Blood of Wolves (11 page)

But he wasn't going to outrun the Vanir, Ehmish realized. Especially as he was leaving them an easy trail to follow. He veered toward the thicker stands of trees, where the snow was thinner and would not tell his passage as easily. He considered climbing high, but somewhere he had heard how that was a natural instinct, and the first mistake an unseasoned man made. From a tree, there was nowhere left to go.

Always better to go down. For cover.

Over there! Where the trees thinned again, spreading out to create several small clearings. The snow was thicker on the ground, but so were a few patches of underbrush.

One hedgelike stand held up a large blanket of snow from the ground, leaving room beneath its branches for a small man to hide. Ehmish dodged in that direction, taking large, jumping strides to keep his footprints to a minimum. Then he grabbed up his cloak, wrapped it about him as best he could, and rolled under the tangle of branches.

Some of the suspended snow fell down on him, and Ehmish took inspiration from that. He reached out and swept long armfuls toward him, building a small wall that might hide his legs. Then, grabbing a thick branch, he shook the brush and brought more of the crusted snow down around him and on top of him.

Pulling the edge of his cloak over his head, he waited.

He waited while footsteps thundered against the frozen ground not a sword's stroke distant. Waited while the raiders called to each other in their flat, nasal language, all around him.

He waited until he heard the first wounded cry in the distance, which would be Aodh and his bow, and longer while the Vanir shuffled around him, torn between pursuit and a return to camp. Ehmish waited until the forest was filled with the sounds of distant fighting, and the footfalls of the Vanir had all faded away.

And then he waited some more.

DODGING AROUND THE back side of a simple lean-to tent, hunched over, Kern stayed low to the ground. The sharp, ringing clash of steel against steel and grunts of exertion drew him around the corner at full speed.

He ducked under the lean-to's support rope. Raced into the clearing.

To nearly be trampled by a runaway horse.

The Vanir's entire camp boiled over with chaos. Warriors roared their battle cries or called out the appearance of a new threat. Prisoners yelled to be rescued. A pair of horses, freed from their tether lines by Desagrena, raced about inside the circle of trees and tents, trapped, frenzied. One bled from a cut along its left foreleg, bawling up a storm with its high-pitched cries.

Slipping around the flanks of the wounded animal, careful of its lashing hooves, Kern came at the blind side of a Vanir warrior battling Wallach Graybeard at the center of the raider camp. The two men circled around a large stone ring, inside which the embers of the raiders' fire still glowed a dull orange. The raider, a large man, belted with a metal cuirass and thick furs, wielding a bastard sword with furious energy, easily outmassed Wallach by several stone's weight.

Wallach kept his broadsword in the way of the Vanir's brutal chopping strokes, but wasn't able to strike back with anything more than halfhearted slashes before the raider was on him again.

Kern struck the man full-body on, shoving him away from Wallach. Tripping over the fire pit stones, the raider rolled through the burning embers with a cry of pain and rage. Kern went after him, circling the fire pit with the haft of his battle-axe gripped tightly in both hands. But when he struck at the raider, the red-haired warrior easily ducked the clumsy blow.

His second cut and a third did no better than slice the air again, though they kept the raider dancing among the live coals.

A return slash nicked Kern's wrist, stinging him, but he turned most of it against the axe's thick handle.

He jabbed the axe head at the raider, trying to hook him with the back side of the sharpened flange. An awkward motion, which missed. Surprisingly, Kern was finding the battle-axe hardly as comfortable as a wood axe would have felt in his hands.

Not that it mattered so much when Wallach leaped into the fire pit and laid the raider's flesh open just over his ribs. The Vanir hissed in pain, but did not drop his sword.

Wallach's next slash took the man's hand off at the wrist. Kern's sloppy overhead chop ended a howl of pain, cleaving through the man's head, wedging the axe's thick blade in the raider's skull.

The stench of crisped flesh and singed furs burned at the back of Kern's throat. He tried to pull his axe head loose, but only succeeded in dragging the raider's body half-out of the fire pit. His gorge threatening to rise, he placed a foot into the mess of blood and brain, ready to pry his weapon free. Then realized he wasn't having a great deal of luck with it regardless.

Dropping the haft in disgust, he reached back and freed Burok's broadsword. And from the strap over his left shoulder he unslung the small, bronzed-faced shield he'd salvaged from his last battle. With these he quickly chased after Wallach, who had run for the slave line.

Thin rope bound the five prisoners' wrists and hobbled their ankles together. A chain stretched from neck to neck, attached to thick leather collars that secured at the back. When Kern arrived, Wallach was sawing at Daol's bindings. The small man gasped in pain and relief as his hands were freed and circulation returned. He struggled with his collar, numb fingers fumbling with the clasp.

Swatting Daol's hands away, Kern worked it himself. A simple twist of a metal toggle, which popped through a riveted hole and the entire collar and chain fell away from Daol's neck.

Daol actually hugged the other man, grateful for his rescue.

“Thought you'd be dead in the snow,” he said, voice hoarse and breaking from lack of water. “Where's Reave?”

Kern didn't know. Wallach did. “Saw him chased off by a pair of raiders. Two more went toward the horses, and Desa, but Aodh got one of them through the heart.”

Daol paused over the collar of the next slave in line. A man with ebony skin and bright eyes, and very, very far from home to be trapped in Cimmeria. “How many'd you bring with you?” the young hunter asked, amazed to hear so many familiar names.

“Not enough if the other raiders make it back before we're done.” Kern had looked over the line of prisoners and found the one missing. “Maev?” he asked, an icy fist punching him in the gut.

Daol startled as if stuck with a knife. “He took her.” He cast about, trying to orient himself. “North end of camp. Other side of the hanging felt.”

Kern had seen the makeshift wall, but had not been close enough to look behind it. Figured it to be the local trench. Had Maev been there, bound and gagged, the entire time? He drew the knife from his belt and tossed it to Daol.

“Find Reave or stay with Wallach. Grab whatever supplies you can.” He set off at a sprint, glancing back only once. No sign of Aodh, who should have gone after Ehmish. Desa he noticed scavenging from among packs and slings on the south side of camp. “Gather them and get them out,” he shouted back to Wallach.

He went for the hanging sheet of felt. It lay over a cord strung between two tall pine, on the north side of camp as Daol had said. Kern didn't bother running around, or trying to lift it as a raider lying in wait might guess. He swung the heavy broadsword up and around, slicing through the thick material, cleaving it nearly in half and forming a door in the privacy screen.

Then followed the sword through, ready to take a blow against his shield.

There was no one there. Just an abandoned bedroll and a large shaggy fur blanket no doubt come with the raider from Nordheim lands. A horned helm rested on a nearby branch, forgotten in his haste to leave. But he had taken Maev with him, or come back for her in the confusion in the camp. Which meant the other raiders might not be far behind.

“Grab and go,” Kern yelled back over his shoulder, plunging after the two sets of tracks in the snow. Moonlight was strong enough to read the trail. “Go now!”

He should have grabbed a pack on his way through. Or returned for one, and maybe find Daol to help him track after the missing pair. He'd also left behind the battle-axe. Kern had his bedroll tied around the middle of his back and a few meager scraps of raw horseflesh wrapped in the oilskin. He had his sword and shield and not much else.

He wasn't turning back now.

His winter cloak streamed out behind him as he sprinted down a short, shallow slope, crashing through a light stand of brush at the bottom. He used his sword to clear a bit of tangle from in front of him, hacking at the skeletal branches as if he bore a machete and not a battle-quality weapon. Out through the far side, he saw the wide prints of the raider and the shuffling trail where Maev either stumbled along or was dragged.

Even if the raiders' leader had fled with the initial onslaught, he could not have better than a few moments' head start. And why drag along a prisoner? There was only one use Kern could think of for separating Maev out from the others, but not while running. Every ten paces, Kern had to make up time on them.

Then the moon slipped behind the clouds, and he was forced to slow or lose the trail altogether.

“Maev?” Kern called out loudly. He feared losing the trail, or slowing too much, against what the raider might do to her if she called back.

“Here! Over here!”

The shout did not come from too far away, around a small screen of scrub pine and hemlock. Again, rather than go around, Kern came through the evergreens with sword in front of him—to find Maev in torn clothing and a haunted look in her eyes, tugging uselessly on the rope that bound her collar to a tree. Her wrists were tied together, making it difficult to undo the knots. And, of course, she could not reach the clasp at the back of her neck.

She spun around as he crashed into the small clearing. “Kern! Kern he's—”

But Kern understood at once that Maev had been dragged along as bait and as a distraction at the same time. Staked out in the clearing to give the raider a chance to strike from behind. He dived off to his right, arms flailing, as the Vanir burst from cover with bloodstained bastard sword already stabbing for Kern's side.

It scored off Kern's shield, more by luck than design, turning the point away from his kidney.

Kern hit the frozen ground hard, losing his broadsword, rolled and came up with shield between him and his attacker. Expecting one of the flame-haired Vanir or a close cousin of Asgard with their fairer skin and golden hair.

A large man, certainly.

A ferocious warrior.

But not the frost white hair and beard that looked so much like one of the fabled snow bears of the far, far north.

Certainly not the yellow eyes Kern had only ever seen in a still pond's reflection.

The frost-haired man was huge, standing at least three handbreadths over Kern. With waxy-pale skin, he wore the leather cuirass banded with metal that was common among Vanir. And he used the bastard sword as easily as Kern might a knife. No wild, slashing attacks but with short, brutal stabs that went for Kern's heart, his face.

Rage twisted the raider's mouth into a feral snarl as he jabbed and struck.

Kern's shield took most of the damage. It was easier to handle than the heavy steel blade he retrieved from the ground. In a hand accustomed to its weight and grip, the broadsword was a solid weapon. Not as fearsome as a Cimmerian greatsword, perhaps, but few men other than Reave or perhaps this giant of a northerner could effectively wield such a length of edged metal.

Still, Kern flailed at the other man. Each weak thrust was turned aside or parried directly, the blow ringing down through the steel and up his arm. Several times it felt as if Kern had dislocated his shoulder, though he did not lose his grip on the sword again because without it, he and Maev were dead.

The northerner came at him again. And again. He had incredible strength, which did not seem to flag, while Kern was on his second day with little to no rest and very little to eat. Twice they came up body to body. Once Kern managed to slam the boss on his shield directly into the other man's face, laying his cheek open in a wide flap that showed the teeth behind.

The stream of curses he spit back at Kern were a heady mix of Nordheimir and Cimmerian.

The second time they pressed together, the Vanir worked his sword around the edge of Kern's shield. The shield's leather arm strap took most of the thrust, leaving Kern with a shallow slice up his forearm and holding on to the shield by the handle alone.

“What are you doing?” Maev cowered back against the tree as the fight pressed close. She had lost her cloak and her kilt. Only a long tunic protected her from the cold. “Kill it!”

Easier said than accomplished. “He isn't a tree, and this isn't a wood axe,” Kern snapped back, circling at the edge of the clearing, keeping a wary eye on the frost-man.

Kern was doing the best he could for never being heavily trained as a warrior. Also, he had to admit, the northerner's similar features had him rattled. If the yellow eyes both men shared were of concern to the frost-man he did not show it at all, while Kern could not help wondering where this odd-colored man had come from.

And if there were others like him.

Another clash. Kern felt his arm growing slow behind the broadsword.

He couldn't last a great deal longer. As the giant man charged forward again, Kern whipped his shield up barely in time to stop the point of the bastard sword, which aimed right for his heart. He remembered the single-thrust wound that had killed Oscur, and knew this warrior was the one responsible. It had been a slaughter for the veteran raider, this strange northern warrior, not a battle. The youth had never stood a chance.