His entire life was full of such moments. And he lived with them.
He’d try not to let them worry him anymore.
It was enough that he worried for his warriors and friends as they wrestled the slope, sliding from foothold to foothold. Ehmish leaped down in large jumps, nimble as a young mountain ram. Old Finn and Hydallan were slower, more cautious. Falling, cracking a knee against one of the large trees that grew up from the mountainside could hobble them for life. And there was Valerus, who had both the best and worst time of it, lying back along his horse such that his head lay against the animal’s rump, letting it do all the work but certainly worried at every sliding step that he might get pitched up and off. And it was a long, dangerous slide ahead.
Then the slope turned sharply beneath an overhang of dark, wet, black granite, running them onto a shelf of rock that passed right behind the falls. A dimly lit cave, with pools of standing water, thick moss exploding out of cracks in the walls and floor, and a constant water drip raining down from the ceiling. The false wall to the east was a shimmering curtain of silver-gray water, lighting into a brilliant crystalline blue when the sun peeked out from between gray clouds. Not a perfect wall. There were thin breaks, like doorways, which when looked through, offered a long view over the rapidly falling mountainside and the spread of forested lake country below. Calm, it looked. But looks could be and often were deceiving.
Reave and Ossian set Daol back to one side, in one of the cavern’s few dry areas. Valerus coaxed his mount inside, walked it most of the way through, and ground-hitched the horse near the far exit. Most everyone took turns walking up to the sheer drop, running a hand out into the falling water to catch enough to scrub against their faces, or across their chests. Looking out into a land they had heard about but few ever visited unless it was to raid for wives or cattle or honor.
Then Brig Tall-Wood yelled a shrill war cry.
Kern jerked around, short sword out, and all throughout the cavern startled hands reached for weapons.
He missed Brig at first glance, wondered what kind of creature might have so quickly dragged away the stalwart warrior. Then Ossian laughed and pointed. Right into the cascade of water, where a good-sized tongue of rock stuck out into the falling torrent. Someday, some year, the constant battering would scrub that outcropping right away. But for the moment, it was more than large enough to hold a man, who had stripped down to bare flesh and jumped into the shower of mountain-cold water.
He climbed out, shivering, his skin a bright, healthy pink. Shaking water from his thick mop of hair, he looked about the dim cavern at the others, misread their stares, and looked down at himself. “Stare all you like. Yea, it’s cold. Good to scrub away the filth and the foul stench of those spiders, though.”
To belabor his point, he leaned over toward Hydallan, sniffed loudly, twice, and wrinkled his face in an exaggerated frown. Then he stepped over to his gear and began to dry himself off by scrubbing his kilt over his body.
“Young, snap of a cub.” Hydallan threw his peaked, rabbit fur hat to the ground, careful not to drop it into an actual puddle of water, then stripped away cloak and kilt himself. Grousing, he shot Brig an evil look and stepped under the fall of water with nothing but boots to protect his feet.
He stayed under the cold, pounding shower twice as long as Brig had. For pride’s sake if nothing else.
With expressions ranging from Mogh’s hangdog expression of grim reluctance to Reave’s bearish, savage grin as he looked forward to a bracing bath, the warriors all found semidry places to stash their gear and their clothes. Ossian made the mistake of slapping Desagrena’s bare rump as she walked by him. Grabbing a handful of his goat’s beard, she took him on a slow, painful tour of the cavern.
Reave had never made a move toward the man, trusting his woman to deal with it. He laughed as Ossian collapsed back into a shallow pool, rubbing gingerly at his chin.
“Sure an’ it serves you right,” he called over.
Ossian merely nodded.
Everyone but Daol took advantage of the stop, which might have been the longest rest any of them had known since Gaud. Nahud’r showed no shame in stripping down in front of the Cimmerians. His body was lean and well muscled, and he wore a ring pierced through one nipple that Kern had never before noticed. Somehow, it suited the foreign man. He couldn’t say why. Just as Valerus’s reluctance colored him the way Kern thought of most “civilized” visitors. Reserved. Stiff-necked. His body had the same olive complexion as his face and arms, though not as sun-weathered. And he “kept his modesty,” as he explained it, by wearing his strange undergarment under the falls. A codpiece, which looked to be nothing more than a simple, leather pouch with strings to tie around his waist, to hold his manhood.