The Hunger of the Gods (The Bloodsworn Saga, #2)

by John Gwynne

“Kill your enemies,” Glornir said. “Aye, and make a mountain of their corpses,” Orka finished.

“Do I need to eat someone else to teach you the meaning of haste?” The camp exploded into movement.

“We are none of us born warriors,” Orka muttered. “It is the world that makes us so.”

“Rotta slew Orna and Ulfrir’s daughter, Valkyrie, and cast the blame upon Lik-Rifa,” Gunnar said. “He strangled Valkyrie, skinned her and left her hanging from a tree. But Orna and Ulfrir saw through his deceit and so he fled from them. Came here, where he wrote the Raudskinna, his red-skinned book that holds the secrets of the gods, all of it carved into Valkyrie’s flayed skin.”

Friends were new to Varg and he prized them beyond all gold. To see Jökul slain with a cowardly blow… it sent the wolf in his blood into a ravening frenzy.

Varg hooked his cleaver on to the shield rim, dragged himself close to the warrior and stabbed the cleaver forward, slicing deep into the guard’s throat.

Badass

“Well, Breca Thorkelsson,” the man said, “you’re going to have a scar on your face from this cut for the rest of your life. So next time you think about running away, you put your hand to this scar, and you remember what happens to runaways. And you remember who gave it to you. My name’s Brák Trolls-Bane, and don’t you go forgetting it.” “I won’t,” snarled Breca.

Oooooo Varg is coming for you

We decide what is the way of the world. Us. People. It is not imposed upon us by some greater force.

Skuggar was always one for the shadows, where Snaka would love the world to watch him. Snaka was the maker, Skuggar the unmaker.”

“Rumours of my demise have been greatly exaggerated,” Rotta said,

“I can see that would help avoid the pain of betrayal, true enough, but it also stops you feeling the joy of friendship or love,” Varg mumbled.

Real courage is to feel fear, but to stand and face it, not run from it.

Life is a knife’s edge, and all can change with the thrust of a blade.”

Ulfrir paused in his destruction, lips curling back in a snarl as he regarded Jarl Störr. Skuld looked down at Elvar, waiting. A memory, of her mother screaming, of her father’s fist rising and falling. Elvar nodded. “No,” she saw her father’s lips move. Skuld threw Jarl Störr into the air, spinning, and Ulfrir’s jaws lunged, snapped about him. There was a muffled scream, the crunch and crackle of bone and then blood was trickling over Ulfrir’s matted lips.