The door to the lowered hall opened, and two clansmen stepped outside, a man and a woman. She carried an arm-load of blood-ruined cloths, and he emptied a large chamber pot, splashing the offal off toward one corner of the building, where a shallow slit trench had been dug.
“Hah!” Reave gave a yell as he recognized them both. Jogging forward, he shucked the large packs he carried. His Cimmerian greatsword remained tied over his back, slapping at his legs.
More pleased to see one rather than the other, certainly. Kern watched as wiry Desagrena thrust her load of bandages into Brig Tall-Wood’s arms and stepped forward into her man’s embrace. Reave scooped her up with one large hand on her waist and the other grabbing her ass in a hard and satisfying clench.
She yelled and bit his ear hard enough that he dropped her at once. Rubbing her backside, she eyed him through oily twists of long, dark hair that fell across her face.
“Sure you didn’t treat the northerners so rough,” the viperish woman said.
The air was ripe with the recently discarded offal. Brig passed his burdens off to another woman, who had stepped outside to see what the commotion was about. No one Kern knew, so he assumed there were more than his people inside. Leading up the others, shouldering one of the extra packs Reave had dropped, he traded nods with Desagrena and a long, measuring stare with the other clansman.
“Still alive, Kern Wolf-Eye.”
At least the younger man no longer sounded surprised. In fact, he said it as if sharing a private joke with Kern, who always returned the comment.
“Still alive, Brig Tall-Wood.”
Of the fifteen men and women who followed him, Brig was still the biggest mystery. A favored man when Cul Chieftain assumed leadership of Gaud, Brig had surprised everyone by showing up at the outcast camp one day, then again by remaining with the small band as it chased Vanir raiders over the western Teeth. Kern had his own ideas about that. But so far he was content to let Brig make the first move to talk about it. Or to act.
“You seem to have healed up fine,” Kern said. Brig was one of the men he had left behind to recover. Deep bruising across most of his body, in fact, as he was nearly trampled to death by a mammoth. He went bare-chested today, with a simple cloak tied across his shoulders. Only a few yellow spots shaded his skin.
“I was lucky.”
Kern nodded. They had all been lucky. But how long would that hold? He nodded at the open doorway. “Let’s go see the others,” he said, assuming that the long building housed most if not all of the remaining injured.
It did. And the structure looked just as hastily built on the inside as it did without. Some of the wattle weaving showed where the clay had caked away or was simply applied too thin the first time. And the roof was low enough Kern nearly bumped his head on the crossbeams. Reave had to stoop.
Too few narrow windows, opened up under wooden shutters, let in just enough light by which to see. There were two fire pits, for warmth and cooking both, and narrow smoke holes poked through the overhead thatch. The entire room smelled of green smoke, piss, and blood.
Too much blood.
They passed men and women with infected gashes down their arms and legs, or ripping across their bodies. Wounds that had to be reopened almost daily to bleed out the sickness. He also caught the latrine stench of an open gut, somewhere, and the dank, rotting smell of wet gangrene, which he could never forget. Had first scented in Burok Bear-slayer’s lodge—was it really only a few short months ago?
He felt worse for these people, having seen the lingering death that crept up on those with gangrenous wounds. Corrupted flesh would be sliced off. Cleansed. Packed under astringent poultices. A few of them might rally their strength and bear up as pieces of their bodies were hacked away. But most of these men and women would die. Callaugh’s shaman had worked a few small miracles, some of which Kern had already seen, but not for everyone. Sometimes a wound just rotted.
And there was no praying to Crom. The Cimmerian creator had no interest in the affairs of mortal men and women. Supposedly he had already done his part, granting all clansmen strength enough to survive their harsh lands and the will to meet whatever life threw into their path. Some moments, like now, it seemed a poor enough offering.
Especially when Grimnir, and the Nordheimer god Ymir, seemed to obey different rules.
“Kern?” Distracted, he had nearly walked by two of his warriors. Desa cuffed him against the back of his head. “Kern!”
It was Ehmish and Old Finn. The youngest and oldest of his pack. His men of the wolves. The youth had only fifteen summers on him. Hardly any of his final size or strength. Yet Ehmish had been among the first to step forward. Seeking revenge for a friend’s death, at first, then later desperately in search of proving his own manhood.