Page 48 of Feast

Once that happened, they would keep her leashed forever. There would be no more chances for escape.

Ika needed to do something.

But what?

She scanned her eyes around the gradually brightening forest. The frigid air glittered with suspended ice crystals. The snow-laden trees stood like silent, dark sentinels offering no assistance to Ika’s problem.

How could she travel without leaving tracks?

Ika found the answer floating past in the river.

Enormous chunks of ice were drifting with the current. The largest of these were as big as rafts and possibly buoyant enough to bear Ika’s weight.

Ika waited for a particularly large one to slide past, and she pulled it closer to the bank with the help of her spear. She stepped aboard, and sure enough it accepted her without dipping below the surface, which was important. If Ika’s feet got wet, she would be in trouble.

But the chunk of ice held. Its surface was precariously slippery, but with a great deal of care, it could work as a makeshift raft.

And most important, Ika would leave no tracks behind.

She grinned mischievously at her own ingenuity.

Rolf had taught her well.

Using her spear as a push-pole, Ika shoved away from the shore. Soon the current took her, and she was drifting downriver in the gathering morning light. She watched silently as the shadowed mouth of the cave receded in the distance.

Ika’s heart tugged one last time.

She would miss those scary ukkur. And she would never forget the forbidden things they had done together in that cave.

The ice raft drifted around a bend in the river, and the cave disappeared from view.

CHAPTER 16

Slaine inhaled.

The air was humid and rank with the coppery odor of blood and gore. At his feet, dead nith lay in piles, their bodies flaccid and leaking sluggish green-black blood. All around, hemming Slaine in on every side, a sea of yet more living nith. Thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands. Numbers that Slaine’s mind had no words for. The ocean of nith warriors stretched away to the horizon on every side, and the cacophany of their chittering voices drowned out even the thunder of the storm-darkened sky above.

War.

Death.

This was Slaine’s destiny. The nith had built him for slave labor. Then they had broken his brain.

Now Slaine was a slave to a new master. The God of War. The tumult of battle.

He let out his breath in a savage roar that shook the blood-drenched ground and set the surrounding nith back on their heels.

Slaine attacked.

In his left hand he carried an axe, but it was not the crude stone implement that he used in his waking life. The weapon was forged from steel, and its finely honed edge gleamed with every flash of blue-white lightning in the dark sky overhead. His right hand bore a long spear. Its pointed blade was razor sharp.

The nith fell before him.

Heads rolled. Bodies cleaved in half. His speartip pierced through multiple chests in one blow.

Slaine slashed and stabbed and fought ferociously, roaring nonstop as he killed. His vision faded to a red mist.

Then, through the chaotic tumult, a scent reached his flaring nostrils.