“You have to move,” Kern said at once, without preamble. “No matter what else, you do not want your people caught in the way of the Ymirish. They will sniff you out. They’ll do it for sport.”
“We can run,” the chieftain said, nodding, watching.
“Or you can fight. Come down the eastern slope with me. Clan Murrogh. The Lacheish. They will need your help.”
“They will nay want it. Busy, t’ey are. T’ey will nay ask for us.”
“Since when does Clan Galla ask permission!” Kern nearly shouted in the other man’s face, but held himself back. Barely. Even through his frustration and rising anger, he knew where to toe the line between insult and injury. He shrugged, his shoulders rising and falling once. Sharply.
“You will answer or you will not, chieftain of the spider’s teeth.” He wrenched the spear up out of the earth. “Do as you will. But you may be right about one thing. If this is the way Cimmerians choose to honor the traditions now, then I am nay Cimmerian.”
And his headache split wide open again as thunder crashed overhead. A violet flash of lightning peeked in from the slit in the door, in the wide cracks where the canvas sheet hung from the lean-to ceiling. The chieftain, his best warrior, the healer—all of them ducked back as if Kern himself had called the lightning down on them.
Let them be afraid, Kern decided. Let them hide their heads in the snow. He moved over toward where his possessions had been scattered over the felt mat of his bedroll. Still holding on to the spear, he began collecting his gear with his other hand, laying it out to be bundled up again. His anger fueled him. It drove him on, and he knew at that moment that if needs be he could tear his way from the tent, from the campsite, and go his own way. No one would stop him.
No one would be able to.
“Wolf-Eye.”
The chieftain stood beside him. Over him. With a nod toward the door slit, he led Kern over to the entrance to his grand tent. He pulled one of the flaps back himself, holding it with his good arm.
Outside, people rushed about, striking tents and gathering their possessions. Everything that could be carried on their backs or in small, two-man litters. A single, large fire had been set in a clearing, fueled with green-stick branches to create a billowing column of smoke. Using a large, damp blanket, two men smothered the fire, then rolled the cover off to release a huge pile of smoke. The soot-gray cloud rolled up between trees and into the overcast.
“We call ot’er nearby tribes of Clan Galla. T’ey will come, an’ we discuss what you say. We decide to move”—he grinned without humor—“or we decide to attack.”
“That would be a mistake.” The words were out of Kern’s mouth before he had the chance to think better of them. His head still pounded with the drumming of his own heartbeat. The afterglare of the lightning swam across his eyes, firing off painful sparks at the edge of his vision.
“Snowy River our land,” the chieftain said with a sudden snarl. “An’ nay anyone crosses the Noose wit’out paying ransom unless we decide.” He waved Kern forward. “You. You go. Talk wit’ the Murrogh. You nay like what you find. Two Galla hunters help take your friend wit’ you. Back to your warriors. T’ey will nay be far off.”
Two large men did wait just outside. One, with the thunderbird tattoo masking his face. The other had a large spider-shape covering his entire chest, dyed in dark blues and purples and black. With a nod from their chieftain, they ducked inside, with the same litter from before, to collect Daol.
“He will live. An’ I will nay take ransom from you.”
Small favor. At least the delay, which he’d worried about, would be minimal. “When did you decide that?” he asked, looking for some insight into the Galla clansman. Wondering if there was anything else he might say, or do, to change the man’s mind.
The chieftain nodded down at Kern’s hand, still filled with the broken haft. “When first t’ing you take back was bloody spear. Luck to you, Wolf-Eye. Tahg Chieftain wishes it for you.”
Then he was gone, back inside. A moment later, the warriors who had guarded Kern’s possessions brought him his bundled gear.
Kern accepted it and stepped away from the door while Daol was brought out on the litter. His friend did not look well, but he was alive. And without the Galla taking them prisoner, knowing how to bleed the poison out, that might not have happened otherwise.
Fortune, or fate, still seemed to follow them all.
“Luck to you, Tahg Chieftain.” Kern’s voice was hardly more than a whisper.
“I think you will need it more.”