Cimmerian Rage(92)
And felt it pulse with his own insatiable hunger.
A coil of the newly crafted snow serpent burst from the icy blanket as the first pair of Galla set foot at the base of Lodur’s overlook. Striking hard and fast, it tied one man up in thick coils, crushing the life out of him, while the nightmarish head dipped and swung about to grab up a leg of the second man. Two teeth, like long, daggerlike icicles, tore through his thigh. It lifted him high above, shaking back and forth like a true serpent trying to snap the spine of a small vermin, while cold, diamond-bright eyes glowed like twin, burning stars.
Too late to turn their charge around, a tight knot of Galla clansmen charged up to rescue their kin. Or to fight their way around the demonic serpent, in hopes of reaching the sorcerer. It did not matter. Where their swords rose and fell, rose and fell, the serpent’s body gave way in a quick burst of snowy powder. They hacked away great chunks. Then the serpent rolled through the snow, and its wounds were healed.
The same was not true for bruised and bloodied flesh.
The snow serpent bowled men over. Wrapped another tight around the head, twisted, then shuddered with seeming delight as it snapped the clansman’s neck.
A sword-bearing woman rushed forward and thrust her blade into one demonic eye, causing the serpent to loose its hold on the man it shook in its powerful jaws. He dropped away, rolled twice down the slope, and tried to limp aside. A kinsman raced up and helped him hobble back toward the burning wood. Before he could get there, Magni burst from one thick clump of pine and took both their heads with great, arcing swings of his blade. They died quick.
The woman was less fortunate. Deprived of one victim, the serpent threw a fresh coil around her, dragging her away from the grasping hands of other clansmen. Rolling and sliding, tying its thick body around her twice, then three times, the serpent came over her shoulder to bury its long fangs through her chest.
She screamed, and blood gushed out of her mouth.
Lodur tasted the hot, metallic bite of it.
The Galla scattered like vermin. Running in every direction with no more thoughts of attack as they hurried to escape, to live. The snow serpent would catch no more of them as they ran off the snow-packed slope, which was the limits of its existence. But it did not mind, and neither did Lodur, who drank in this victory as a savored moment.
Only the winds, twisting around him, tormented, railed out with banshee screams to freeze the blood and the spirit, wanting a new victim.
“Kern!” he shouted, letting the name roll off his lips like poison. Tying it into a black zephyr, he blew it on its way with a foul breath. Then laughed, and reveled when the hard, hammering gusts, echoed him, rolling through the pass, howling the cold laughter of the northern god, and of Lodur.
Ymir walked the lands of Cimmeria once more.
And Lodur was merely one of his many voices.
THE BATTLEFIELD KERN’S warriors stumbled across was several days old. He guessed that by the smell.
Ehmish actually saw the first signs, with the sharp eyes of youth. He pointed out the circle of crows and carrion hawks from half a league back, spotting them through a break in the forest wall. A glimpse between tall pines and birch, and a hesitant, “I think there may be something ahead.”
Not too long after, Hydallan and Brig agreed with the young man that the birds were flocking strangely. Ossian wondered aloud if that was just the way things might be here. Nahud’r snorted a short laugh, and Daol was well enough and awake enough to point out that even if it was the far side of the Black Mountains, a crow should still be a crow.
Perhaps they were, Kern decided, as they broke from the thick tree line. But looking down a shallow, sun-brightened valley where a small stream cut through in a lazy meandering curl, and there were fields rife with more wildflowers and tall grass than he had ever seen, he began to believe that things might be different here. Certainly the ground was dryer than he expected for spring months, and the sun felt warmer than any Cimmerian had a right to expect.
What was the valleyman’s adage? What poor weather Crom had not gifted to the western clans, he had given unselfishly to the valley?
Murrogh felt as if it were enjoying an early summer.
But any jealousy over the eastern clansmen’s soft life disappeared as they drew closer to the downstream fields, and they counted the hundreds of birds that rose and fell among dark, still shapes. A hollow sensation sank down through Kern’s guts as soon as Hydallan reported it, and soon Ehmish claimed he could see a glint of sun from the polished side of a sword or shield, and counted at least thirty bodies. No one accused the lad of a boast. Everyone had already known, and he simply confirmed it.
Vanir. Kern knew it. And realized that he’d been waiting for such news since the Pass of Noose, and the waterfall, and especially since the disruption to their camp the night before.