Grinning, Tesk shifted his shield into place, transferring his gaze to the screaming horde almost upon them. He could see their faces now, feel their bloodlust strike him like a malignant breeze.
“The stars are out, Farlain!” he yelled. “It’s a fine night for dying.”
The Aenir broke upon them like waves upon a rock, and the slaughter began. But at first it was the flashing blades of the Farlain that ripped and tore at the enemy, and many were the screams of the Aenir wounded and dying as they fell beneath the boots of their comrades.
Cambil forced himself alongside Tesk and all fear left the Hunt Lord. Doubts fled, shredding like summer clouds. He was calm at last and the noise of the battle receded from him. A strange sense of detachment came upon him and he seemed to be watching himself cutting and slaying, and he heard the laughter from his own lips as if from a stranger.
All his life he had known the inner pain of uncertainty. Inadequacy hugged him like a shadow. Now he was free. An axe clove his chest, but there was no pain. He killed the axeman, and two others, before his legs gave way and he fell. He rolled to his back, feeling the warmth of life draining from the wound.
He had finally succeeded, he knew that now. Without his sacrifice Caswallon would never have had the time to escape.
“I did something right, Father,” he whispered.
“Bowmen to me!” shouted Caswallon. Beside him the silver-haired warrior, Leofas, stood with his sons Layne and Lennox. “Leofas, lead the clan toward Attafoss. Throw out a wide screen of scouts, for before long the Aenir will be hunting us. Go now!”
The clan began to move on into the trees, just as the sun cleared the eastern peaks. Many were the backward glances at the small knot of fighting men ringed by the enemy, and the eyes that saw them burned with guilt and shame.
Three hundred bowmen grouped themselves around Caswallon. Each bore two quivers containing forty shafts. They spread out along the timberline, screened by bushes, thick gorse, and heather.
As the light strengthened Caswallon watched the last gallant struggle of the encircled clansmen. He could see Cambil in with them, battling bravely, and some of the women had taken up swords and daggers. And then it was over. The sword ring fell apart and the Aenir swarmed over them, hacking and slashing, until at last there was no movement from the defenders.
Asbidag rode down the valley and removed his helm. He summoned his captains.
Caswallon could not hear the commands he issued, but he could guess, for the eyes of the Aenir turned west and the army took up its weapons and ran toward the mountainside.
“Do not shoot until I do,” he called to the hidden archers. Caswallon notched a shaft to the string as the Aenir spread out along the foot of the slope. They advanced cautiously, many of them lifting the face guards of their helms the better to see the enemy. Caswallon grinned. He singled out a lean, wolfish warrior at the center of the advancing line. At fifty paces he stood, in plain sight of the Aenir, and drew back on the string. The shaft hissed through the air, hammering home in the forehead of the lead warrior.
The Aenir charged…
Into a black-shafted wall of death. Hundreds fell within a few paces, and the charge faltered and failed, the enemy warriors sprinting back out of bowshot.
Caswallon walked out into the open and sat down. Laying his bow beside him he opened his hip pouch, removing a hunk of dark bread. This he began to eat, staring down at the milling warriors.
Stung by the silent taunt of his presence, they charged once more. Calmly Caswallon replaced the bread in his pouch, notched an arrow to his bow, loosed the shaft, and grinned as it brought down a stocky warrior in full cry, the arrow jutting from his chest.
The Aenir raced headlong into a second storm of shafts that culled their ranks and halted them. Caswallon, still shooting carefully, eased his way back into the bushes, out of sight. The Aenir fled once more, leaving a mound of their dead behind them.
A young archer named Onic crept through the gorse to where Caswallon knelt. “We’ve all but exhausted our shafts,” he whispered.
“Pass the word to fall back,” said Caswallon.
In the valley Asbidag walked among the bodies, stopping to stare down at Cambil’s mutilated corpse. “Remove the head and set it on a spear by his house,” he told his son Tostig. The Aenir lord unbuckled his breastplate, handing it to a grim-faced warrior beside him. Then he looked around him, eyes raking the timber and the gaunt snow-covered peaks in the distance.
“I like this place,” he said. “It has a good feeling to it.”
“But most of the Farlain escaped, Father,” said Tostig.
“Escaped? To where? All that’s out there is wilderness. By tonight Drada will be here, having finished off the Haesten. Ongist will be harrying the Pallides, driving the survivors west into our arms. Once they are destroyed we will take our men into the wilderness and finish the task-that’s if Barsa doesn’t do it before we arrive.”
“Barsa?”
“He is already in the west with two thousand forest-trained warriors from the south. They call themselves Timber Wolves, and by Vatan they’re a match for any motley ragbag of stinking clansmen.”
“We took no women,” complained Tostig. “Most of the young ones killed themselves. Bitches!”
“Drada will bring women. Do not fret.”
Asbidag began to move among the bodies once more, turning over the women and the young girls. Finally he stood up and walked toward the house of Cambil.
“Who are you seeking?” asked Tostig, walking beside him.
“Cambil’s daughter. Hair like gold, and a spirited girl. Unspoiled. I didn’t like the way she looked at me. And I told you to set Cambil’s head on a spear!”
Tostig blanched and fell back. “At once, Father,” he stammered, running back to the bodies and drawing his sword.
Durk of the Farlain was known as a morose, solitary man. He had no friends and had chosen to spend his life in the high country west of the valley, where he built a small house of timber and grey stone and settled down to a life of expected loneliness. Durk had always been a loner, and even as a child had kept himself apart from his fellows. It was not, he knew, that he disliked people, more that he was not good with words. He had never learned how to engage in light conversation. Crowds unnerved him, always had, and he avoided the dance and the feasts. Girls found him surly and uncommunicative, men thought him standoffish and aloof. Year by year the young clansman felt himself to be more and more remote from his fellows. Durk found this hurtful, but knew that the blame lay within his own shy heart.
But that first winter alone had almost starved him out until his neighbor Onic introduced him to Caswallon’s night raids on bordering territories.
In the beginning Durk had disliked Caswallon. It was easy to see why: they were night and day, winter and summer. Where Caswallon smiled easily and joked often, Durk remained sullen with strangers and merely silent with companions.
Yet, for his part, Caswallon seemed to enjoy Durk’s company and little by little his easygoing, friendly nature wore away the crofter’s tough shell.
Through Caswallon Durk met Kareen, the gentle child of the house and, in spite of himself, had fallen in love with her. In the most incredible slice of good fortune ever to befall the dark-bearded Highlander, Kareen had agreed to marry him.
She transformed his dingy house into a comfortable home and made his joy complete by falling pregnant in the first month of their marriage. With her Durk learned to laugh at his own failings, and his shyness retreated. At their marriage he even danced with several of Kareen’s friends. Laughter and joy covered him, drawing him back into the bosom of the clan, filling the empty places in his heart.
Four days ago, in her eighth month, Kareen had returned to the valley to have the babe in the home of Larcia, wife of the councillor Tesk and midwife to the Farlain.