Free Valkeryn 2: The Dark Lands by Greig Beck Page B

arc in the cold night.
    The silver blade flashed in the moonlight, and the beast’s enormous head flew from its shoulders. Sorenson landed lightly on his feet, and turned to see the headless body, still upright, spraying blood as it toppled like a tree.
    He snorted in contempt. ‘Compared to the sáál of a Wolfen, you will always be the runt.’ He walked back to the body and placed a foot on its chest. He threw his head back and howled once again, but this time it was no song of lament, but one of challenge.
    The sound died away and Sorenson dropped his head, his eyes still burning. ‘We are not all dead yet.’
    He wiped his blade clean on the body, and then walked to the mangled corpse of his Wolfen kin. It still wore much of its armor, now dented and bloody. It was a female warrior, her face still caught in a snarl of fury. She had died fighting. Sorenson knelt down, and placed one hand on her chest. He made a fist and tapped the steel where the snarling crest of Fenrir was raised up. He closed his eyes.
    ‘May you sit at Odin’s feet and await his call.’ He opened his eyes and stood. He went to turn away but paused. His lips pulled back from his teeth as he stared at the devoured remains. ‘Be at ease, little sister, there will be oceans of blood soon enough.’
    Chapter 9
    I’m Not Alone

    Arn woke with a start, and sat up quickly, spinning left and right, feeling there was something amiss, someone watching them. His neck tingled and he couldn’t shake the sensation of something not being right. He waited, but there was nothing except the sound of the jungle waking at dawn.
    He rubbed his face and inhaled. The humidity was already high, and his skin itched where biting insects had made a meal of him throughout the night. He looked down. Grimson still slept. Thankfully, it was more a sleep of the fatigued, rather than the coma-like little death he had been in the night before.
    Arn slid a hand backwards through the short, silver fur on the young Wolfen’s shoulders and neck, and saw that the wounds were now pink and mostly knitted together. There was no sign of any swelling or weeping coming from the wounds.
    His stomach rumbled, and he crawled forward on his knees to the opening of their shelter. He and Grimson had found an enormous broken off tree trunk, still twenty feet high, but its base hollowed out – large enough for them both to enter, and sleep hidden from the jungle. Even if they had found a cave, he wasn’t sure he would have chosen to enter – given what he had encountered in the darkness once before. Fatigued as he was, he wouldn’t have been able to fight a mouse, let alone something the size of a freight train that spat acid, and had armor stronger than an Abrams tank.
    The snap of a twig from just behind the brush line made him freeze. He dropped even lower and edged backwards a few inches, while keeping his eyes on the undergrowth. There was some snuffling and then something the size of a large rat pushed out into the open. It stopped, and its snout unfurled like a miniature trunk to pick at something in amongst the leaf litter.
    Hello breakfast , he thought and slowly reached back for his knife. There would be no fire or cooking for some time. Aside from everything being mostly damp in the jungle anyway, he couldn’t afford for the smoke to be seen rising above the tree canopy until he was sure there was no pursuit. It didn’t matter – raw or not, food was food, and he and Grimson needed protein. He leapt.
    Arn smiled and hummed as he expertly skinned the small animal. Not long ago, he was worried more about trying to date Becky Matthews, or cramming for final exams, and now, here he was sitting in the dirt, perhaps a million years from home, ripping the hide off an animal like his forefathers did.
    ‘Talk about getting back in touch with your roots.’ He laughed, and dropped the skin into a pre-dug hole in the dirt – best not leave bloody scraps around to be sniffed out by