Perfectly ready to barge in on their leader and force the issue, Kern dropped back a pace when, as he approached the split opening to the large, makeshift tent, a well-thewed warrior met him by casting back one side of the sheet and holding it open for him. It was harder to make a forceful entry once invited, but Kern thought he managed it. He brushed inside without a word or a glance. He did not bother to check his back, insulting the guard, all but declaring that Kern considered him no threat at all.
The interior of the grand tent was drafty and dimly lit, though Kern had no trouble seeing as his eyes gathered in what little light there was. The canvas walls were painted with scenes of clansmen hunting, and feasting around large bonfires. These scenes seemed to come alive as the walls shook and rippled under a gust of wind. Daol lay near one corner, bundled under several blankets, still pale and sweating. Kern did not count heads, but simply felt there were no more than half a dozen people inside the large tent structure. Instead, his gaze locked on to the one man who sat at the center of the room.
A single fire, hardly more than a pile of yellow-orange embers, baked at the chieftain’s feet. He was using a small, flat-topped boulder for a chair. Curly, coal-black hair was pulled up into the customary topknot and drooping moustaches fell a good thumb’s length below his jaw. Tall, easily a handbreadth taller than Kern, he appeared thin but of wiry strength. No strapping warrior, not anymore, the man had at least forty summers beneath his belt. The only way he bulked up now was with two heavy fur cloaks wrapped around his shoulders, arms pulled inside to hold the furs closed at his neck. It made the man seem frail, not a leader, until Kern considered that, traveling the snow line as they did, living without the benefit of walls or even dry floors, warmth must equal wealth among the Galla.
Then a stub of arm poked up from between two folds of bearskin. Pointed to a small felt mat. “Sit t’ere.”
Kern crouched over the mat, but refused to relax in this man’s presence. Though he did rethink his opinion of the chieftain. No matter his appearance now, he must have been a strong man to have survived such a loss. And to hold his position, after. This was no simple man seated across from Kern.
He found himself wondering how he had lost his arm, but could guess. The chieftain had a puckered scar on the side of his face, much like the scars Kern had seen before on some of the hands and arms of some of the other Galla. This one, however, had been decorated with red dye, turning the burn into the body of a mountain spider. Drips of venom fell from the spider’s mouth, running in a line of small tattooed drops that fell along the man’s neck and disappeared into a fold of cloak.
There were others, too. A woman, tattooed with lightning on the backs of her hands, whom Kern took to be the tribe’s healer. She sat between her chieftain and Daol. Also a warrior, seated cross-legged on the floor, a naked blade laid across his lap. His Galla-style tattoos were simple tribal patters circling each arm. Laid out before him were the bedrolls taken off Daol and Kern, their ropes untied and the contents spread out over the raw dirt floor.
Clothing and leather straps. A total of three knives, including the blue-steel blade Daol had received as a gift in Callaugh, and his broadsword as well. A cap of boiled leather. Blankets. An extra short sword for Kern.
And the blood-soaked head of a spear.
With hardly a thought, Kern leaned over and took possession of the broken shaft. The nearby warrior caught Kern’s wrist in a strong grip, and behind him he heard the shuffling of at least two more warriors. Maybe more. He wasn’t about to show weakness by looking. Wasn’t about to do anything but reclaim that one symbol of everything that Kern’s warriors had paid for so far.
The Galla warrior would not let go.
Crom and Cimmeria in flames! Kern’s head was still splitting with pain, and there were few places on his body not raw and tender at the moment. He might have other men wounded, or dying, out there. Daol might be dying here. His village was gone. His clan was dead. And now some thickheaded primitive from the Snowy River land was going to play lodge hall games with him? Kern felt like ripping the shaft away and driving it back through the other man’s heart.
A pained expression slashed across his adversary’s face. But his grip remained resolute.
Sparks lit off behind Kern’s eyes as he set his feet solid against the ground and used nothing but upper body strength to pull the spear toward him. He felt the other warrior’s heavy grip. Knew they were evenly matched in strength. But still, slowly, he was pulling the other man over. It felt like the bones in his wrist might crack at any time, but he kept pulling. And it was the Galla clansman who looked pained. Desperate.