Blood of Wolves (3 page)

So there would be no firewood. Not by his hand. Kern might not have much say in the clan, but he showed his support for Reave in whatever way he could. Cul would know for certain that someone else was ready to challenge if Kern did not do as bidden, and that person had Kern's loyalty if no one else's, but Kern had to think Cul already knew. The man was not stupid, more be the pity.

He almost told Cul nay to his face, in fact, to have it out in the open. But Burok Bear-slayer interrupted.

“Snowy River?”

Cul's gaze darted away, and the moment was lost. The warrior stepped fully into the tented room, puzzled at the outburst and at the clan's chieftain, who sat fully upright on his mattress. The furs Burok had been smothered in lay balled to either side. He looked almost normal, if one could ignore the scent of rotting death that hung over the tented room like a funeral shroud. His blue eyes—the same vibrant color he shared with his daughter, Maev—were clear and full of sudden strength.

“What were you doing as far east as the Snowy River lands?”

Dropping to one knee next to the chieftain's bedside, Kern wondered if a miracle had occurred. But the fever still burned in the man's flesh, warm enough to make the fire pale, and Burok's face was white as the blanket of snow outside. His speech, though, was clear, and there was real thought behind it.

“It was only three days' trek,” Kern said, dismissing the leagues and the nights spent huddled in a thin bedroll. “I checked for herd sign, and ran our southern trapline on the way back.”

“Too far, with this blasted winter hanging on. By Crom's stiff pike, Kern, Clan Taur was too far at half the distance.”

Or not far enough, judging by the way Cul's expression soured at their chieftain's rallying strength. But Cul was not close enough to smell Burok's fetid breath, or see the cloudy film in the older man's eyes. Kern shrugged aside the caution.

Cul would not let it pass, however. “Clan Taur will not forget your daring for another generation,” he said in rare praise of Burok's winter raid against the northern valley clan. “And Wolf-Eye does not fear winter. He's made a pact with it, after all.”

That's what an elder had once said of him, anyway. That winter settled into Kern's bones as a child. His frost-tipped hair and amber eyes were proof enough for most. Even Kern's only friends, Daol and Reave, thought him a bit . . . odd. He felt chills under summer's strongest sun, yet could withstand the harshest storm with his cloak thrown wide and chest bared to the elements.

Another good reason to give Kern over into the care of the village foragers. His chances of accident were smaller than another man's, and it kept him busy and away from the village for most days.

“It was worth the trouble,” Kern said simply, seeing his chieftain's newfound strength already beginning to sag. “Or would have been, if I had spotted sign.”

Burok shook his head. “Too far. Never should have gone.” But if he was talking about Kern's search for the herds or the chieftain's own bravado to conduct a midwinter raid for ransom, there was no telling. His rally was dying as fast as it had come on. And Kern was certain Maev would like to say good-bye to her father. He doubted the older man would last the night.

He grabbed the chieftain's shoulder. “Strength to you, Burok Bear-slayer.”

Then he rose without so much as a nod or glance at Cul, grabbing his carry strap and ducking under the skins to find Maev already moving toward the sound of her father's voice.

He's strong, Kern wanted to tell her. But as usual, in Maev's presence he found himself struck dumb. He stood there, waiting for her to pass by, waiting to see if she'd say anything that recognized he existed. She did.

“It should be you,” Maev said. Sharp and direct.

The first person in all of Clan Gaud to say it to his face, wishing him under death's watch rather than her father.

It was what Kern had come to expect. And they were the obvious words to carry with him out the door, and into Cimmeria's long, cold night.

HAMMERING ON THE door to Kern's hut shook him awake the next morning, batting aside his weary sleep and driving dull blades into his head. The door's leather-bound planks rattled together. Rafters trembled. The last of autumn's dust shook out of the overhead thatch.

Whoever it was had a heavy hand, and wasn't shy of using it.

Kern woke slowly, as he often did after a heavy day's work. Tiny shards of dimmest light peeked through cracks in the clay-daubed walls and ringed the smoke hole above like a faint halo, hardly stronger than the smoldering embers in his small, bedside fire pit. The Cimmerian growled a curse. Barely morning. The sun was not above the valley's eastern peaks. He stretched out beneath a coarse woolen blanket that scratched and itched at his chest, his legs, pulled up so tight the hem chafed around his neck. His muscles ached, he discovered, but not unpleasantly. Exposed to the hut's draft, though, his ears and the tip of his nose felt numbed. Frost in the air. He didn't need a window to know it.

More hammering, slow and methodical, like a battering ram.

Sucking in a deep lungful of brisk morning air, tasting the disturbed dust, Kern threw off his covers in one great sweep. His skin puckered immediately, tightening against the chill. He felt it most in his groin, behind the knees, and in his armpits. Grabbing his Cimmerian kilt—the heaviest one, dyed red with tribal sworls stitched into it and trimmed with the shaggy hide of a mountain ram—he wrapped it about him from abdomen to knees, belting it in place with a wide strap of leather and brassy gold buckle. Fur-trimmed boots yanked on next. Then a tattered leather poncho—lighter than his winter cloak, adequate for stomping around the village.

Also, when he took a swing at the person pounding his door, he wouldn't care if it got damaged.

Balling one hand into a meaty fist, he pounded his side of the door, once, in warning, then slid back the thin crossbar holding the ramshackle entry closed.

Yanking the door inward, he stepped forward and glared into Reave's brushy, black beard.

His friend stood a full hand's spread taller and had the shoulders of an ox; with his fur cloak wrapped about him, warding off the chill, at a distance he could easily be mistaken for one of Cimmeria's great black bears. He wore two gold hoops, taken off a Vanir raider he'd killed, one in each ear. His eyes were pale blue, like ice frozen over still ponds, yet they reflected more emotion than the usual Cimmerian bothered to show.

Now, Reave looked sorrowful, which was an uncertain expression on the Gaudic giant. One he was not used to wearing. Anger and annoyance fitted him better. Or laughter, around lodge fires and drinking games.

Kern could only think of one thing to bring Reave at his door so early.

Burok Bear-slayer.

He glanced down at Reave's hand, the one not held up to pound further for Kern's attention, and saw blood drying on thick fingers. And there were other villagers straggling by on the muddied, frozen path behind Reave, their forms little more than shadows in the dim light and the thin curtain of frosted fog draped across the village, all heading toward the lodge.

“Last night?” Kern asked.

Reave nodded silently.

Waving Reave ahead of him, Kern reached back into his cramped hut, grabbed a thin belt with a long knife sheathed in its scabbard. He strapped this on as he walked, settling it lower than his kilt belt and angling the knife over his left leg for easy reach. He caught up as the larger man waited for a trio of hobbled cattle to shuffle across the frozen path, released early from huts or homes where they had provided warmth through the night.

Cattle were wealth to the clan in more ways than milk and meat. Kern did not care for the way their bones showed so plainly under their hides.

“Daol went for his da,” Reave said, finally breaking his silence as they began walking again. His voice was a deep rumble, as if it had been dredged up from great depths. “Cul roused most of the village. Saw you weren't 'round yet.”

Of course Cul was beating down doors. The right doors. “You shouldn't be wasting your time on me.”

Reave only shrugged.

Too late to make a difference regardless. At a quick glance, Kern saw the entire village had to be awake and gathered out front of the lodge. Men, women, and children. The elderly. Even Old Finn was up, hobbling forward on the forked branch he used as a crutch when his gout was bad. All were bundled in their cloaks and warmest blankets, standing a silent vigil, their breath rising above them in a halo of steam. A baby began to fuss, but was silenced when its mother pinched shut its nose, forcing it to choose between crying and breathing. Wailing babes had no place there.

Daol had already shoved his way toward the front with his father, Hydallan, who wore the peaked rabbit-fur hat his son had made him and so was easy to spot in the crowd of silhouettes. Reave bulled his way forward as well. Several villagers stepped aside for the strapping clansman. A few others, noticing Kern in his wake, shuffled away farther still.

Cul stood nearest the lodge doors, one of which was stained with several dozen bloody smears, dripping dark fingers toward the bottom edge. Kern did not miss the glance that shot from him to Reave and back again.

“'Bout time, Wolf-Eye.”

Drawing his knife in answer, Kern sliced quickly and cleanly across his palm, then sheathed the blade. He held Cul's gaze while letting a small pool of blood well up in his hand, then slapped it forward to smear the door, letting it mingle with the blood of Clan Gaud.

The last, apparently, as Cul quickly used his own knife to cut the leather bindings that held the door in place. Both Cul and Reave lifted it off the pivots to lay it flat inside the hall, over a pair of benches.

That was it. Their clan chieftain was dead. Burok Bear-slayer would be dressed, then stitched into a hide sack and laid out on the lodge door. On this he would eventually be carried east and then north, to be buried at the feet of the Eiglophians in the Field of the Chiefs, alongside the other great Cimmerian chieftains, in sight of Ben Morgh and the House of Crom.

But who would lead that passage, and when, was the decision for the new clan chieftain. Who would be selected that day.

The way in which Cul and Reave stared at one another, waiting for Burok to be prepared, Kern had no doubt their minds were already on the Challenge.

 

BY NOON, EVERYONE had prepared.

Again the entire village turned out, this time to witness the selection of their new chieftain. Every clan and village had its own custom, but common to most the selection of a new clan head was an event to be celebrated. Different from their solemn procession that morning, the Gaudic folk were louder now, even boisterous. They chatted. Some made sideline bets—for favors or chores or on their honor come summer. On a warmer day, or in better times, a keg of ale would have been broken open. Instead, they made do with mint leaves steeped in boiled water and twice-baked bread that had survived the wet and cold months of a Conall Valley winter.

Chewing the tough crust with little enthusiasm and less pleasure, Kern waited to see what the day brought.

Reave arrived in kilt and boots and not much else to ward off the clammy touch of fog, which persisted past morning. No cloak to snag or tangle with. Only a thick matting of dark hair dressing his chest and his back. The sword scar he'd taken the year before, raiding one of the southern tribes, stood out waxy and pink across his right shoulder. He still wore the large hoop earrings in both ears, as Kern had suggested. They reminded people that Reave had fought Vanir raiders, and survived, while Cul had only chased off a few scouts.

A few people cheered his arrival. More sent dark looks.

The majority of the village went about their own betting and boasting.

Kern met Reave near the Challenge Circle, an arena staked out with poles festooned with somber strips cut from bloodstained cloths and a bearskin from Burok's deathbed. He clasped his friend's right hand between both of his.

“Daol will be on the other side,” he told the larger man. “He'll step in late, and try to wrestle one of Cul's supporters out of the circle.”

Reave grunted, and blew a long draw of frosted breath out through clenched teeth.

“Expect the Tall-Wood brothers to come for you early. They work well as a team.” The previous summer, in fact, they had outwrestled every match the village could put together.

A nod. And another grunt.

“By Crom, Reave, will you listen to me?” Kern grabbed his friend by the elbow, turning him around. “Cul's people are going to work together against you. You have to think faster than them.”

“Thinking's nay my strong suit,” the large man admitted. He punched Kern hard on the outside of the shoulder. “You think for me, Kern. I'll handle the Tall-Woods.”

Blowing out an exasperated breath, Kern nodded. “They won't be looking for Daol come late and from behind them. When you see him, it's your best chance.”

Any more advice was interrupted when Maev arrived, carrying a dagger that had belonged to her father. She held the hilt in her left hand, laid the blade across her right palm, which bore a crusted wound from the morning's bloodshed. No words were spoken as she walked into the Challenge Circle, looking neither right nor left to acknowledge or favor any one potential Challenger. Right to the arena's center she walked, then held up the dagger as she turned one time in place.

Kneeling, she drove the blade down into the frozen earth, sticking it two inches into the ground.

Then she retreated along the way she'd come, joining a group of the village women, who waited in Jocund's company with bandages and splints and what few herbs the healer had salvaged from her kit. Challenges were rarely bloody, but accidents happened.