The Shadow of the Gods (Bloodsworn Saga, #1)

by John Gwynne

When gods go to war, it is no small thing. The world was broken in their ruin.”

This is a world of blood. Of tooth and claw and sharp iron. Of short lives and painful deaths.

“They call this the age of peace, because the ancient war is over and the gods are dead, but if this is peace…” She looked to the skies, clouds low and heavy, snow falling in sheets now, and back at the blood-soaked corpses. “This is the age of storm and murder…”

The Bloodsworn were famed throughout the whole of Vigrið, and most likely beyond. A band of mercenary warriors who hired themselves out to the highest bidder, they hunted down vaesen-monsters, searched out god-relics for wealthy jarls, fought in border disputes, guarded the wealthy and powerful. Tales were sung about them by skálds around hearth fires.

“He’s one of the Bloodsworn now.”

“You are Berak Bjornasson, and the blood of the dead god Berser flows in your veins. You are Tainted, you are Berserkir, and you are wanted by three jarls for murder, blood-debt and weregild. And now you are mine,” Agnar said, and smiled. “You will fetch a fine price.”

I will always be here, with you and Breca.”

Damn he’s going to die

“You are like rune-magic to me, Thorkel Ulfsson. How is it that we have faced the same horrors, fought the same battles? The terrible things we have done. And yet…” She sighed. “I do not feel like a young horse before green meadows. How are you so strong, where I am so weak?”

Chris and I

“I make a choice, each and every day,” he said, his smile gone now. “I think on what I have. On what is before me. You. Breca. And they make my heart swell and my head giddy. There is no room left for any dwelling on the past.”

“Because I do not know the reason for a thing, does not mean that a dragon-god did it,”

“Why destroy something that someone cared enough to build?” Breca said.

She knew well enough that the braggarts like Guðvarr were not the real warriors. It was the ones who never threatened violence…

“This is a holmganga,” she said. “A ritual duel used to settle disputes. It is done this way, so that it is fair, and so that the kin of the losing party cannot claim weregild or blood feud.”

“Lik-Rifa is a faery tale,” Elvar said into the silence.

Got it. So she will be Snaka descendant

“Skullsplitter?” Varg said, remembering now campfire tales among the thralls of Kolskegg’s farm, talking of a terrible, merciless warrior.

Orka?

“To be traded, to be sold like some thrall-whore to a worthy husband for a piece of land? To lie back and be ploughed like a field, to have their seed sown in my belly and spend my life rearing little piglets like a fat sow?”

He did not know where her body was or who had killed her.

How do you know she’s dead then?

“What is the difference between a Galdurman and a Seiðr-witch?”

Literally my exact question

“Galdur-magic is taught by the wise, by scholars, to the worthy. Years of learning, of truth-seeking. It is honour and skill and patience. But Seiðr-magic, it is a pollution in the Tainted’s blood. A glimmer of old Snaka in their veins, the bloated god. It is not earned, like my power.” Skalk shook his head. “There is no honour in it, no skill. It is just in them.”

Got it, so one is for rich or connected people and therefore ok and the other is natural

“I am prepared to give up all I hold dear and important, all my fine principles, every great thing I have ever believed in, for my son.” Her lips twisted with self-loathing. “I am a hypocrite, you see. Because a mother’s love is a powerful thing. An instinct like no other. I would let the world drown in blood if it would mean my Bjarn was safe and back in my arms again.” She looked away.