Smelled the blood as it began to flow, pooling against the ground . . .
There were three more raider bodies laid out beneath the timbers. And another of the large, frost-bearded Ymirish. This one had shaved the top of his head in an uncommon manner, leaving a bald stripe down the center.
He also had at least a dozen arrows stuck into his chest and through his gut. He had not gone down easily.
“Some ran the entire length of the long trunks,” Kern said in a hoarse whisper, feeling out those last few moments of battle.
His throat tightened up until it was hard to breathe. He wanted to yell, to scream his frustration at the sky, but he held down and smothered the rage with desperate strength. Thunder rolled through the overcast heavens. And a flash of violet-tinged lightning brightened the dark clouds for an instant only.
“Clambered up onto the lodge hall roof. A few bowmen crouching atop the lodge could have caused far more damage than their short numbers promised.”
There was one body up there, though Vanir or Cimmerian it was hard to tell as it had half sunk into the thatching.
Another handful, hacking into the thatch, created the ragged holes he counted along the roof. “Dropping down inside to set themselves loose among the young and the wounded. Or to then come flying out through the front entrance.”
He could almost see it. A riot of violent pictures in his head, pounding at his temples for release. The shouts and desperate calls for help echoing in his ears. And the scent of blood. Blood everywhere.
More thunder rolled across the sky. Kern felt its raw power ripple across his skin, standing the short hairs on his arms up like wiry bristles.
And a dark presence loomed in the back of his mind, but he turned his back on it. Moved away.
Toward the lodge hall’s front. And his duty to his clan.
The closer he came to it, the stronger the scent of terrible death. Open bowels. Congealed blood. It choked him, reaching down into his lungs with a foulness that would not soon release him. The remaining door continued to bump back against the wall. From inside came creaks and dry groans, as if restless spirits haunted the darkness, but there was no easy glance to discover what awaited them. Shadows filled the entry, with the gloomy daylight barely falling inside by more than a good, long stride.
Nothing his warriors had seen recently was going to compare, he knew. He felt a warm sweat break out over the back of his neck, and from beneath his arms.
And with a final, hitching breath, stepped inside.
NO ONE STEPPED forward right away to follow Kern Wolf-Eye into the lodge hall.
Brig Tall-Wood stood near the front of the pack. Blinking rainwater from his eyes. Shifting from one foot to the other, churning fresh mud beneath his feet as he watched the frost-haired leader get swallowed up by the darkness within. His sword remained naked in his hand, nearly forgotten after the outcasts had found no Vanir to challenge. It hung toward the ground with the flat of the blade slapping against his deerskin boot. Marking time. Counting off heartbeats.
Inside, he heard Wolf-Eye moving about slowly. Feet dragging against the hard-beaten earth. There was no trap. Obviously. No one had expected one after finding Gaud deserted by all but the dead. Still and all, no one else moved in to see the final horror waiting for them in the onetime lodge of Burok Bear-slayer, then Cul Chieftain. No one wanted to know for certain what had happened to their kin. The ones not found murdered in their huts and homes.
Brig’s brother. His father. Raven-haired Maev, who had been meant for Cul Chieftain after her father’s death. He wanted to know what had happened to them. Needed to know. Yet his feet stayed as firmly rooted to the ground as if nailed there by cold, iron spikes.
Then he heard the first snick of a short blade. And a heavy scrape as something shifted inside, or possibly fell over slowly.
No one moved.
Kern still had not called.
Chieftain’s privilege. The same tradition that gave a clan’s leader first bite from a roasting spit of meat, or first words at a ceremonial fire or festival. Were they all showing Kern that honor? Even Brig, the man once set to kill Kern Wolf-Eye?
He choked back a startled laugh as he realized that, yes, by unspoken consent they all waited for permission. Kern’s hold on the small pack of outcasts—on him—seemed complete.
Never by Crom’s long sword would Brig Tall-Wood have thought such could come to pass. Kern had grown up within Gaud as an outsider. The man with a touch of winter in his bones. The blood of wolves. And in the dregs of winter, when the village teetered on the brink of starvation and ruin, when Cul Chieftain ascended after Burok Bear-slayer, Brig had not been surprised when Cul confided in the Tall-Woods his intent to rid the clan of the pariah.