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
As the last Northman in his path fell dead to the bloody ground, the door to the house flew open, and a half- naked man appeared in the doorway with a wood axe in his hands. Caim's knives darted forward, moving almost of their own accord, but stopped inches from the villager's chest. He wanted to kill and keep killing. With a grunt, Caim stepped back, and the man ran off with a wild look in his eyes.
Caim scanned the shadows thrown by the leaping fires. Riders galloped beyond the houses, calling out, but they appeared to have given up their sport for the moment. Then a voice thundered behind him.
“Southlander!”
Wulfgrim dismounted at the end of the snow-packed lane. Blood stained the blade of his battleaxe and ran in smeared lines down his wooden shield. His eyes stared with a feverish glare. Aemon and Dray rode up beside Caim, but he waved them back as the Snow Lion chief approached.
He and Wulfgrim stopped a dozen paces from each other. The rest of the Northmen crowded behind their leader in a loose semicircle. It took Caim back to his days riding with the roughnecks of the Western Territories where fights over money or status were commonplace. His pulse began to pound in his temples in the old, familiar rhythm, and he matched Wulfgrim's lurid grin. With a fierce bellow, the Northman charged.
Caim sunk into a low stance, knives out to his sides. No tactics crowded his thoughts, no subtle stratagems to gain advantage. His mind was gloriously clear as he traced the path of the incoming axe. Caim sidestepped and turned behind Wulfgrim's momentum. His
Caim shook his head to clear it as he got back to his feet. Wulfgrim charged again, shield held high and axe sweeping low. Caim spun out of the way, but the shield slammed into his side and drove him back. His feet slipped in the muddy slush, and before he could set his feet another shield bash backed by Wulfgrim's full weight carried them both into the side of a longhouse. Thin beams and hide split apart as they fell through the wall. Caim held onto his balance by a razor's edge. The axe swung for his head, and he ducked away, but Wulfgrim kept coming, driving him back across the hard dirt floor. The interior of the longhouse was narrow and littered with obstacles that could trip or entangle. Caim trod on a blanket and kicked it away. He was preparing a feint when Kit's voice rang in his ears.
“Caim!” Her glow lit up the interior of the house. “You have to get out of here!”
But he didn't want to hear it as he jumped back from another axe swing. Wulfgrim's tongue lolled from his mouth as he raised his shield and charged. Caim twisted out of the way. His seax blade carved a furrow into the back of Wulfgrim's neck above his mail shirt's collar. The Northman didn't falter.
Kit's head emerged from Wulfgrim's chest, which threw off Caim's timing. “More wildmen are coming! Lots of them.”
Caim slashed across Kit's face, and she darted away. Wulfgrim advanced behind his shield. Caim gave ground step by step. When Wulfgrim wound up for another strike, Caim waited until the axe reached the apex of its arc, and then drove his shoulder into the Northman's torso. It was like running into an iron-clad tree trunk. The breath left Caim's lungs in a bestial yell as he plunged both knives up under the skirt of the chieftain's mail coat. A heavy blow pummeled the middle of his back, but Caim kept stabbing again and again, blood streaming over his hands, until Wulfgrim toppled backward.
Breathing hard, Caim stood over his foe. Air whistled from Wulfgrim's open mouth in a long sigh as blood welled in a widening pool between his legs. The chieftain had dropped his axe, but his hand sought out the long knife at his belt. Trails of crimson steam rose from the wounds. Caim leaned down. He had never seen such a phenomenon before. Then the steam wafted toward him, and Caim hissed as a burst of energy surged into his hands and up through his arms. It was like being set on fire and drowned in icy water at the same time. The electric currents collided in his chest, swelling his heart with their raw heat. He started to feel light-headed from the rush. The blood sang in his veins. Wulfgrim shuddered and groaned.
Caim gritted his teeth and yanked himself away. Bile rose in the back of his throat as he turned away from
