A Gathering of Ravens by Scott Oden

Author:Scott Oden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

3

From the long, rocky beach Grimnir carried Étaín inland, scrabbling up through a cut in an eroded escarpment where gray sand met rich green turf. He loped across a rain-lashed heath, thunder shaking the earth and lightning searing the heavens with every step, and sought shelter beneath the eaves of a dense oak grove. “D-Down,” Étaín muttered. “Put … Put me d-down.” Through thin and sodden clothing, Grimnir felt shivers racking her body. And though her teeth chattered audibly she still managed to add, “I c-can walk f-from here.”

“Can you, now?” Grimnir set her on her feet with her back to a thick trunk. She stayed upright for a moment before sinking down, her knees hugged to her chest. Overhead, the trees creaked in the fierce wind. Grimnir crouched. He took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and pulled her head up. There was no tenderness in the gesture, but there was the smallest glimmer of concern in his eyes as he studied her drawn and haggard expression. Étaín swatted his hand away. Grimnir rose again, sucking his teeth in disapproval. “I should have left you back in that wretched shack on the English coast,” he said. “I knew you’d be nothing but a stone around my neck.”

“I c-can walk, I said!”

“Faugh!” She needed shelter, he knew. She needed rest and food and something to wear besides rags. “You need a blasted nursemaid!” His nostrils flared as he snuffled the air, picking out the faint scent of woodsmoke beneath the dampness of the rain, the leaf mold, and the rich loam. A fire. And where there was a fire he’d likely find her some sort of shelter.

For himself, he needed nothing. This land was like a wellspring of power. He had felt it when he first touched solid earth—when the night hags that haunted fens and moor had raised their voices in warning. This island was hallowed ground. His sire, Bálegyr, had consecrated it with his own blood at Mag Tuiredh, when he fell in battle against the hated vestálfar, the west-elves—known to these pathetic Gaels as the Tuatha. And not even the crossbearers from the East, with their miserable hymns and their holy water, could cleanse this land of its heathen taint.

Grimnir felt the essence of his people rising up into his bones, stronger even than in the hinterlands of the Danemark. It surged through muscle and sinew, made him shrug off pain and weariness, sharpened his senses, and quickened his mind; it scourged from him every last vestige of indolence—that stultifying torpor that was deadly to his kind; his black blood sang with the promise of dark deeds and slaughter.

“Up, little fool! Up! This is no place to dawdle!”

Gamely, Étaín struggled to rise; after a moment, Grimnir cursed and scooped her up like a limp doll, bearing her weight as effortlessly as he might an empty sack. He took off at a run. Deeper into the oaks, they ventured, following a trail of smoke so weak no human could have detected it.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.