Cimmerians don’t fear death.
He remembered his father saying that once. It felt like a lifetime ago. Before he had left behind clan and kin forever. Following the outcasts after Vanir raiders to avenge the death of his friend, and to help save Maev, Bear-slayer’s daughter.
Cimmerians don’t fear death. They wrestle with it every day. And they win, by Crom. They win till the day they die.
That was the strength Ehmish had seen in Kern Wolf-Eye. Cast out, Kern had returned to lend his arm and sword against the Vanir raiders. He had then chased after the Ymirish and to save Maev and Daol, Nahud’r and a handful of others, and instead of finally fleeing south to possible spring and safety, Kern had taken the battle to the Vanir raiders. To the Ymirish who led them.
To Grimnir himself.
Ehmish had started that journey as just one of the village youths. A child on the blade’s edge of becoming a man, having to live up to an impetuous decision. Or, simply, having to live. Learning what he could from the others in swordplay and tracking and hunting.
Surviving.
And he’d survived. Again. By fortune or skill, what mattered was that the warrior band had carried the battle and without a single life lost. A few nicks and cuts. An arrow wound that Desagrena had cauterized with the hot tip of a knife. A small price.
Especially when compared to the darkness and pain Gard Foehammer must have suffered from the Ymirish’s dark sorceries. The young Gaud approached Cruaidh’s onetime protector carefully, still not completely at ease with the other man’s close brush with the unnatural power. Unsure how such a struggle would affect a man’s mind or heart.
Gard stood out in the center on a flat expanse of unbroken black rock, just this side of a soft-edged, mounded ridge that separated the working clansmen and uneasy merchants from the open rock flow pool. The same pool which, if Reave was to be believed, Kern had created when he lifted a Vanir overhead and hurled the raider down onto the brittle ledge that covered it.
Not that Ehmish called Reave a liar. You didn’t do that to such a warrior. And you didn’t doubt Kern Wolf-Eye’s feats.
But he wondered . . .
“You have a question?” Gard Foehammer asked, interrupting his cautious approach.
Ehmish stuttered his next step, toe digging carelessly into gravel and scattering it in a sharp clatter. “Nay. But I was asked to check on you.”
He remembered the proud warrior from when the band had met him in Cruaidh. Tall and powerful, and confident. Accepting Kern Wolf-Eye and the others as warriors, but never backing off from a position of strength. Now, Gard Foehammer waited for . . . something. Staring up into the sky, and the rain, where Ehmish only saw the glint of falling drops reflecting back the glow of open rock flow. That, and blackness beyond.
“I am fine, Ehmish. I enjoy what small glimpse of the rain I have now. It is something I never thought to see again.”
It was hard to imagine missing the sight of rain. Rain led to cold, wet nights and tight muscles come the morning’s hike. “Then you are healed?”
Gard looked over and down. It was the first time Ehmish had seen the other warrior without the bandages over his eyes. Covering the white blister scars that had burned away part of one eyebrow and puckered flesh around his eyes like pox scars. Gard’s eyes were both so completely blood-shot that they looked red and swollen.
He remembered the oily mist that had risen out of the fog that morning, hovering before the Ymirish sorcerer like a living thing. Dark tendrils had lashed out at men and women, burning them across their faces, driving them into madness and—quickly—death. Gard had reacted faster than most, throwing himself aside and saving his life. And his vision. Mostly.
“I am healing,” the Cruaidhi said. “That is what matters to me. You are a blur, Ehmish, but one I recognize. And I could see well enough today to fight. So I continue.”
“That is what matters to you? To continue?”
Gard shrugged. Turned his unblinking gaze back into the rain. “What matters to you, Ehmish?”
He liked the way Gard Foehammer used his name. An equal. Though because Ehmish had risen in his regard, or Gard had fallen so low?
“Killing Vanir,” he finally said. What more was there? What more could there be anymore?
“And Wolf-Eye?” Gard asked. “What do you think matters to Kern?”
“Killing Grimnir.”
That one was easy. Though even as he said it, he wondered. Did Kern still think about the home and clan they’d all lost? About Maev, Bear-slayer’s daughter? Ehmish had seen her come to Kern’s bedroll one night, after her rescue. In gratitude, he assumed. Or in defiance of Cul Chieftain who had certainly planned to take her as his wife and had not come for her. And while Ehmish had known a moment of childish jealousy over Maev, he had never thought less of either her or Kern for stealing that one moment—at least the one—for themselves.