Cimmerian Rage(13)

Windows had been thrown open for the night breeze, which helped. The air was smoke-filled and thick with so many scents: dung fires, stoked up with piles of fresh wood; cooking venison; and the black, nonburning tar the Callaughnan used to treat wood.

And bodies. Sweat and leather and horse. The smell of people who had traveled hard or worked harder. Except for very few who had made time for a bath, as Kern had. And the fewer women who had bothered to rub themselves down with fresh, spring wildflowers. Looking for husbands. Replacing ones they had lost during the long, bloody winter, or taking advantage of the gathering for the first time since coming of age.

One woman, hardly more than a youth, brushed close as Kern and a double handful of his best shouldered their way through the crowd at the door.

She glanced up, confident and curious, then startled at seeing his pale, ivory color and his feral, golden eyes burning by the light of a nearby flaming brand.

“Ymirish!” she shouted, jumping back.

That snapped around several heads and set hands to sword hilts, truce-bonded or no. The raucous conversations in half the lodge fell quiet, though the other half did their best to fill the sudden void. Angry—even frightened—glares shot their way. Turning to confusion, for several ragged heartbeats, until a craggy-browed Callaughnan scoffed and shook his head, and rehomed the war sword he had half drawn from its sheath.

“Wolf-Eye,” he said loudly.

There were a few bitter laughs. One warrior raised a metal tankard in Kern’s direction, in silent salute. Only one. Most flinched away to their previous conversations.

An older veteran slapped the young woman on her backside and gave her a rude clench. Already embarrassed over her provoked outburst, face crawling with color, she spun about and struck at him with a close-handed slap. Then stood there, chest heaving, as the warrior wiped a spot of blood away from the corner of his mouth, grinning.

“Worth every bit,” the man said. His companions laughed.

She stormed away to the other side of the lodge hall.

But not every glare had turned aside, Kern noticed. He saw suspicious gazes and not a few hate-twisted scowls. His ears warmed, and he had few doubts that several conversations just beyond his hearing were now centered on him and his warriors as they spread throughout the lodge. Reave and Desagrena moved off first, spearheading a drive toward where a small knot of clansmen boisterously worked at emptying a large ale cask, not seeing or not caring about the dark, glowering faces that greeted them. With a glance and a nod, Kern sent Daol to watch after them. Ossian stepped over to one of the fire pits. Wallach Graybeard and Hydallan joined a pack of veteran warriors. Ashul, the only other woman in Kern’s pack, grabbed Brig Tall-Wood and Aodh, dragging them over toward food.

Nahud’r and dour-faced Mogh stayed with Kern, the trio working their way through the crowd. Nahud’r followed Cimmerian custom, wearing kilt and a leather jerkin. He rarely found use for a cloak. He did use a long, thin scarf of fine wool to wrap his head in Shemite fashion. Often he covered his face as well, though tonight the last few coils draped loosely around his neck instead. The black-skinned man moved with a graceful strength, and the whites of his eyes shown brightly in the well-lit lodge.

Mogh, like Kern, had shown respect for Ros-Crana by wearing a fine-stitched kilt, dyed woad, with golden needlework. Kern had wrapped himself in a red kilt with tribal sworls stitched through it, trimmed in the shaggy fur of mountain ram. His frost blond hair was tied back with a leather cord, and his cheeks were freshly scraped by the edge of a sharpened blade. Kern had also polished his bracers, one clamped around each wrist, and the silver armlet he wore on his left, until they gleamed.

He also carried the broken spear he’d retrieved earlier that day. It was the only weapon among his entire band not truce-bonded, missing a leather cover tied over its head. His short sword was fastened into its sheath by a leather cord, as was his dagger. But not this. Because it was no longer a weapon.

It was a message. And he did not want that message confused in any way.

From the number of downward glances he counted, he didn’t think it would be.

Third fire. The one farthest from the main lodge doors. That was where Ros-Crana perched on a wide stool draped with fawn-colored deerskins, surrounded by her strongest and most able warriors as well as several guests of Clan Callaugh. Clansmen who had come up from the south. A few leftovers from Sláine Longtooth’s scattered war host. And a trio of Aquilonian soldiers who remained from a horse troop sent to Conarch by King Conan, who had also fought against Grimnir in the recent struggle.

He also spotted the clan’s shaman nearby, taking a slow circuit around the room to attend to the torches. Rail thin and long, with wispy white hair, but a still-strong stride. His liver-spotted skin looked worse by torchlight; mottled and stained, like moldy leather. The cast smearing his right eye reflected back the flickering orange flames.