Tahmat’s Cimmerian carried a heavy accent, but was passable. “I make it worth your time,” he said, pressing his argument.
Daol, Hydallan, and Ossian backed Kern, who stood with arms crossed over his thick chest and his frost ivory hair plastered back like a river otter’s fur. He was not the largest man in the group. Shorter than Ossian and not as broad as the Gunderman chief guardsman. And Kern was by far not the best warrior in the small band, though he held his own in most any fight. But he was obviously the leader the way others arranged themselves around him. Carrying himself like a chieftain, even if at times he looked uncomfortable under the burden.
“We move south,” Kern said, shaking his head.
Gard could tell it wasn’t the first time Kern had said it. He couldn’t make out the outcast leader’s eyes, but had to imagine their gold, lupine stare reflecting back the flickering torchlight. And the too-pale skin so odd next to the darker clansmen, soaking in the reddish torchlight until Kern’s countenance turned crimson.
The men standing behind Kern drank from a silver flask no doubt provided by the merchant as a way to open negotiations. A custom in most southern lands, where supposedly treachery was harder against a man you had shared drink with. Gard no longer believed that. Any man could turn traitor. Even one he had known his entire life.
“South!” The merchant spat to one side, rejecting the plan. “Nothing but shattered villages and a few Vanir race to catch up behind the main push. You think to exist off raiding the raiders? Yea? You’re dead or starving men in a week.”
The tawny-haired Gunderman nodded. “Just unlucky, we was, caught by a Vanir camp. Listen to Tahmat. Good trade. Plenty men to kill.”
The way the Gunderman ran a thick-callused thumb up the edge of his blade, you couldn’t be sure he wasn’t considering adding a few Cimmerians to the list. Gunderland and Cimmeria were rarely on good terms.
But Gard had caught something in the merchant’s boast. A word hiding behind his thick, southlands accent. Something Kern had missed. He didn’t care anymore in which direction Kern Wolf-Eye led. Whom Kern chose to call an enemy so long as there was a use for his pike and his sword. What was left to a man when he was no longer useful? Abandoned. Cast out.
That was one question.
What was left of the Vanir camps that had moved south, though? That, suddenly, was the bigger question in Gard Foehammer’s mind.
“Push?” he asked. “What push? We were told that raiders had struck as far to the south as Westermark and Gunderland, but nothing about an organized drive.”
Tahmat looked puzzled. “What care?” He looked back at Kern. “Vanir closed off all trade routes north for too long. Then large host moves through week, two weeks, ago. I tell you. Many frost-haired ones. Like you. Some thin and dangerous, like spiders. Unnatural, them.” Sorcerers. “Others very, very large men. Collecting slaves and taking heads.”
Kern had caught Gard’s urgency. “A war host?”
That could only have been Grimnir, driven farther south than they had thought, then. Avoiding the Pass of Blood for the wild lands around Venarium.
“Nordheim,” the Gunderman said. He rehomed his sword, slamming it into the sheath. “Vanir, mostly. Aesir, too. And the cold ones. A few villagers cry about a monster. But never see him.”
A monster. That fit the giant-kin’s description. The great war leader who had sent—not led—one army over the Teeth. Traveling south to gather up more of his brethren. A larger army than he’d even had the first time, certainly. Like locusts, swarming and devouring and killing.
“Where?” Kern asked. He stepped forward, laying a rawboned hand on Tahmat’s arm. The Gunderman slapped it away, and both Daol and Ossian stepped into the guard leader as if he’d threatened Kern with a dagger, their hands on hilts and blades half-drawn from sheaths.
A dangerous moment. But the guardsman either knew better than to start a battle at these odds, or else received some kind of sign from Tahmat to let it go. He relaxed at once. But his smile showed large, sharp eyeteeth and could almost be called a snarl. And a challenge.
“All trail sign I saw,” Tahmat said, “pointed north and east. Lots of men, moving hard. Traveling light. Cleared my trail after the Broken Leg Lands and the blue-iron mines. So only one place I see they could go—Wolf-Eye!”
Grabbing the oil-burning torch out of the crack into which it had been shoved, Kern waved it overhead in great, sweeping arcs. The flames crackled and snarled, fanned to terrible brightness. Kern was already on the move. And Daol and Ossian and, Gard noticed, himself as well. They all followed as Kern led them, torch waving, for the pile of bedrolls, and collected weapons being sorted through by Garret Blackpatch and Wallach. Reave appeared with Desa, the two of them moving together like a pair of great wolves themselves, mated and perfectly matched. Ashul and Aodh gave answering shouts as they noticed the flaming brand and passed a quick call for the others.