Cimmerian Rage(50)

Kern stood before the next body. A man who had been taller than Kern in life. A big man. Broad-shouldered and heavily muscled. The outcast leader used his foot to hook over a heavy stool, then stepped on it to better reach the rope bound between both ankles.

“Help me.”

Brig stood his ground, sword held at the ready. “Why?” he asked. Teeth clenched so tight that his jaw ached. Why help Kern? That was what he asked, but not what he meant. His real question, was why he should not end the pain he had lived with for several months now and fulfill his chieftain’s last command?

But Kern answered simply, and directly, as usual.

“Because,” he said, knife held up near the binding rope, his other arm wrapped about the legs of the hanging corpse, “this was your brother.”





13

ROS-CRANA PROWLED THE mighty lodge hall of T’hule Chieftain, feeling an invisible blade at her back. Always glancing over one shoulder and with an eye on any shadow as if expecting the dark terror of Grimnir to come charging out if she relaxed her guard. Even for a moment.

Not that Clan Conarch had left many shadows to explore on this festive eve. Bright cooking fires blazed on no less than six hearths inside the impressive lodge. And along the walls, dozens of torches snapped and danced merrily in sconces backed by shields of polished silver. A display of the clan’s wealth, yea, but a practical one as well. Besides protecting the lodge’s timber walls from searing heat, the silver face of each shield glowed golden orange, like a dusk sun, reflecting more of a torch’s light and heat back into the open room where warriors of no less than five northwest clans gathered to welcome the arrival of spring’s first merchant.

As chieftain of Clan Callaugh, protector of all paths south, custom had demanded that she escort Tahmat’s caravan to Conarch. And she had. Expecting T’hule to shelter and feast her small band. And he was. In fine form.

In fact, Clan Conarch had rarely hosted a larger conclave that Ros-Crana could remember, and then only in a time of war. The lodge hall was warm to the point of smothering. Men and women toasted each other over large mugs of sour mead—all that was left from Conarch’s winter stores. If the drink left something to be desired, though, T’hule Chieftain had made up for it with a fine table. The green smoke of cooking fires mixed deliciously with the scents of charred venison basted in a mixture of oil and wine, and flat cakes spiced with hoarded nutmeg.

Bones rattled inside tin cups as a thick circle of warriors diced for honor, or trinkets, or—for two men both feeling incredibly rich—a finely honed blade against a fist-sized chunk of polished amber.

Along another wall rose a roar of drunken cheers as one of the caravan’s Gunderman guards managed to bounce a small pebble into a metal cup of mead, forcing his opponent to quaff it. A favorite Cimmerian drinking game.

All seemed to be in order. Relaxed.

Then why did her hands grasp at the empty air, as if wishing to be filled with the weight of her shield and spear?

“Ros-Crana!”

T’hule Chieftain waved her over to his table, set against the back of the room on a stage of well-fitted flagstones. A small cooking fire burned before the stage and table, serving the chieftain’s company only. The stone was smooth and hard beneath her soft-soled boots. The eyes that gazed at her, dark beneath craggy brows, were not a bit less yielding.

T’hule sat on a heavy stool at the middle of the long table, hosting the Nemedian merchants as well as three other chieftains from nearby clan villages. T’hule was a brawny, well-muscled man, with large, plate-sized hands well callused from years of sword use. He had dark hair tied back in ropelike braids and eyes of piercing, sky blue that never seemed to blink enough. Older than Ros-Crana by a double handful of summers, at least, but still not a touch of gray in his hair or the stubble at his chin.

A strong man. A strong chieftain.

He used the tip of his eating knife to point out an open spot at the table. “Woman, you have not stopped to rest since the fires were set. Like a nervous wolf with your pacing.” He glanced aside then, and covered the awkward silence by spearing a hunk of venison from a nearby platter.

As if either of them needed reminding of Kern Wolf-Eye.

The tale told by Tahmat—of his rescue and sudden abandonment—had been enough for most.

Then there was also the raider her men had taken alive two nights before, on their way to Conarch, the man crashing through the woods on his way north as if the Furies themselves chased after him. Ranting. Raving about the night-born Ymir-egh who attacked at Venarium, and the golden master whom they all had failed. Vengeance came on swift winds, he promised, a madness in his eyes as he jumped at every gust of wind, every light breeze.