Cunning. Tempering. Conan’s blue eyes narrowed. The race wasn’t just about speed, but about completing the circuit with the egg intact. The boy who fell, had he not broken the egg, could have gotten back up again. So the egg is everyone’s weakness.
Ardel, never having been the swiftest of the youths his age, had also figured this out. As he and others worked their way up the hills, then along the grand circuit, he jostled the competition. He swept one boy’s legs, plunging him face-first into the snow. Egg erupted from his mouth. Ardel even swung a fist at Conan, but the younger boy ducked.
Cunning. While the other boys smashed against one another, Conan cut off the trail. The extra duties his father had assigned to him over the winter had given him a familiarity with the area that none of the others came close to possessing. He leaped over rocks and ducked beneath fallen trees. He cut diagonally across a hillside, using saplings to slow and redirect himself. When he returned to the trail, he’d passed the largest boys. He raced ahead, leaping and cutting, their snarls forcing him to smile.
Then he caught it. Movement through the forest around them, pacing them. For a moment he thought wolves might have come hunting them, so quickly and furtively did the figures move from shadow to shadow. Then he caught a flash of foot here, a hand there, a motion only a man could make.
He slowed, instinctively raising a hand to warn the others. Picts!
The other boys stopped dead. One of them cried out, then choked on his egg. As four Pictish scouts, heads shaved at the sides, hair stiffed with porcupine quills, emerged from the forest, the other boys turned and ran.
Conan, his nostrils flaring, stood his ground, balling his fists.
A bola whirled in one Pict’s hands. It spun through the air, the leather laces tangling Conan’s ankles, drawing them together and dumping him to the ground. The boy turned over, wiping snow from his face, as the quartet of Picts drew slowly toward him. They didn’t seem to fear him—rather, they viewed him as more of a curiosity than anything else, and this dismissal kindled anger in Conan’s heart.
Conan looked past their tribal paint and the double axes they bore. Their wariness came tinged with weariness. The Picts were far from home, had no supplies, and had a haunted look on their faces. They had no idea what to make of him, and began discussing his fate in their harsh tongue.
One pointed back toward the south, then again to the west and the Pictish homelands. The others gesticulated wildly. Their tattoos and paint suggested they were Otters, who usually raided down near the Aquilonian border. What they were doing so far north and east Conan didn’t know, but clearly they were up to deviltry.
While their discussion distracted them, Conan dug fingers into the leather lacing that bound his feet together. He resisted the urge to struggle, since that would only draw the leather thongs more tightly together. He turned one foot, then pushed on a lace. He tugged another. Then, as the Pict leader grabbed a handful of Conan’s hair and jerked his head back to stretch his throat for the skinning knife he held high in his hand, Conan slid his feet from his boots and brought one of the bola’s weights up in a short, sharp arc.
The leather-wrapped stone caught the Pict on the right side of his face. His cheekbone cracked and an eye socket crumbled. The man spun, blood spurting, his face misshapen, and crashed down beside the barefoot Cimmerian boy.
Conan tugged the ax from the downed man’s belt and threw himself backward. The second Pict’s ax blow would have crushed his skull had he been a heartbeat slower. Conan somersaulted backward, then came up. He ignored the cold as his feet dug into the snow. All that was important was that he maintain his balance.
The third Pict charged him, ax raised for a blow that would split him from crown to crotch. Conan brought his ax up in the high-right guard, blocking the blow. The Pict’s eyes widened and he raised the ax again. But Conan rushed forward, slipping inside his guard, and smashed the ax into the man’s knee. The blade sheared through leather leggings and flesh. The knee buckled and the Pict went down.
Conan’s next blow slammed into the Pict’s breastbone, shattering it. Spitting blood, the warrior crashed onto his back. Conan spun away from a feeble swipe at his legs, then brought his ax up high left. He blocked the fourth Pict’s blow, then spun beneath his arm. He used the man’s body to shield him from the last Pict, then tripped him.
The second Pict closed quickly, but the Cimmerian was quicker. Conan kicked out, catching him over the right hip. The Pict leaped back, steadied himself. His eyes widened for a moment, then he lowered his shoulders and bull-rushed the boy.
All of Corin’s training kicked in. The endless hours of repetition slowed time for Conan. The Pict meant to overwhelm him, to use his size advantage, though not great, to bowl the boy over. All the man had to do was to block any blow Conan might deliver, then weight and speed would grant him victory. He’d knock Conan down, then dash his brains out.
Conan stabbed the ax toward the Pict as if to fend him off. The warrior slashed to batter the ax out of the way, but Conan dipped his ax beneath the other man’s. The Cimmerian took a step forward and to the left, twisting like a suddenly opening gate to let the Pict rush past, bringing his ax up to his left shoulder. Conan backhanded the ax through the Pict’s line of attack, catching him solidly in the spine, just above his hips. His legs died and he stretched limply on the snowy ground.
The last Pict had gathered himself, brushing snow from a furious face. As the death throes of the man with the broken spine slackened, Conan spun away from him and engaged his last foe. The Cimmerian ducked beneath a wild ax stroke at his head, then buried his own ax in the Pict’s belly.
The man collapsed around it, slamming into the ground face-first. He sagged to the side, desperately trying to suck in breath. He lifted an arm to ward Conan off, but Conan snapped it with an overhand blow. Another blow crushed the back of the man’s skull, and the battlefield became silent save for the rasping breath of the third Pict and the scolding call of a raven.
Conan crouched and studied his surroundings for any other movement. He saw nothing, then recovered his boots. By the time he’d pulled them on, the third Pict had stopped breathing.
Conan bent down and recovered the skinning knife that had been intended to drink his blood.
And he set about some very grim work.
WHEN THE FIRST of the young men returned, dejected, chins stained with broken egg, Corin felt no concern. That was normal, and the boys would learn. He took pride in the fact that Conan was not among them. But then, as the largest boys came running in, eyes wide with panic, fear began to coil in his belly.
Then Ronan stopped one of the boys—his son, Ardel—and glanced back at Corin. “Corin! Picts in the woods. They hunted the boys.”
Corin scanned the back trail. “How many, Ardel?”
“Too many.” The young man looked up, ashen-faced. “There were too many.”
“And you came straight here? You led them back to us?”
Ardel sank to his knees. “Too many.”
Corin turned to summon more warriors, but saw a human form emerging from the forest to the south. He started in that direction, then stopped, waiting.
The form began to jog toward the village. Conan, his pace steady, his breath coming in thick vapor, wended his way to the center of the village. Covered in blood, he paid no attention to what the others were saying, to their gasps or their encouraging nods. He did not look at the other boys, but instead continued on, his face half masked by his hair but his blue eyes burning fearsomely.