And for those who had seen Grimnir himself.
Kern had done both. He had stood in the great warrior’s shadow, wrestling atop the plateau that overlooked Clan Conarch. Giant-kin! Large and ferocious, with a thick hide the color of ancient, rotten snow. Thick muscles cording his body, and a toothy face twisted into a snarl of rage. So clear, the blood of frost giants, but still not a beast. Intelligence had warred with smoldering fury inside those great, golden eyes. Kern had seen them up close. Had looked into the eyes Grimnir shared with his Ymirish.
With Kern.
“Yea,” Reave said, agreeing with Daol. He wiped a spot of blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “Hunting good all over. Too good, by Crom.”
The large man reached up and ran a finger along his left ear, against the half dozen earrings he had taken off men he’d killed. His right ear held only a single gold hoop—his first trophy, taken from a Vanir raider the year before. Winter, and now spring, had made for busy months.
Aodh shrugged, rising onto unsteady feet. “What can we do? The snowmelt makes for easier travel down out of the Eiglophians. Opens up the passes between the Nordheim lands and Cimmeria.” In the last few weeks, especially, raiders had swept across the northern border in a renewed plague. A renewed threat. “The Breaknecks nay so remote anymore.”
And if the rest of Kern’s small band—his pack of wolves—were going to have made any progress with the local clans, it would be done now. He poked at the budding fire with a thin stick, stirring it, then held his hand down near the flames. As usual he felt the touch of heat on his skin, but not down deep. Not even spring could thaw the touch of winter permanently settled into Kern’s bones. A reminder, as if he needed another, that he was not fully of Cimmeria. That he did not belong.
A spark of anger stirred inside him again. He was stalling again. He knew it. Picking up the fallen meat, he brushed away bits of grass and dirt, then adjusted the spears over the fire. This day had been coming, and it was both too soon and not late enough.
“We move south,” he said at last. They had all talked around the subject for too many days, trying to draw Kern out. His silence was at an end. “To Conarch. And Callaugh. We find the others, and we do what needs doing.”
“Back home?” Ossian asked. He still lay flat on his back, a trickle of blood leaking along his chin from a split lip.
“Along the way.” Kern nodded warily. His people were all outcasts, and once outside the clan, always outside. It was custom that carried the weight of law in Cimmeria. There would be those not happy to see them. “But we also swore to take the bloody spear to other clans. Other parts of Cimmeria.”
That had been his pledge at the end of the battle, discovering himself and his warriors still alive, and Grimnir fled with the core of the northern war host. But that was also before.
Before Sláine Longtooth and T’hule Chieftain of Clan Conarch began a new feud.
Before Kern learned also that several of his warriors needed weeks to recover from their injuries.
Before Ros-Crana of Clan Callaugh asked him to wait, and to disappear for a time. To give her a chance to forge alliances without Kern’s presence to disturb other chieftains. But enough was enough.
“We move south,” Kern said again. The spark of anger flared into a small flame, his mind set. “Anyone have something they want to say?”
No one spoke for a moment. Crouched or standing under the cool, spring sun. Listening to the fire crackle at fresh wood. Measuring themselves for what was about to come. Something harder, in a way, than facing death at the hands of Vanir raiders.
“Yea,” Ossian finally said. He rolled over into a crouch, looked to Kern, the others, then snagged the nearby blanket of shaggy fur, which had been left in a pile next to Garret Blackpatch. “This,” he said, “is mine.” And dabbed the corner of the blanket against his mouth, against his split lip.
No one argued.
2
KERN SCENTED CALLAUGH Glen long before they reached it. A warm, slightly spoiled smell. Sulfurous, but not quite so bad as rotten eggs. Not even the early-spring wildflowers, blooming low to the ground, disguised the stench.
“Another league,” he guessed aloud, thinking he’d picked up on it before Daol. A first.
Daol walked with his bow ready. An arrow nocked but not drawn as he watched the trees and brush around them for sign of game. “Half.” He said it with the same tone he might have used to poke fun at Reave for his oversized feet or slow wit.
Reave, walking nearby and shouldering both his pack and Daol’s, laughed.
Although younger than Kern’s twenty-three summers or Reave’s twenty-five, Daol held his own.