Out of the battle spoils, Kern traded his beat-up target for a new shield with hardly a scar on its golden-bronze facing and a wicked-spiked boss sharpened to a fresh point. He’d also dug a good-fitting vest of armored chain from one of the raider’s packs, and discovered a good blanket of shaggy mountain ram, which he rolled into the felt mat he carried as part of his own bedroll.
Foodstuff was scavenged.
Weapons traded for stronger blades.
Which was when Ehmish found it.
A blue-iron war sword with a cord-wound handle. Tied with a strip of woad-dyed leather at the end—dark blue, with the brand of a bear paw burned into it.
The war sword of Cul Chieftain!
“Nay!” Brig shouted at Ehmish’s yell. If Ashul had not been tying closed a shallow cut, Brig would likely have rushed Ehmish and beat a refusal from him. “It cannot be.”
“It is, I’m telling you.”
The young man held the sword reversed so that its tip pointed at the earth and everyone could see the hilt. The leather tag was tattered and blood-soaked, but there was no mistaking it. Only Cul Chieftain of all warriors in Gaud had carried a blue-iron war sword, so rare a find in the lower valley. And the brand was familiar to anyone of Gaud, made known by Burok Bear-slayer, chieftain before Cul. Chieftain for seventeen summers.
Maev’s father.
“I fetched it for Cul one day,” Ehmish said. His voice was still changing to a man’s strength, and it cracked on the last word. “I took a few practice swings with it when no one could see. And I noticed these three chips on the lower edge of the blade. I made up a story in my head, of cutting through slave chains to free . . . to free Conan, who had been captured.” The younger man flushed, and swallowed hard. “I know this sword, Brig Tall-Wood.”
Hydallan snatched the blade away, glanced at it, passed it to Reave, who then handed it through Desa to Wallach Graybeard. All nodded, convinced for themselves.
Kern believed it the moment he saw the brand.
“We all know this sword,” he’d said.
The last time he’d seen it, in fact, he had been certain that Cul Chieftain was about to draw it on him. Camped at the foot of the Black Mountains, counting up losses to the Vanir attack that had stolen Daol and Maev, Kern had challenged the new leader of Clan Gaud. Stolen away (in Cul’s mind, at least) five able warriors to pursue the raiders. But Cul had let them go, though with a warning that Kern should never cross paths with him again. Ever.
Which was precisely what Kern had aimed to do. But seeing this sword, and with the distant call of so many screams echoing inside his head the last few days, he felt down deep in the pit of his stomach the awful truth. Knew what it was they’d find at Gaud.
Still, he had hoped. He even caught himself asking Crom for his protection over Maev and the others. Knowing that gods did not listen to the complaints or calls of mortal men did not stop him from asking. Just this once.
And it did not stop Crom from ignoring him. The Cimmerians’ maker had no obvious interest in Kern. If anything, he likely looked on the wolf-eyed warrior as the blood of Ymir, Crom’s sworn enemy, and so why would he ever listen to such a man?
Certainly he hadn’t. Gaud was dead. A dead village to a dead people. Like Maran. Like the massacred community they had discovered on the Hardpan Flats. And on every sharp gust of wind, in the creak of every swinging door, Kern heard the name of the one responsible.
Grimnir.
The Great Devil himself.
“Kohlitt was nay there,” Reave said, as they approached the center of the village. His sister’s husband. “Or Bayan or Cor.”
His niece and older nephew. So young Kale had been there, and died with his mother.
Quickly, Kern hoped. It was the best prayer to offer anyone caught by the Vanir.
Both men remained quiet as they tramped through the mud, making their way through the cold, quiet village, passing the shack that had once belonged to Old Finn, then the small wattle-and-daub home in which Daol and Hydallan had lived together. They followed a meandering path; Gaud had never been built to any plan. No wide streets and tall buildings crowded close together, as Nahud’r described the “civilized” cities of the southern kingdoms. Places where so many people crowding in close meant more disease, and needed so many rules—called “laws”—to teach them how to live together without killing each other.
Such foolish need was not for Cimmerians. Gaud had grown only as large as it ever needed to be, with a few main paths that snaked around clusters of homes and isolated huts, with the village lodge hall built near the center, where everyone could gather as called.
And that was where most of Kern’s small band waited, drawing together again by common consensus. Noting the changes that had taken place in their absence, Kern suddenly understood why it was likely he could never have recognized the youth living in his old hut. Though Ossian might.