Jon Sprunk - Shadow's master

“The duke's keep at Liovard is plain stone,” Malig said. “Maybe they got that rich stuff down in the lowlands. Caim, you ever seen a-?”

“No,” Caim said, and left it at that.

Wulfgrim watched him out of the side of his eye for a few moments, and then chuckled. “I like you, Southlander. A strong man needs to speak very little, yes?”

But the questioning went on for some time, although at certain points Wulfgrim would lapse into song in his native tongue. Skins of fermented buffalo milk were passed up and down the line of riders, which Caim always declined with a shake of his head. The uneasy feeling in his stomach was getting worse.

“Caim.” Kit materialized beside him as the company began the ascent of a long hill. “You're riding straight for a settlement.”

“Lion tribe?” he asked under his breath.

She shook her head, sending her silver tresses bouncing. “No. Bear. And it looks like most of their menfolk are out hunting.”

Caim started to ask how far away this settlement was when a sharp shout filtered back from the front of the group. Wulfgrim called for a halt. As the war band gathered, Caim tried to make out what they were saying, but his grasp of the northern tongue was almost nonexistent. The few words he knew constituted “yes,” “no,” and a couple different words for snow. Points of light shined in the distance.

Wulfgrim turned to him. “Ready for some sport, Southlander?”

Not liking the way that sounded, Caim just nodded. “Always. What have you got?”

“An enemy holdfast straight in our path. What luck, yes? The death gods must be watching over our shoulders this day.”

“Your enemies?”

The chief reached into his chain shirt and drew out a cord strung with dozens of teeth. “Aye, the great Bear. The only prey worth hunting.”

“We will leave you to it then,” Caim said. “You have our thanks for-”

“Sudlundas dar hraedir mikt ,” Wulfgrim said, and his warriors laughed with derision as they unlimbered their swords and axes. Wulfgrim strapped his shield to his left arm. “You will fight with us, yes?”

Caim measured the distance between himself and Wulfgrim, and the warriors around him. Three were in reach of his knives from where he sat, and two more including their leader if he shifted his steed forward a couple paces. Tiny voices nattered in his ear as he loosened his grip on the reins. “This isn't our fight.”

Wulfgrim's brows knitted together. “You say you come north to find battle. Now it is here, but you will not join us?”

“It's not that simple.”

Wulfgrim grinned, showing off the carvings on his teeth, mottled with brown-and-yellow stains. “We fight or we die. That is the law of the north.”

Caim understood completely. This was what the Northmen had wanted from the start: to incorporate them into their death squad. The choice was simple: fight or die. “We'll fight.”

Wulfgrim called out to his men, and they surged ahead in an avalanche of iron, leather, and flying snow. Caim filtered back to his men, who were being swept forward in the movement.

“What's going on?” Malig asked.

After Caim explained the situation, Dray growled, “What the hell choice do we have? We'll have to fight with them.”

“Stay together,” Caim said. “If something goes wrong, ride north as hard as you can.”

The lights ahead were brighter now, a scattering of window ports glowing from a score of shaggy longhouses. Huge mastiffs bayed, but the Northmen didn't slacken. Two wings split off, left and right, while the middle column led by Wulfgrim plunged straight into the heart of the settlement. The first sounds of combat echoed ahead. Shouts of alarm split the darkness.

Caim didn't draw his knives, even though Malig and Dray drew their weapons. A glance from him kept them close by. He didn't want anyone getting lost in the chaos as people spilled out of the longhouses. Spears flew through the air. One missile passed just a few handbreadths above his head, but most were aimed at Wulfgrim's men, who were killing everything they met. Dogs snarled and whimpered as they were pinned to the ground on long lances. Three warriors on horseback plunged through the side of a home and brought down half the roof. Some villagers tried to flee, but the flanking Northmen cut them off and cut them down.

Caim tugged on his gloves as he watched. This wasn't a battle; it was a massacre. There were few warriors among the defenders. If Kit was right, and the rest were out hunting, this village was an easy plum for Wulfgrim's raiders to pluck. The Snow Lions fought like their namesakes, tearing into the villagers, killing without remorse. Wulfgrim rode wherever the carnage was thickest, his voice rising above the wind and the cries.

A lean man, naked to the waist and holding a spear, rushed out of a burning house. He ran straight at Malig, who lifted his axe to defend himself, but a Northman rode past. One blow from his iron warhammer exploded the villager's face in a burst of red pulp, and the Northman rode onward with a booming laugh.

“Damn!” Dray muttered, his sword drooping by his side, forgotten.

“This ain't right,” Aemon said. “We shouldn't be here.”

Caim agreed, but extricating themselves wouldn't be easy. The Northmen were all around them, distracted perhaps, but not blind. If they tried to leave, there would be trouble. But neither could they stay. Caim saw two children cut down with their mother in the middle of the lane. The raiders lit torches and flung them into the houses. While the others in his crew flinched and swore at what they witnessed, the slaughter rolled off of Caim. He'd seen and done terrible things before. This was just one more tragedy to be endured. Yet his throat was dry, and his hands shook as he gripped the reins.

A doorway burst open next to Caim, and a woman ran out. She wore a long tunic of animal skin decorated with tiny beads across the front. She stopped and looked up at him, the whites of her eyes huge and gleaming in the light of the rising fires. Her long, copper-hued hair reminded him of Liana. An image flashed through his mind, of her blood-streaked face, her hair wrapped in Soloroth's armored fist. Caim let out a shallow breath that burned his throat.

Hoofbeats pounded in the snow. Steel flashed, and the woman's legs gave out. As she tumbled to the ground, droplets of her blood spattered on Caim's thigh and across the coat of his steed. His horse snorted and stepped away, and a flush of warmth bubbled up from Caim's chest. His vision dimmed as the blood ran down his leg, the drops melding into a rivulet that dribbled through the creases in his pants. A distant buzz droned in his ears, calling him to…to…

Caim didn't remember kicking his heels, but suddenly he was hurtling forward. The Northman who'd ridden down the woman loomed ahead of him. Gouts of steam billowed from the killer's bearded lips, perhaps in a lusty shout, but Caim couldn't hear anything. His knives had appeared in his hands. The warrior stiffened as the points of the blades entered his back, one to either side of his spine, and pitched forward.

With the shadows chittering in his ears, Caim withdrew his knives and turned to a knot of raiders setting fire to a longhouse. He plunged into them, taking the first one out with a slash across the throat. The others spun to face him. A torch drove at him from the left side while a two-handed greatsword swept in from the other direction. Caim dove headfirst from the saddle. He landed on his shoulder, but kept rolling, through the forest of stamping horse legs, and came up on the far side of the warriors. His knives slashed, and their shouts turned to cries of fury as steaming blood spilled in the snow.

More Northmen jumped into the fray. Caim never stopped moving. This was his element, the order at the heart of violence. Their spears and axes moved too slowly to catch him. A horse reared, and he ducked beneath its kicking hooves. The rider swayed away to avoid his knives, but Caim switched directions to stab another Northman in the gut with his seax and swept his suete across the tendons behind the kneecap. Voices clamored in his ear. Some of them were his Eregoths; they had followed him into the melee, but Caim didn't pause to respond.