Page 55 of Feast

Ika could not be dead.

It was impossible.

The gods would protect her. Slaine had faith.

He sprinted ahead. He refused to stop until he found Ika and made her safe by killing the abolith.

As Slaine soon discovered, however, that would not be necessary.

Ahead of him on the snow lay a huge mass of fur with a long stick protruding at an angle. As he got closer, the musky scent filled Slaine’s nostrils. That was the abolith alright, and its body shuddered as it breathed its last breath.

The beast was already vanquished, pierced through the heart with a spear.

It was a perfect blow. Slaine could not have done better himself.

But who had done this?

There was a weak groan from behind the dead monster. Slaine rushed around the massive corpse, and his heart clenched with emotion.

It was Ika.

His Ika.

And she was still alive.

But just barely. She was naked and wet, and her skin was almost blue from the cold. Her muscles were shuddering uncontrollably and her legs were too weak for her to stand.

Slaine dropped his spear, rushed to Ika, and gathered her in his arms.

He turned her over to check for wounds.

Miraculously, she had not been wounded by the abolith’s fangs or claws. Her only apparent injury was a bloody nose from the impact when the creature must have charged onto her spear.

Red blood.

Slaine’s pulse quickened.

All of the creatures of the world carried green-black blood in their veins. Only the ukkur bled scarlet. In fact, that is what the word ukkur meant in the language of the nith. Ukkur. Red blood.

So Ika was an ukkur after all.

But she would be a dead ukkur if Slaine didn’t do something soon. She was cold as a block of ice in his arms. Slaine hugged her close and tried to will his body heat into her icy skin, but it was no good. Even his ample warmth was not enough.

He stripped off his tunic and wrapped it around her, but with hardly any body heat of her own, it did Ika little good.

And the temperature was dropping swiftly.

The storm had caught up with them. Wind howled around Slaine’s ears and dense flurries of snow blasted his face.

A blizzard that was coming.

Soon the snowfall would be so dense that it would be impossible to see more than a few paces in any direction.

Slaine roared in an attempt to signal his brethren, but his voice was carried away by the wind.

He could not count on them having heard it.

He was on his own, and it was up to him to save Ika.