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

by John Gwynne

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

A snowflake drifted down, a tingled kiss upon Orka’s cheek.

“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…”

“Remember what we have seen and suffered. I would shelter him from that, while I can.”

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.”

“She tears at the souls of warriors as they pass through her chamber on the soul road,” Grend said, “all know this. This is why we must die with a weapon in our fists, to fight her as we pass through Vergelmir, her dark chamber. It is the warriors’ last test.”

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

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

“Perhaps because the past runs deep in our blood and bones,” he muttered. “A rope we cannot see, binding us to it, whether we like it or not.”

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

Memories fluttered in Varg’s head like moth’s wings,

Now that thirst and hunger were not screaming at him, questions were starting to gather in his head, circling like a murder of crows.

Holmganga is the old tongue for going to the island.

“Yes, he is dead, but all men die. Cattle die; all that draws breath will one day fail. He fought well, and so he died well. All that lives on is our battle-fame, and this…” He shook the helm at Varg. “This tells your tale. That on this day Varg No-Sense bested a mighty druzhina of Iskidan.” His mouth twitched in a smile. “Even if his spear was still capped and his helm was on his belt and not his head. This is sounding like a saga-tale to be sung around the hearth fire, no?”

“Time is a gift, not for wasting,” Skalk said.

I know that the raven-wings do not care who they take, do not distinguish between rich or poor, kind or cruel.