Heart of Black Ice

CHAPTER 70

When his ships came upon the floating carcass of the serpent god, King Grieve stared down into the water, sickened and enraged. This fresh agony felt as strong as the pain he had experienced upon seeing his beloved Chalk murdered.

From the prow of his flagship, Grieve had watched the ugly kraken-hunter vessel with its gray sails and metal-plated hull, and he would never forget that ship. He had seen the sorceress strike down their serpent god. He would hunt it to the end of the world, if necessary.

But he could not simply sail past the body of their fallen serpent god. “Drop anchor! All ships. We halt here.”

Drums pounded, and shouted orders ricocheted across the water. The Norukai ships sailed close enough together that the staccato commands passed from ship to ship. With oars extended, Grieve’s ship maneuvered close to the drifting dead monster, where they dropped anchor stones and tied up the sails to keep the vessels in position.

Grieve had sacrificed to the serpent god many times. Now, he squeezed his massive hands against the rail until the wood creaked with the strain. The spikes in his shoulders protruded. He opened his jaws wide and roared with all the air in his lungs, all the power in his voice, a loud inhuman cry, much like the sound made by the serpent god.

The rest of the Norukai did the same, and the din was like a thunderclap that went on and on as one crew after another took up the howl. Grieve wanted blood, needed blood. He would find the sorceress and tear out her throat with his own teeth. First, though, he and his raiders would repay the serpent god for the grace and strength it had given them.

The monster’s body floated motionless just off the bow. Grieve looked down at its magnificent head, the frilled fin, the triangular jaw that was now a burned horror from wizard’s fire. One milky eye stared upward, half closed.

“The serpent god is dead,” moaned one of the raiders beside Grieve.

The king bashed him on the side of the head, and the man reeled away, clutching the blood that streamed down his face. Grieve snarled, “The serpent god is always here. The serpent god is us.”

He drew the long gutting knife from its sheath, swung himself overboard, and dropped down into the water. He plunged into the waves near the dead sea serpent.

As the raiders peered down from above with dismay and curiosity, the king swam to the scaled form and wrapped his muscular arm around it, holding on like a lover’s embrace. The pale underbelly turned upward as the body drifted on the sloshing waves.

Grieve hauled himself along its length, using the scales and fins for handholds. In all of history, no one else had been so close, so intimate with the serpent god except for the blessed victims whose flesh it incorporated. But he was Grieve, King Grieve of the Norukai! He was part of the serpent god, just as the serpent god was part of all of them.

He pressed down on the scales, then rested his scarred cheek against the wet form. He closed his eyes and tried to draw the power into himself, absorbing what he could from the magnificent creature. “I am the serpent god. We all are the serpent god,” he whispered to the dead form.

The countless serpent ships had fallen eerily silent as the raiders watched him.

Grieve plunged his long knife into the belly of the sea serpent. Aboard the ships, the Norukai gasped and groaned, but he glared up at them. “This is what we must do!” He sawed farther, cutting a long incision. Entrails spilled out in wet ropes that drifted in the water. With so much blood, he knew that sharks would come soon to feed, but Grieve and the Norukai would take what they required first.

He kept cutting until he found the first of the reptilian hearts. It was large, round, and purplish red. He hacked a chunk of the tough heart meat, which he stuffed into his mouth. He opened his scarred jaws wide to take in as much as he could. Chewing, he tasted the tar of burned blood. The flavor was exquisite, but the power was even more remarkable.

He knew that Chalk was a part of the serpent god, too. The serpent god had fed on the shaman, and now that strength was flowing into the Norukai king.

“I am the heart of the serpent god,” he yelled. “All my people must join me.” He cut off another piece of the meat and raised it out of the water. “All Norukai must be the heart of the serpent god.”

Three raiders leaped overboard without further encouragement. Once they understood what Grieve meant, others also jumped into the water and swam to the serpent god. With their own knives, they sliced the belly down its length to find the other hearts.

Atta was the first. The hefty woman swam up to Grieve and hacked off a piece of the heart for herself. After she chewed and swallowed, she turned her blood-smeared face to him and offered him another piece, which he accepted.

More Norukai swarmed around the floating body, butchering the creature. They removed the multiple hearts, some of which were charred and blackened, others still fresh and filled with blood. Every morsel contained the essence of the great deity. When the hearts were consumed, the raiders stripped the meat from the serpent’s bones. This was a feast unlike any they had ever experienced. The Norukai had pillaged towns, stolen their food, raped their women, but nothing could compare to this thrill.

The water became a froth of red. The circling sharks were wary, unwilling to approach the fierce Norukai.

As the feast continued, Grieve’s shock was replaced with an intense confidence. The great serpent god might have been slain, but it was not a cause for sadness. This was a transformation, and he felt it swell within him. Around him, hundreds of raiders stripped the carcass and squabbled over the last morsels. Every Norukai wanted to partake, though he knew that was not possible with the tens of thousands of bloodthirsty warriors aboard their fleet.

“You have eaten the heart of the serpent god,” Atta said as she floated next to him, caressing the scar on his cheek with one bloody finger. “You are King Grieve. You are all of us.”

“Yes, I am all of the Norukai. I have fed on the heart of our god, and now I myself am its living manifestation.”

He and Atta swam back to their ship as the Norukai continued to work on the carcass like seagulls tearing apart a bloated whale. When he climbed aboard his ship again, he caressed the carved figurehead. He raised his fists into the air and shouted, “I am the serpent god now. We are the serpent god, and we will strike and kill.”

He inhaled until his lungs were so full he felt his chest would burst, and then he exhaled a gigantic roar that rippled across the masts. All the Norukai resounded with their response.

One serpent god might be dead, Grieve knew, but now there were many more serpent gods—elsewhere in the sea, and also in human form—and they were far more deadly.

Yes, the world would grieve.