“Eno’gh,” the chieftain finally said.
The other man let go, and Kern reclaimed the spear. With a quick flourish, he drove it point down into the earth in front of him. If these Galla wanted to make the spear a possible argument, he would put it right out in front.
The chieftain had sat forward, tense. Now he relaxed again. His good hand stole out from beneath his cloak and stroked his moustaches as he studied the spear. Studied Kern. He nodded off to one side, and a warrior passed through the slit-door in the canvas side. Then the tribal leader looked askance at Kern.
“You are nay Cimmerian,” he finally said.
Kern only shrugged. That was always the argument, wasn’t it? And not even he could say exactly what he was. Not anymore. Not in a way to make the chieftain quickly understand. But if the Galla did not know of the Ymirish, they would at least know about the Vanir threat.
“I was born to Gaud,” he finally said. “Now I fight the raiders.”
The man grunted, as if to say that such did not impress him. He still had not offered his name. None of them had. Galla clansmen gave their names to those who were equals. Mostly, others who could claim to have tamed the Snowy River country.
“Late comin’ across,” he said. “Gaud died o’er ten day ago. Paid t’eir ransom.” He squinted. Leaned forward suddenly. “Talked o’ you? The wolf-eyed ones?”
Wherever the talk could have gone, this was one direction Kern had not anticipated. Forgotten, for the moment, were his anger and his worry for the waste of time, as faces flashed through his memory. “Survivors? You are saying that survivors from Gaud passed over toward Murrogh and Lacheish? Who? What where their names?”
“Valleymen.” The chieftain brushed aside the need for their names with a shake of his head.
“Can you describe them?”
He could so easily remember Maev’s face, from before and after her capture. He recalled the haunted look in her eyes when she came to his bedside. The desperation, and determination, both. Could she still be alive? Could Cul Chieftain?
“Weak arms and shaved faces, the most o’ t’em.” The tribal leader looked hard into Kern’s face. “Did talk about the killing o’ Gaud. Said the Wolf-Eye did it. Woman, she argued t’at were two types o’ wolf-eye.”
Maev? Perhaps that was wishful thinking. There would have been others from the village who might have recalled him well. He couldn’t let himself hope.
“Mayhap there are,” Kern said. And he offered the chieftain a short explanation of the threat of the Ymirish; the brood of Grimnir who led the Vanir. Avoiding his own background with Cul, with Maev, he told him instead of Callaugh and Conarch, and quickly of the need for Cimmerians to answer the call of the bloody spear.
“Vanir,” the tribal leader said, tasting the word. “T’ey are known t’ Galla. Some cross t’rough the Noose. More come o’er the Hoat’ Plateau.” His eyes, a dark indigo blue, narrowed. “Nay anyone ask Galla t’ help.”
“I am asking.”
“West’rn chieftains. T’ey send spear?”
Something warned Kern away from lying, even though his anger was beginning to creep back. Always back to this. His lack of standing among Cimmerian clans. Once outside, always outside. It made for a difficult choice of traditions, both of which carried the weight of law among Cimmerian clans.
“I carry it for them,” he finally said, voice tight. “It is the right thing. You must answer the call.” Nothing. No reaction from the Galla. “There are Vanir war hosts running the length and breadth of Connall Valley. You say they have already swept into the lake country. Eventually, they will strike at the mountains, and the Snowy River country.”
A shrug. “We move high. Where snows still fall and the cold night can freeze a man solid in t’ree days. We fall on t’em, and t’ey shatter.” He held his fist out, smashed it down. The gesture seemed robbed by the fact there was no other hand to slam it into.
“More will come. I’ve seen it.”
“More already come, Wolf-Eye. Vanir. Half day above valley.” He spat into the fire’s embers. Listened to the dark sizzle. Nodded. His voice did seem more subdued. More thoughtful. “Big host. Twenty . . . t’irty campfires. Move slow, t’ey do. T’morrow eve, or next, t’ reach the Noose.”
Kern had been about to ask how the other man knew that, until he mentioned the fires. Galla clansmen must be as adept at reading such distant sign as the thready smoke of campfires as valleymen would have been tracking by crushed grass blades and broken twigs.