindly? Enraged?
When the only friends he knew in the world had surrounded him?
Questions. Doubts. Kern knew he’d never shake them. He’d lived with them for too long. With Ashul’s dying words; One of them. And ever since Cul Chieftain cast him out. When Maev had looked on him, her father dying a slow, lingering death, and said, “It should be you.”
His entire life was full of such moments. And he lived with them.
He’d try not to let them worry him anymore.
It was enough that he worried for his warriors and friends as they wrestled the slope, sliding from foothold to foothold. Ehmish leaped down in large jumps, nimble as a young mountain ram. Old Finn and Hydallan were slower, more cautious. Falling, cracking a knee against one of the large trees that grew up from the mountainside could hobble them for life. And there was Valerus, who had both the best and worst time of it, lying back along his horse such that his head lay against the animal’s rump, letting it do all the work but certainly worried at every sliding step that he might get pitched up and off. And it was a long, dangerous slide ahead.
Then the slope turned sharply beneath an overhang of dark, wet, black granite, running them onto a shelf of rock that passed right behind the falls. A dimly lit cave, with pools of standing water, thick moss exploding out of cracks in the walls and floor, and a constant water drip raining down from the ceiling. The false wall to the east was a shimmering curtain of silver-gray water, lighting into a brilliant crystalline blue when the sun peeked out from between gray clouds. Not a perfect wall. There were thin breaks, like doorways, which when looked through, offered a long view over the rapidly falling mountainside and the spread of forested lake country below. Calm, it looked. But looks could be and often were deceiving.
Reave and Ossian set Daol back to one side, in one of the cavern’s few dry areas. Valerus coaxed his mount inside, walked it most of the way through, and ground-hitched the horse near the far exit. Most everyone took turns walking up to the sheer drop, running a hand out into the falling water to catch enough to scrub against their faces, or across their chests. Looking out into a land they had heard about but few ever visited unless it was to raid for wives or cattle or honor.
Then Brig Tall-Wood yelled a shrill war cry.
Kern jerked around, short sword out, and all throughout the cavern startled hands reached for weapons.
He missed Brig at first glance, wondered what kind of creature might have so quickly dragged away the stalwart warrior. Then Ossian laughed and pointed. Right into the cascade of water, where a good-sized tongue of rock stuck out into the falling torrent. Someday, some year, the constant battering would scrub that outcropping right away. But for the moment, it was more than large enough to hold a man, who had stripped down to bare flesh and jumped into the shower of mountain-cold water.
He climbed out, shivering, his skin a bright, healthy pink. Shaking water from his thick mop of hair, he looked about the dim cavern at the others, misread their stares, and looked down at himself. “Stare all you like. Yea, it’s cold. Good to scrub away the filth and the foul stench of those spiders, though.”
To belabor his point, he leaned over toward Hydallan, sniffed loudly, twice, and wrinkled his face in an exaggerated frown. Then he stepped over to his gear and began to dry himself off by scrubbing his kilt over his body.
“Young, snap of a cub.” Hydallan threw his peaked, rabbit fur hat to the ground, careful not to drop it into an actual puddle of water, then stripped away cloak and kilt himself. Grousing, he shot Brig an evil look and stepped under the fall of water with nothing but boots to protect his feet.
He stayed under the cold, pounding shower twice as long as Brig had. For pride’s sake if nothing else.
With expressions ranging from Mogh’s hangdog expression of grim reluctance to Reave’s bearish, savage grin as he looked forward to a bracing bath, the warriors all found semidry places to stash their gear and their clothes. Ossian made the mistake of slapping Desagrena’s bare rump as she walked by him. Grabbing a handful of his goat’s beard, she took him on a slow, painful tour of the cavern.
Reave had never made a move toward the man, trusting his woman to deal with it. He laughed as Ossian collapsed back into a shallow pool, rubbing gingerly at his chin.
“Sure an’ it serves you right,” he called over.
Ossian merely nodded.
Everyone but Daol took advantage of the stop, which might have been the longest rest any of them had known since Gaud. Nahud’r showed no shame in stripping down in front of the Cimmerians. His body was lean and well muscled, and he wore a ring pierced through one nipple that Kern had never before noticed. Somehow, it suited the foreign man. He couldn’t say why. Just as Valerus’s reluctance colored him the way Kern thought of most “civilized” visitors. Reserved. Stiff-necked. His body had the same olive complexion as his face and arms, though not as sun-weathered. And he “kept his modesty,” as he explained it, by wearing his strange undergarment under the falls. A codpiece, which looked to be nothing more than a simple, leather pouch with strings to tie around his waist, to hold his manhood.
Other than the odd jewelry and dress, what suddenly struck at Kern were the wounds his warriors now seemed to be living with every day. Not one among them who did not have at least a few ugly bruises, fading from dark purples to sickly yellows, spreading across some part of their body. And cuts aplenty. Crusted scabs and deeper wounds that had had to be sewed shut or even slapped with hot iron. Wallach’s arm, still seeping with blood and even some dark pus at the stubbed wrist. Ehmish’s side. Reave’s shoulder.
Kern stepped out from beneath the falls after his turn, the pounding roar still filling his ears, his skin tight and puckered but showing an actual hint of false color beneath its usual waxy sheen. The water had been cold, but then true cold had never bothered him overmuch. Slicking back his mane of frost blond hair, he stomped his boots to kick some of the water out of them and set about drying himself with a fresh kilt.
Ehmish whooped high and shrill as he took his turn under the falls. Reave splashed through a small puddle and found a bench of fairly dry rock near Kern. He had an old sword scar, pink and puckered, curling across his right shoulder, and several new ones as well. Another across his left shoulder. A short, bold slice across his ribs. Reave saw Kern taking inventory of his scars, and shrugged. Water dripped from his coarse hair and his dark, brushy beard. Reaching up, he toyed with the many earrings in his left ear while watching Nahud’r get dressed again nearby, the pierced nipple dangling a teardrop of solid gold.
“Think that’d hurt.”
It wasn’t a question, but Kern shrugged. Then, because he knew Reave would never ask the taciturn Shemite, waved Nahud’r over. The dark-skinned man had pulled on his old, Aquilonian-style breeches, now cut off ragged at the knees after so many months of hard journeying. He pulled a leather jerkin overhead as he shuffled over, and wound a woolen scarf loosely about his neck, to be tightened up later into the covering headdress he preferred to wear.
“Your piercing. Is it . . . normal for Shemite people?”
Nahud’r’s hand reached up to brush across his chest. His teeth all but glowed in the dimness, so white and large was his smile. “Unwritten law of desert,” he said, speakin
g in a mixture of Aquilonian and Cimmerian. The hash of language was difficult for many outside of their group to follow, but those who had spent months in the black man’s company were quite used to him. “Anything shows—weapons, jewels—take by bandits, or by friends after death, is accepted. Is . . . right. This”—he tapped his chest again—“for God. For one who bury us. Not leave body rotting on desert floor. Important to Shemite.”
Reave leaned forward, intrigued. “Women do this as well?”
He had spent some time talking to Nahud’r in the past, though not so much as Kern, who had even learned to write a few words thanks to the Shemite’s teaching. But none of them knew so much about the legendary deserts of Shem that they weren’t fascinated by such tales.
Also, Nahud’r was a natural storyteller. It was he who had first created a tale of Conan, wrapping the dark hero of Cimmeria into adventures that roughly paralleled exploits seen by Kern’s small band at Taur, and over the Pass of Blood.
“Women, too,” Nahud’r promised. Then, eyes flashing with mischief, he leaned over to Reave. He whispered, but it was loud enough for Kern and a few others who sat nearby to hear as well. “Some, they add more piercings. Two or three at times. Enjoy it, they say. Breasts and navel. Even . . .” He raised eyebrows. Nodded.
Reave’s eyes bolted wide, and his were not the only ones. Mogh and Brig glanced between each other as if not sure whether or not to believe the tale. Reave, though, obviously believed every word. He glanced over at Desa, who had pulled on a damp shift and was shaking out her kirtle with sharp, violent snaps. He winced, as if imagining the kind of pain that would be asking for, then it was an expression of comical shock all over again. As if the large man simply could not wrap his head around the idea, though it both excited and repulsed him.
Mogh shook his head. “Next he’ll be a-saying that Conan once stole a ruby the size of my thumb from a lady who wore it there. And she never knew it.”
Age of Conan: Cimmerian Rage: Legends of Kern, Volume 2 Page 24
