Cimmerian Rage(99)

The first blow nearly smashed through Kern’s shield and certainly left his arm feeling numb and possibly broken.

Kern’s archers had finally quit their nests for swordplay. Brig and Ehmish, Hydallan and Aodh, barreled in against the raider flanks, swords naked and gleaming in the dying firelight.

Several northerners rushed to meet them, and steel rang against steel.

There were no more easy kills. No tricks to pull from behind his back. Kern worked back-to-back with Reave, with Nahud’r. Once, as the tide of battle swept them apart, he laid about on two sides with sword and shield until Desa slammed up against him and together the two of them pushed the hammer-wielding giant of a man back a few precious steps. Together, they hamstrung a second raider and left him for dead, bleeding from his neck, his gut.

Still, Kern felt the battle slipping away from him. And his warriors were paying for it. Kern saw Mogh stumble back, his face laid open to the bone with a bloody gash. Nahud’r’s scimitar flashed out in a deadly blur, holding back the approaching avalanche, but then he collapsed under a rush of three Vanir warriors.

Aodh and Ossian leaped to his defense, trying to offer some protection to the downed Shemite. But Aodh reeled away with a knife stuck in his shoulder and his sword lost in the struggle.

Sparks of fresh rage fired painfully behind Kern’s eyes, and blood pulsed loudly in his ears. A thrill of warmth washed through his body, and a taste for vengeance as well as for victory dried his mouth. Driving the Vanir back two more steps with vicious stabs slashing in at the large man’s face, his chest, he finally let slip his rage. Let it fuel his muscles and aim the tip of his blade.

He sensed the raider’s next attack, and crossed his sword in front of Desa to save her a crushed skull. His arm moved with lightning speed, and he pinked the tip of his short sword three times into the large man’s arm, his side, his thigh.

Never had he felt so strong. So sure. He knew, now, that this man was the host’s leader. He knew as well that there was an even greater reservoir of strength opening just behind him, should Kern merely accept it.

And despite the clear, cloudless sky, he heard the rolling call of ceaseless thunder. A pounding that went on and on, like a stampede running through his head, egged on by fresh shouts and yelling and a cheer raised from parched throats.

It was the cheers, he decided later, that truly drew him back from the very edge. When he noticed that it was a stampede.

A charge of Cimmerian warriors on horseback, holding on for their lives to their horses’ long manes with one hand, while they thrashed about with battle clubs. They crashed in from the glade’s southeast edge, leading a ragged line of warriors afoot as well. Large men, dark and burly, with heavy blades and a fury in their throats that echoed the rage flooding Kern’s thoughts.

They slammed into the raiders as if demon-possessed, throwing the entire battle into chaos. Relieving some of the pressure building against Kern’s warriors, letting them gasp for breath or quickly drop back to bind a companion’s wounds.

The Vanir knew better than to push a losing position. Or, at least, their leader did. Shouting at the top of his voice, the great man with the warhammer fell back away from Kern’s line with bloodlust twisting his face into a dark mask, and the beginnings of fear and doubt in his eyes. Kern followed without thought, not yet ready to give up the fight, to let the Vanir go to murder and maim some other day.

But he was brought up short by a second raider, this one also a large, strapping man with an advantage of height and reach over Kern. And an arrow buried deep in his chest.

The same raider who had sounded an early alarm of the attack.

At first, Kern thought him of Ymirish blood. Pale skin, light-colored hair and beard. Then he realized it was a pale golden color, washed out by the leaping flames that now cooked fawn and Vanir both. A man of some Aesir blood, though not a lot of it left inside him. The arrow had done its work, though the man refused to die. Weakened, maddened into a Berserker’s rage that left no room for surrender, for retreat, he came at Kern with a battle-axe and a murderous gleam still fired in his eye.

Kern parried his first attack easily enough. He yelled in fury, and his voice was the thunder, his eyes twin coals of golden flame that burned, and burned, and burned.

The battle around him seemed to slow, as if the men and women who fought for their lives suddenly walked through the motions. A violet wash swept out from him, staggering in its intensity, in the strength it drew from him, and then gave it back in a dark burst. Again. And Again. Timed to his own heartbeat as it slowed all else. Froze the dying Vanir, who hesitated with battle-axe held high overhead.