Blood of Wolves (17 page)

“Jackal,” Brig spit, cursing Finn. If he felt the least bit sorry for the old man's predicament, he didn't show it.

“Here.” Maev thrust the broken half of the shaft between Brig's teeth, giving him something to bite down on. “Keep quiet and work on that while we draw the head.”

She also drafted Kern and Aodh to hold the clansman to the table, rolling him up just slightly so there was room for the head to pass through. She put a small block of wood against the shaft's broken end, and shoved once, hard.

The wounded man bucked, back arching up in pain, then kicking out at Aodh, who held his feet. His yell was muffled around his bite on the arrow shaft. Maev hurried around to the other side, grabbed the bloody head in a fold of leather, and yanked it all the way through. This time Brig did little more than breathe a heavy sigh.

Maev wasn't quite finished with him, however. At a nod, Desagrena brought over a hot iron she'd been tending in one of the fires. She slapped it into the wound on Brig's back, sealing the flesh against a deep infection. Brig lost the shaft between his teeth as he shouted through the pain. His entire body spasmed, and this time his kick worked free of Aodh's weight.

He stomped on the other man's shoulder, then his ear, kicking him away from the table.

Kern and Daol rolled over onto Brig, pinning him flat, while Desa slapped the hot iron against the front of the wound, then into the second arrow puncture as well. There wasn't a lot of fight left in him after that. When they let him up, Brig simply rolled away and dropped heavily to the ground, eager to be free of his torture. He lay there next to the table, pounding a fist into the cold earth until the pain subsided enough that he could stand on his own.

“He's lucky that broadleaf head didn't do much more than slice muscle and fat,” Maev told Kern.

Brig climbed slowly to his feet. “If that's luck, by Crom, small wonder I fare poorly at dicing.” He gave a choked laugh, and shoved himself away from the table. Trudging toward one of the fire pits, he stopped long enough to give Maev and Daol a nod of thanks and Aodh a wince of apology for the man's beet red ear.

With Kern, he simply traded a long, measuring stare.

By evening the dead were in the ground and by midmorning of the following day the wounded had all been taken care of to the best of anyone's ability. Taur also had a healer, fortunately, and she worked as hard over Kern's people as she did over her own, sewing shut wounds and applying damp poultices that smelled caustic but immediately took the sting out of cuts and deadened bruises. She had spread a gray salve over the shallow cuts on Kern's chest and arms. It cooled the raw edges of his wounds and took a bit off his infection fever as well.

It was also her work that saved the life of the Brythunian. A merchant, as it turned out. Those had been his horses in the possession of the Vanir raiders. He didn't begrudge their loss, happy still to be alive after the last several days. But he was in no great shape for hard travel. The Taurin healer recommended a litter and far too much attention to his wounds than Kern's small band could give.

He also had little interest in hunting down the raiders, which was why it was determined to send him south to Gaud, with Maev and any others.

With many others, as it turned out.

Liam, the Taurin chieftain, brought more of his clan's rapidly depleting stores and twelve village elders with him to an evening meal shared with the Gaudic band. Liam Chieftain had more gray hair in his beard than Aodh, and diamond-hard eyes that had seen too much in his lifetime. He scraped his scalp bare, which was an uncommon custom in winter but not unknown. Bushy eyebrows and his ragged goatee more than made up for it.

He carried a ceremonial arming sword to the cleared area—nothing more than a token of resistance. Perhaps, Kern decided, the chieftain was simply trying to match Kern's own weapon. He didn't explain that he carried the arming sword by necessity, not as a courtesy to their host.

Kern also decided to leave Burok's broadsword wrapped up in his bedroll.

Talk had barely turned toward who would accompany Maev back to Gaud when the chieftain made his offer. “We can offer a limited amount of supplies—jerky and a few skins of ripe ale, dried vegetables—to those who are moving on. Consider it a ransom on the village.”

Liam Chieftain opened a skin right then, in fact, and took a strong draught before handing it on to Kern, who drank. The ale was dark and tart, on the edge of turning after too long in storage, but it left a promise of summer on his lips. It also freed up his guard a bit, which in Cimmeria was not always a bad thing.

“That's not why we fought,” he said. “We can take care of our own, Liam Chieftain.”

The man shrugged. “A simple gift, then. Something to help you on your way.” Again, the chieftain stressed the idea of the Gaudic warriors leaving. Soon.

“You wish to know when we are quit of Taur,” Kern said. It was not a question.

“Yea. That is exactly what I wish to know, Kern Wolf-Eye.” He glanced at nearby clansmen and kin. “We've known your looks on the face of Vanir raiders at least three other times this past year. Your appearance does not sit well with many here.”

But other than having seen Ymirish come through, leading Vanir warriors, Liam Chieftain knew little else of the strange men. Kern nodded, then looked around the mix of Gaudic clansfolk and Taurin. As twilight darkened and fires glowed ruddy health on the faces turned toward him, he weighed his own choices against those of the others. “I plan to leave on the morrow,” he promised the Taurin and informed his people at the same time. “First light.”

Maev shifted in her position near Kern. “Those of us able to return back to Gaud will leave by midmorning. We have wounded to tend. Any extra blankets and food you can spare, we will accept.”

“It shall be done,” Liam promised. “Burok Bear-slayer was a good chieftain and a good adversary. His midwinter raid against our cattle herd showed daring and cunning. Cimmeria needs strength such as Gaud shows.”

That, and much more, Kern thought. Looking from chieftain to chieftain's daughter, Kern passed the skin to another warrior, then stared into the nearby fire. “You could both do better,” he offered quietly, broaching an idea that rattled around inside his head. He glanced over, saw he had their attention.

“Gaud has great strength, yea. But Taur has shown itself to be strong in the way of planning and preparation.” He nodded toward the protected lodge. “Your food stores are deep. Your defenses are strong.”

Liam stuck his chin forward proudly, but his eyes held a wary cast. “What are you thinking, Wolf-Eye?”

“Looking at what you have done here, that both clans might survive and be stronger if they shared strength.”

Liam stood abruptly. “What is ours is ours alone! It belongs to Taur.”

“And how long could you hold off another Vanir war party? Next time they will not stop with a few huts, or a stable. Next time they will burn the rest of your village around your ears, Liam Chieftain. You do not have the warriors to stop them.”

“Do not think we are so easy prey,” the chieftain warned, his face flushing with anger. Still, he did not argue against his clan's current weakness.

“How many of your people have struggled south in the last few weeks as raiders attack and burn and eat away at the strength of Taur?” Maev asked, standing. She angled her way past a few crouched warriors until she stood a good arm's length outside of Liam's reach. “If I see what Kern is proposing, he is not suggesting you give up anything. But that we trade. Our combined strength for food and defensive help.”

Shifting about on a small camp stool, Kern pounced on the chieftain's hesitation. “Your clan is dying. The raiders know it, and they will come back.”

The man scoffed. “How can you be so certain?”

A wolf howled out in the night, calling to distant kin or warning them away. Kern's wolf, he was willing to bet. He listened to its yelping call, letting it die into a distant echo before he fixed each Taurin with his own predator's stare. “Because that is what I would do.”

That did not sit well with several, reminded only a moment ago how Kern resembled some leaders of the Vanir raiders. Many shifted uncomfortably in their seats. A few hands crept toward daggers, toward sword hilts.

Liam rubbed at the smooth side of his check, just along the hairline of his goatee, thinking.

“As would I,” he finally admitted. “Crom curse me if I didn't. The village has lost too many, fled south. And we've lost more traipsing up to the northern skirmishes this year. The raiders are a plague, and we haven't the means to fight them alone anymore.”

“Then stand with Gaud,” Kern said. “Take your people south with everything they can carry. There is room. They will make room.”

“You can promise this, Wolf-Eye? You are outcast.”

“He is,” Maev agreed. “But I am Burok Bear-slayer's daughter. Cul Chieftain must listen to me. If
I
leave Gaud, more would follow me here than would stay with him. They will accept you.”

It was a dangerous commitment for Maev to make. Kern saw Brig Tall-Wood start, ready to jump to his feet and defend Cul. His dark glower, though, and his lack of action argued that he did not necessarily disagree with Maev's promise. Of anyone, she likely could break Clan Gaud.

Maev's words had the desired effect. Liam Chieftain stood and considered, and finally nodded. “I will think on this,” he promised Maev, then turned back to Kern. “But first, I will see you and your wolves away from Taur. At first light.”

Kern held the chieftain's gaze a moment, then nodded.

But Maev frowned. “Where will you go?” she asked.

He did not hesitate. “I will head north and west.”

“The raiders broke for the northern trails,” Daol said, as if reminding his friend of something he should already know. He had tracked out away from the village for several hours and reported back the same information privately to Kern and to Liam Chieftain. Now he made it public. “A few scattered out on their own, but I saw signs that most followed in one large band.” Following the Ymirish, he did not have to say.

“I intend to track them,” Kern admitted, staring at Daol. He shifted his gaze to Liam. “I will hunt them.” To Maev. “And I will kill them. If I can, I will draw the fighting from Conall Valley, away from our villages.”

“How?” Maev asked, her voice tightly reined. “According to Liam Chieftain, the northern valley clans have failed to hold the raiders back all winter. What more can you do, Kern?”

“I will push over the western pass, into the Broken Leg Lands,” he said. “If I must, I will take this fight all the way to Vanaheim itself.”

Except for the crackling flames, silence reigned. Gazes roamed the fireside meeting as several clansmen took measure of one another, and of Kern's promise. He had not arrived at it lightly. Looking back, to the moment he had turned north after the Vanir raiders, this had been the path he'd chosen. For himself, and those who had come with him.

Reave simply shrugged. “Well, nay sense coming all this way for nothing,” he said. He swigged the last of his ale, tossed the dregs into a nearby fire, which hissed and spit. Desa was only one step behind Reave in agreeing, nodding her support. Wallach, too.

Daol looked to his father, then accepted for the both of them. Hydallan couldn't help adding, “You'd be starving pups within a week without us along.”

Ehmish glanced around, looking trapped. A young kit on its own for the first time, being forced to make a decision that could mean survival or death. To his credit, he hesitated barely more than a few seconds. “Better what I have now, here, than what I might find when I reach the southern borderlands.” He shook his head, laughing silently. “I am nay Conan.”

Aodh, too, continued to cast his lot with Kern. And Garret. Maev offered to take Nahud'r back to Gaud, but the Shemite demurred with a slow shake of his head. “There's nothing left for me in the south. I will go north.”

Even more surprising was when Brig Tall-Wood offered to stay. “If you will have me,” he said, barely able to meet Kern's unblinking gaze. “If you are serious about going after the Vanir and keeping Gaud safe.”

There was more in the young man's request than that, and Kern knew a moment of suspicion. But having another experienced bowman along would be a fine advantage and outweighed his misgivings. He agreed.

He also saw a measure of relief and cunning both pass behind Brig Tall-Wood's eyes, and worried about it.

In the end, Kern kept his original five outcasts, another four from Gaud, and Nahud'r. And four warriors of Taur who followed Brig's promise to help defend their village by taking the battle after the Vanir.

Their volunteering surprised Liam Chieftain, who suddenly traded more serious looks with Kern and with Maev, feeling the weight of the moment. Two of Taur's finest warriors, Liam promised. And a strong woman who knew some herb lore and healing skill.

The fourth volunteer created something of a stir. A man of twenty-odd summers and something of a local favorite, given the sudden sharp buzz of conversation that swept the circle. Like his chieftain, Ossian also shaved his head clear. And the hilt of his broadsword had a comforting, well-worn look to it.

“You are certain?” was all Liam Chieftain asked.

“As certain as should you be, accepting the offer of Bear-slayer's daughter.”

An outspoken man as well, then.

“Your pack swells,” Liam said, guarding against any further question of the decision. He shrugged. “Perhaps you can accomplish something after all.”