Lodur had been among those who’d taken the Tunog heads, and later set them up on poles outside the ruined lodge house walls. Four men, one woman. All with high foreheads and faces painted with woad, both traits common among the mountainside clan that spread itself among several villages on and around the slopes of Ben Morgh.
He recalled his pleasure, striking that first head from a still-fighting enemy. The temporary flare of warmth as that thrill mixed with his rage, and he led a handful of flame-haired raiders through the ruined walls, into the dark interior to hack and pound and destroy. A warmth he had not felt since the attack on Clan Taur, that winter. A warmth that had fled, and been lost to him, when a certain victory had been snatched away by the Other. Corrupted blood.
Kern.
The name came to him in a whisper, as cold flame sparked behind his eyes. Yea, Lodur knew his enemy. His false brother. And stepping through a ruined hole in the large hut where a door had once been, he again knew the cold, frozen shame of his own failure. To not kill the traitor son of Ymir when he had the chance.
And now, look what he had wrought!
Grimnir waited within. The Great Terror. The Invulnerable. Descended from the First Born of frost-giants, half again as large as any man with a thick, mottled hide, eyes of pure, golden flame, and a savage fury no one could—no one should—stand against.
The hulking war leader took up a fourth of the large hut, slouched into a corner near a great carpet of snowy white fur. Old blood stained and crusted in the giant-kin’s long, ropy hair. The right side of his face was a mass of healing scars, twisting that edge of his mouth into a permanent snarl. He rested with a massive war axe across his lap. His golden eyes were clouded with pain and hatred and raw, directionless anger.
This was Lodur’s crime, as well as his punishment. To see the Great One fallen. Still healing from the winter assault against Clan Conarch, where Kern had stood against he-who-could-not-be-stood-against! Lodur had not been there. Had been sent away in disgrace. But he had heard how this Ymirish of corrupted blood had dragged Grimnir over the cliff’s edge, pulling the northern leader with him toward death.
Yet both survived. Kern, because he caught against a ledge only partway down the steep face. And Grimnir, who could not be killed by mortal means.
But the cost had been high for surviving. Seeing his war host in ruins. His body battered, broken, and needing time to heal. Only his wrath remained unblemished. And that was a terrible thing, indeed.
“Late,” Grimnir growled, in a voice that rumbled up like an earthquake ready to shake the world apart.
The snowy carpet at his feet shifted, and a head looked around with cold, devilish blue eyes and dagger-sharp teeth stained with blood. The saber-toothed cat stared at Lodur, growling, then lay back down but shifted to keep a single open eye on the newcomer.
The massive animal was not the only other occupant in the large hut. Two sorcerers attended the Great One. Two slender Ymirish who shared Lodur’s golden eyes and dead-frost hair and pale, waxy skin. Thinner than he, nearly emaciated in their visage, these men were former warriors who had been blessed with Ymir’s Call. Who had had opened to them the full strength of their blood. Their heritage.
Lodur once believed he would attain such power someday.
If Grimnir let him live, he still might.
“You ordered me to seek the survivors. Two were found hiding within the nearby trees. Another we dug out of a small cave.” Dug out, and quartered her for the effort it had taken, the time wasted. Her screams still echoed warmly in his ears.
“Others?” Grimnir asked.
Nothing for it but the truth. “Lost to the mountain, or the yeti. Scattered across the wide slopes or down into Conall Valley in search of other villages of the Tunog.”
And there were several. Ben Morgh was a massive rise, dwarfing the snowcapped peaks that ran a line north all the way to the Eiglophians. Hot and fire-scarred on the western side. Wooded canyons and hardscrabble all down the eastern and southern slopes. And a cold, white-blue cap that thrust above the clouds. Was it any wonder the Cimmerian referred to it as “Mount Crom?” A suitable throne for their absent god?
At least two clans claimed the wide spread of Ben Morgh’s lower slopes and much of the surrounding land as well. The Tunog were the largest, and most widespread, with no central stronghold to storm and destroy, it seemed.
“Many of them scattered up the slopes, as if thinking to hide from us above the high snow line. Or, there may be a strong point for them yet. I had no time to discover this. I felt your summons, Great One. I returned.”
One of the sorcerers laid a past-crusted bandage over Grimnir’s side, where the skin was mottled purple and black, and the bones beneath the skin looked shifted at odd angles. Broken? Setting poorly? Grimnir snarled at the man, who ignored the threat and bent to claw fingers into the bandage and flesh beneath.