by Jon Sprunk
“But you weren't scared enough to stay awake.” Caim rooted around the fire's stone-cold cinders. “Why don't you go steal us some wood?”
Grumbling, Malig shambled away through the camp. Caim started digging in his pouch for flint and tinder when Kit appeared across from him. Her eyes were red like she'd been crying. “What have you gotten yourself into, Caim?”
He glanced around. “A storm of shit. Feel free to rub my nose in it.”
“Caim!”
“I'm sorry. I didn't sleep much. There's something strange about these northerners.”
She wiped her nose with the back of a hand. “That's the first smart thing I've heard you say in days.”
“So where have you—?”
Caim stood up as a huge figure emerged from the mist. Wulfgrim strode up holding two steaming mugs. He drank from one as he offered the other to Caim.
Kit flitted around to hover behind Caim as he accepted the cup. It smelled a little like tea, but much sharper. He thought he detected alcohol as well. He took a sip, and found it wasn't bad.
“We're moving,” Wulfgrim said.
“I don't like the way he looks at you,” Kit whispered in Caim's ear. “He wants something, and he doesn't look like the type to take no for an answer.”
Caim just nodded and nursed his drink. Dray and Aemon sat up. Dray stretched and yawned, but Aemon just watched the Northman with narrowed eyes crusted with sleep.
“You are heading north?” the Northman asked. “We will ride with you. I want to learn more of your homeland. Maybe, if the gods are good, I will see it someday, yes?”
Caim handed back the cup, but didn't say anything. There wasn't anything to say unless he wanted to risk angering their host. And by the frank look in Wulfgrim's gaze, the Northman knew it, too. Maybe he was searching for an excuse to take offense.
“I'll get my men ready,” Caim said.
Kit was gone. Off to find them a way out of this, he hoped. Aemon rolled up his blanket and picked up his spear. “I had a feeling they weren't going to let us go.”
Dray scooped up a handful of snow and ate it. “Seven hells, I'm just glad I didn't wake up with a cut throat. What do they want with us?”
“I don't know,” Caim replied. “So everyone keep your mouth shut. Make sure Malig understands that, too. We want these Northmen out of our hair as soon as possible. Don't mention our plans.”
“That'll be easy,” Dray said. “Seeing as we don't know them ourselves.”
A Northman brought their horses. While the others got themselves together, he checked the animals. They appeared to be weathering the cold climate with few problems. Their hooves were a little discolored, but there were no cracks in the spongy frogs of their feet. Rubbing his horse's nose, Caim watched the camp break down. For all their savage manner, the Northmen moved with quiet efficiency. In addition to their riding animals, the tribe had a small herd of packhorses. Within a quarter of a candlemark, they were ready to ride. Malig made it back, without the wood, just in time to grab a stick of jerked meat out of his saddlebags and mount up.
Dray yawned. “What if we just made a run for it?”
Caim glanced around, but there were no Northmen close enough to overhear. Aemon cursed aloud. “For fuck sakes, Dray. Just shut up, will you?”
Dray scowled like he was going to reply, but Wulfgrim rode over with two of his men, both as big as he was. He raised his voice, shouting in the northern tongue, and the camp moved out in two columns; the women and striplings headed west with the pack animals while the warriors rode north. The large northern horses looked ungainly, but they rumbled to a swift trot without apparent effort. Caim wondered how long their southern horses could keep up the pace, and what would happen if their crew started to fall behind.
Wulfgrim rode near Caim all morning, asking him questions about the lands south of the Drakstag Mountains, which the Northmen called the Svartvedir, or Blackstorms. The chief seemed particularly interested in the great cities like Taralon and Othir. “I hear the homes of your southern kings are made of gold and ivory,” Wulfgrim said with a laugh. “Is that true? I think I should like to see an ivory house.”
“The duke's keep at Liovard is plain stone,” Malig said. “Maybe they got that rich stuff down in the lowlands. Caim, you ever seen a—?”
“No,” Caim said, and left it at that.
Wulfgrim watched him out of the side of his eye for a few moments, and then chuckled. “I like you, Southlander. A strong man needs to speak very little, yes?”
But the questioning went on for some time, although at certain points Wulfgrim would lapse into song in his native tongue. Skins of fermented buffalo milk were passed up and down the line of riders, which Caim always declined with a shake of his head. The uneasy feeling in his stomach was getting worse.
“Caim.” Kit materialized beside him as the company began the ascent of a long hill. “You're riding straight for a settlement.”
“Lion tribe?” he asked under his breath.
She shook her head, sending her silver tresses bouncing. “No. Bear. And it looks like most of their menfolk are out hunting.”
Caim started to ask how far away this settlement was when a sharp shout filtered back from the front of the group. Wulfgrim called for a halt. As the war band gathered, Caim tried to make out what they were saying, but his grasp of the northern tongue was almost nonexistent. The few words he knew constituted “yes,” “no,” and a couple different words for snow. Points of light shined in the distance.
Wulfgrim turned to him. “Ready for some sport, Southlander?”
Not liking the way that sounded, Caim just nodded. “Always. What have you got?”
“An enemy holdfast straight in our path. What luck, yes? The death gods must be watching over our shoulders this day.”
“Your enemies?”
The chief reached into his chain shirt and drew out a cord strung with dozens of teeth. “Aye, the great Bear. The only prey worth hunting.”
“We will leave you to it then,” Caim said. “You have our thanks for—”
“Sudlundas dar hraedir mikt,” Wulfgrim said, and his warriors laughed with derision as they unlimbered their swords and axes. Wulfgrim strapped his shield to his left arm. “You will fight with us, yes?”
Caim measured the distance between himself and Wulfgrim, and the warriors around him. Three were in reach of his knives from where he sat, and two more including their leader if he shifted his steed forward a couple paces. Tiny voices nattered in his ear as he loosened his grip on the reins. “This isn't our fight.”
Wulfgrim's brows knitted together. “You say you come north to find battle. Now it is here, but you will not join us?”
“It's not that simple.”
Wulfgrim grinned, showing off the carvings on his teeth, mottled with brown-and-yellow stains. “We fight or we die. That is the law of the north.”
Caim understood completely. This was what the Northmen had wanted from the start: to incorporate them into their death squad. The choice was simple: fight or die. “We'll fight.”
Wulfgrim called out to his men, and they surged ahead in an avalanche of iron, leather, and flying snow. Caim filtered back to his men, who were being swept forward in the movement.
“What's going on?” Malig asked.
After Caim explained the situation, Dray growled, “What the hell choice do we have? We'll have to fight with them.”
“Stay together,” Caim said. “If something goes wrong, ride north as hard as you can.”
The lights ahead were brighter now, a scattering of window ports glowing from a score of shaggy longhouses. Huge mastiffs bayed, but the Northmen didn't slacken. Two wings split off, left and right, while the middle column led by Wulfgrim plunged straight into the heart of the settlement. The first sounds of combat echoed ahead. Shouts of alarm split the darkness.
Caim didn't draw his knives, even though Malig and Dray drew their weapons. A glance from him kept them close by. He d
idn't want anyone getting lost in the chaos as people spilled out of the longhouses. Spears flew through the air. One missile passed just a few handbreadths above his head, but most were aimed at Wulfgrim's men, who were killing everything they met. Dogs snarled and whimpered as they were pinned to the ground on long lances. Three warriors on horseback plunged through the side of a home and brought down half the roof. Some villagers tried to flee, but the flanking Northmen cut them off and cut them down.
Caim tugged on his gloves as he watched. This wasn't a battle; it was a massacre. There were few warriors among the defenders. If Kit was right, and the rest were out hunting, this village was an easy plum for Wulfgrim's raiders to pluck. The Snow Lions fought like their namesakes, tearing into the villagers, killing without remorse. Wulfgrim rode wherever the carnage was thickest, his voice rising above the wind and the cries.
A lean man, naked to the waist and holding a spear, rushed out of a burning house. He ran straight at Malig, who lifted his axe to defend himself, but a Northman rode past. One blow from his iron warhammer exploded the villager's face in a burst of red pulp, and the Northman rode onward with a booming laugh.
“Damn!” Dray muttered, his sword drooping by his side, forgotten.
“This ain't right,” Aemon said. “We shouldn't be here.”
Caim agreed, but extricating themselves wouldn't be easy. The Northmen were all around them, distracted perhaps, but not blind. If they tried to leave, there would be trouble. But neither could they stay. Caim saw two children cut down with their mother in the middle of the lane. The raiders lit torches and flung them into the houses. While the others in his crew flinched and swore at what they witnessed, the slaughter rolled off of Caim. He'd seen and done terrible things before. This was just one more tragedy to be endured. Yet his throat was dry, and his hands shook as he gripped the reins.
A doorway burst open next to Caim, and a woman ran out. She wore a long tunic of animal skin decorated with tiny beads across the front. She stopped and looked up at him, the whites of her eyes huge and gleaming in the light of the rising fires. Her long, copper-hued hair reminded him of Liana. An image flashed through his mind, of her blood-streaked face, her hair wrapped in Soloroth's armored fist. Caim let out a shallow breath that burned his throat.
Hoofbeats pounded in the snow. Steel flashed, and the woman's legs gave out. As she tumbled to the ground, droplets of her blood spattered on Caim's thigh and across the coat of his steed. His horse snorted and stepped away, and a flush of warmth bubbled up from Caim's chest. His vision dimmed as the blood ran down his leg, the drops melding into a rivulet that dribbled through the creases in his pants. A distant buzz droned in his ears, calling him to…to…
Caim didn't remember kicking his heels, but suddenly he was hurtling forward. The Northman who'd ridden down the woman loomed ahead of him. Gouts of steam billowed from the killer's bearded lips, perhaps in a lusty shout, but Caim couldn't hear anything. His knives had appeared in his hands. The warrior stiffened as the points of the blades entered his back, one to either side of his spine, and pitched forward.
With the shadows chittering in his ears, Caim withdrew his knives and turned to a knot of raiders setting fire to a longhouse. He plunged into them, taking the first one out with a slash across the throat. The others spun to face him. A torch drove at him from the left side while a two-handed greatsword swept in from the other direction. Caim dove headfirst from the saddle. He landed on his shoulder, but kept rolling, through the forest of stamping horse legs, and came up on the far side of the warriors. His knives slashed, and their shouts turned to cries of fury as steaming blood spilled in the snow.
More Northmen jumped into the fray. Caim never stopped moving. This was his element, the order at the heart of violence. Their spears and axes moved too slowly to catch him. A horse reared, and he ducked beneath its kicking hooves. The rider swayed away to avoid his knives, but Caim switched directions to stab another Northman in the gut with his seax and swept his suete across the tendons behind the kneecap. Voices clamored in his ear. Some of them were his Eregoths; they had followed him into the melee, but Caim didn't pause to respond.
As the last Northman in his path fell dead to the bloody ground, the door to the house flew open, and a half-naked man appeared in the doorway with a wood axe in his hands. Caim's knives darted forward, moving almost of their own accord, but stopped inches from the villager's chest. He wanted to kill and keep killing. With a grunt, Caim stepped back, and the man ran off with a wild look in his eyes.
Caim scanned the shadows thrown by the leaping fires. Riders galloped beyond the houses, calling out, but they appeared to have given up their sport for the moment. Then a voice thundered behind him.
“Southlander!”
Wulfgrim dismounted at the end of the snow-packed lane. Blood stained the blade of his battleaxe and ran in smeared lines down his wooden shield. His eyes stared with a feverish glare. Aemon and Dray rode up beside Caim, but he waved them back as the Snow Lion chief approached.
He and Wulfgrim stopped a dozen paces from each other. The rest of the Northmen crowded behind their leader in a loose semicircle. It took Caim back to his days riding with the roughnecks of the Western Territories where fights over money or status were commonplace. His pulse began to pound in his temples in the old, familiar rhythm, and he matched Wulfgrim's lurid grin. With a fierce bellow, the Northman charged.
Caim sunk into a low stance, knives out to his sides. No tactics crowded his thoughts, no subtle stratagems to gain advantage. His mind was gloriously clear as he traced the path of the incoming axe. Caim sidestepped and turned behind Wulfgrim's momentum. His suete extended almost delicately and cut a line across the Northman's elbow below the sleeve of his chainmail byrnie. Wulfgrim didn't seem to notice the wound as he brought his axe around at chest height. Caim jumped away, but then lunged back inside after the glittering arc passed by. Wulfgrim caught his seax knife on his shield, but the suete got underneath the broad buckler, punching through the links of chain to sink two fingers deep into the Northman's abdomen. But Wulfgrim's smile only deepened. With a jerk, the Northman lunged forward, and Caim reeled back from the head-butt. Lights flashed in front of his eyes. In the fog of his sudden pain, he realized he was vulnerable and threw himself sideways into a roll.
Caim shook his head to clear it as he got back to his feet. Wulfgrim charged again, shield held high and axe sweeping low. Caim spun out of the way, but the shield slammed into his side and drove him back. His feet slipped in the muddy slush, and before he could set his feet another shield bash backed by Wulfgrim's full weight carried them both into the side of a longhouse. Thin beams and hide split apart as they fell through the wall. Caim held onto his balance by a razor's edge. The axe swung for his head, and he ducked away, but Wulfgrim kept coming, driving him back across the hard dirt floor. The interior of the longhouse was narrow and littered with obstacles that could trip or entangle. Caim trod on a blanket and kicked it away. He was preparing a feint when Kit's voice rang in his ears.
“Caim!” Her glow lit up the interior of the house. “You have to get out of here!”
But he didn't want to hear it as he jumped back from another axe swing. Wulfgrim's tongue lolled from his mouth as he raised his shield and charged. Caim twisted out of the way. His seax blade carved a furrow into the back of Wulfgrim's neck above his mail shirt's collar. The Northman didn't falter.
Kit's head emerged from Wulfgrim's chest, which threw off Caim's timing. “More wildmen are coming! Lots of them.”
Caim slashed across Kit's face, and she darted away. Wulfgrim advanced behind his shield. Caim gave ground step by step. When Wulfgrim wound up for another strike, Caim waited until the axe reached the apex of its arc, and then drove his shoulder into the Northman's torso. It was like running into an iron-clad tree trunk. The breath left Caim's lungs in a bestial yell as he plunged both knives up under the skirt of the chieftain's mail coat. A heavy blow pummeled the middle of his back, but Cai
m kept stabbing again and again, blood streaming over his hands, until Wulfgrim toppled backward.
Breathing hard, Caim stood over his foe. Air whistled from Wulfgrim's open mouth in a long sigh as blood welled in a widening pool between his legs. The chieftain had dropped his axe, but his hand sought out the long knife at his belt. Trails of crimson steam rose from the wounds. Caim leaned down. He had never seen such a phenomenon before. Then the steam wafted toward him, and Caim hissed as a burst of energy surged into his hands and up through his arms. It was like being set on fire and drowned in icy water at the same time. The electric currents collided in his chest, swelling his heart with their raw heat. He started to feel light-headed from the rush. The blood sang in his veins. Wulfgrim shuddered and groaned.
Caim, they're almost here!
Caim gritted his teeth and yanked himself away. Bile rose in the back of his throat as he turned away from the fallen chieftain. The influx of energy dribbled to a halt, but what had already entered him remained, and he felt strong. Stronger than he had in weeks.
More Northmen gathered outside the longhouse, watching him from under bestial headdresses, but they retreated as Caim stepped through the hole. Fires burned bright under the black sky. Caim walked over to his crew. Aemon held the reins to his steed. Caim sheathed his knives and climbed into the saddle. Dray and Malig fell in beside them as they rode between the burning homes, picking past the bodies of the fallen.
They plunged onto the snowy plains, heading north. Caim looked back as they passed a craggy menhir outside the village. The flaming rooftops lit up the sky. A handful of Northmen watched them with weapons in hand, but no one followed. Then Caim saw lights approaching from beyond the other side of the village. Torches. Lots of them. A shout went up from the settlement. As much as he wanted to see what happened next, he kicked his horse to a swift canter to put some distance between them and the Northmen. As the animal took off, Caim was hit by a strange feeling. Black spots swirled before his eyes while he held tight to the saddle horn and fought to stay upright.
