Bloodforged by Nathan Long Page A

came in roaring and swinging an enormous axe, and leaving himself wide open for any number of death thrusts. Instead Ulrika only disarmed him, gashing his fingers as another clumsy blow whistled past her and making him drop the weapon.
    He howled and drew his dagger from his belt, but she knocked that out of his hand too, then threw down her weapons and leapt on him, claws extended, like a mountain cat attacking a bear. Her hands caught his throat and she clamped down on it as he roared and battered at her with heavy fists, trying to knock her away. A punch to the temple and a knee to the groin stopped all that, and he sagged to his knees, moaning.
    She shoved him onto his back and straddled him, never breaking her grip on his throat, then leaned in and showed him her fangs. A glimmer of fear finally flickered in his mad eyes.
    ‘This is my land, Norse,’ she breathed. ‘I will defend it with sword and knife and tooth and claw. I will feed on any who defile it. I will–’
    Her grand speech was cut off by a tantara of horns and the thunder of two hundred hooves. She looked up. Pouring down into the valley from the direction of Praag was a full company of Gryphon Legion cavalry, lances lowered and feathered banners cracking in the night wind.

CHAPTER EIGHT
    ON THE WINGS OF GRYPHONS
    Conflicting emotions swirled within Ulrika as she saw the Gryphons galloping towards the melee – pride in their martial glory, relief for the poor caravanners and love for one of the great symbols of her land, but also worry. Would they see her before she could feed? Would they attack her?
    Her painted captive took advantage of her distraction and threw her off, scrambling for his axe. She caught him by the ankle and brought him down again, then pinned his arms to his sides and looked back. The Gryphons were fighting the marauders, and hadn’t the advantage of her nocturnal vision. They were unlikely to see her and her prey in the thick brush. She would risk it.
    As the marauder struggled in her embrace, she sank her teeth into his dirty neck and drank, then immediately jerked back, spitting and cursing, as crimson sprayed her face and clothes. His blood tasted as dirty and rank as he smelled, but if it had been only that, she would have drunk her fill. The taste, however, was the least of it. There was a taint within his blood, a sickening, dizzying wrongness that sparked mad whisperings in her mind and sent feathery tendrils probing through her veins like poison-winged moths looking for places to lay their eggs. The marauders had been feeding so long at the teat of Chaos that they were now carriers, and anything that fed on them would become as twisted and mad as they. She dared not drink more.
    The marauder got an arm free and punched her. She caught it and pinned it under her knee, then grabbed his head and twisted. His powerful neck muscles fought her, but her strength won out and she snapped his neck and he subsided. She leaned over him, cursing and shoving her finger down her throat to try to puke out the mouthful of vile blood she had swallowed.
    Before anything came up, however, heavy hoof strikes shook the ground. She looked up. A handful of marauders were fleeing towards her, with six Gryphons bearing down on them from behind, lances lowered.
    Ulrika cursed and rolled, dragging the marauder on top of her as his comrades bounded past her and the Gryphons thundered over her. Had they seen her? Had they seen what she was doing?
    The Gryphons ran the marauders down, impaling them on their lances, then wheeled back towards the main battle, and straight for Ulrika. Ursun’s teeth, they were going to find her! And she was covered in blood!
    But what of it?
    Suddenly she saw possibilities. Hadn’t there been a battle? Wasn’t she wounded? Blood was to be expected. And now that she thought of it, getting into Praag at night by herself might be just as hard as getting out of Nuln had been. If the Gryphons were stationed there, perhaps