A Snake's Path (A Snake's Life Book 2)

by Kenneth Arant

  Fenris stared down at me for several seconds, then he snorted and smacked my head with a paw. "You're an idiot if you think she'll choose to stay with the kid over going with you. If it comes down to it, I have a feeling Ayla would kill him if it meant protecting you. I mean sure, she'd feel like absolute shit later, but you are her dad: the man who raised her, protected her, and always ensured she was taken care of. If your goal in this was to make her stay instead of following you, then I think you've already fucked that plan up." Fenris used his tail to point to an angry Ayla who was currently giving Thor a death-glare. "And if you think she'd pick anyone over you, then you're even stupider than I thought." Fenris grinned.

  "And I'm very aware of just how stupid you think I am," I chuckled.

  "What's the real reason you're doing this?" Fenris asked in a serious tone.

  "I—I can't control myself any longer."

  "Control yourself? What do you mean?"

  “Every day I suppress my hunger, I grow closer to losing control. It’s always there, screeching at the edges of my consciousness like a nail on glass, and I don’t know how much longer I can keep it under control.”

  “Damn, are you going to tell the girls?”

  “I haven’t made up my mind yet.” I sighed. “They already know something’s up thanks to my outburst back on Uathea.”

  “You need to tell them.”

  “Yeah, I know—”

  “Jötnar! Jötnar in the forest! Quickly, they’re heading this way!”

  Fenris and I looked in the direction the voice had come from and saw a lone Asgardian sprinting down an alley towards us. He was holding a bloody stump where his right arm used to be, and his clothes were heavily stained with blood and other strange fluids. He collapsed to the ground twenty feet from the center of the square and never made another sound.

  Chapter 8

  PANDEMONIUM ERUPTED as those who knew what a Jötnar was began to panic. “Alright, alright. Settle down everyone,” Thor commanded. For the first time since I’d met him, he was showing the poise and confidence of a true prince, and not just acting like some warrior with an ego. “My men and I will move to eliminate the Jötnar threat immediately. There’s no need to panic.”

  The civilians from the caravan began to loudly rattle off questions to him. People were yelling over each other so much that I could barely understand what they were saying, but Thor seemed to handle it just fine.

  I looked over at Fenris, who was grinning at me. “You’re going to move, aren’t you?”

  “Of course. I’ve been starving for some meat.”

  “I thought so.” He chuckled, took a quick glance around, then motioned with his head to an alley behind the group. “Race you there?”

  I pushed as much magic as I dared into my body and enhanced my speed far beyond what my body would normally be capable of. Though Fenris reacted quickly and dashed away, disappearing in a burst of speed that left me reeling, I quickly followed after him by shoving against the ground with my tail and launching myself high above into the sky. I heard the ground detonate behind me as my acceleration destroyed a portion of the cobblestoned streets. Once I was in the air, I unfurled my wings and angled my body towards the barrier wall.

  Got ya. A few hundred feet from the village wall, a heavily armored army of four or five dozen oddly shaped humanoids marched. All of them were big. Even from the sky I could tell the smallest among them stood head and shoulders above the Asgardians, while I estimated the largest to be well over twenty feet tall. Their bodies were oddly proportioned and covered in the dull gray armor, complete with a full helmet that hid their faces. Some of them carried the same weapon, but no two were alike. Hardly any of their limbs seemed to fit their bodies. Their helmeted heads were either a tad oversized for their slender frame or much too small for their broad shoulders. Most had two arms and legs, but a few had extras that grew from odd places.

  I pulled in my wings and dove towards the ground, mana pooling and condensing into a red sphere a few centimeters from my snout. The mana grew larger, spun faster, and whined like chainsaw as it grew more powerful.

  I held it for a few seconds, then let it go.

  The force of the magic leaving my snout managed to stop my forward momentum and throw me into a fierce spiral while the ball of energy tore off towards the army of Jötnar.

  I grunted from the effort it took to reposition my body so I was facing the ground again. My eyes stung from the wind pressure assailing them, but I kept them open so I could keep an eye on my targets.

  The ball struck off center, hitting the ground a dozen or so feet to the left of the Jötnar. However, the explosion that followed more than made up for my crappy aim. A shockwave slammed into me a heartbeat after the ball detonated. The Jötnar that were killed in the initial blast had their bodies torn asunder, while the rest were thrown away from the epicenter of the explosion.

  I spread my wings and hovered in place while I surveyed my handiwork: About a dozen Jötnar were dead, though it was impossible to really tell due to the sheer number of pieces their bodies were in. Another ten or so were unmoving on the ground. I wasn’t sure if they were dead or just unconscious, so I caused stone spikes to erupt from the ground and pierce their chests.

  I caught sight of something moving quickly towards the army and for a brief moment I diverted my attention.

  Fenris, having returned to his full size during the jaunt over, raced towards the group of Jötnar closest to the village and pounced on them. Teeth and claws flashed as they shred Jötnar armor and flesh like sheets of paper.

  I didn’t want to be left out, so I angled my body towards one of the three twenty-foot tall Jötnar at the rear of the group and dove after it. I realized too late that I was too far to the left to hit its center of mass, so I did the next best thing: I bit into its neck as I flew by and dragged it to the ground, coiling my body around its legs to help throw it off balance.

  The creature screamed out its death rattle seconds before I snapped my jaws shut, nearly decapitating it, and cutting the sound short. A cooling sensation flooded the inside of my mouth and I felt my tongue go numb. I stared holes in the remaining creatures while I swallowed the throat of the dead giant.

  The Jötnar still standing started yelling in an oddly guttural language and pointing at the corpse. As he screamed at me, the words grew more distinguishable by the second until I could understand them, thanks to an odd skill I’d received years ago.

  *Ding* Ding*

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  You have eaten the following race for the first time.

  Frost Giant: Tier 6

  ꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏꝏ

  “It’s here!” “The serpent!” “The devourer!” Three Jötnar exclaimed one after the other.

  Their words struck me as odd. Had I met these creatures before? Did they know me? I thought about questioning them, but I didn’t have the chance to. A Jötnar with arms as big around as an elephant’s leg leaped at me as if it were a large gorilla. Kill all but one and question it—The heads of three Jötnar disintegrated as Findral appeared behind them with a sword of blinding blue flames clutched in one slender hand.

  Or not. I sighed.

  The giant, and every other non-friendly creature near Findral, was decapitated before they even knew she was there. She stepped up with a look of intense fury on her face. Her sword was ready to defend me from any Jötnar stupid enough to come within melee range.

  “You dare!” I heard Fenris roar a second before he dragged a brute to the ground by its shoulder. Its panicked scream was cut short as he tore out its throat, bathing himself in its blood.

  Fenris let out a pained yelp and leaped off the thing’s corpse. To my heat sense, it seemed like he’d been doused in... ice? His body temperature plummeted wherever the blood touched.

  I was never more grateful for my superior elemental resistance than I was right then.

  “Fin, get the Mutt back to the village and get Ayla and Hali to work on
him.”

  “But—”

  “That’s an order.” I looked into her eyes and saw the fear behind the rage. She’s... worried about me?

  She looked like she wanted to say something but moved to obey my order instead.

  "Thank you, Findral.”

  She dashed over to Fenris, weaving between several Jötnar, and decapitating them as she went. Then the two of them disappeared in a pillar of blue fire as Findral accelerated to her top speed.

  I turned back to the too quiet creatures and saw them watching me with looks ranging from intense rage to some form of curiosity.

  “Now,” I hissed. “Where were we? Oh, yes. You lot mentioning something about a devourer, right? Does any of you have something you’d like to share with the class?”

  Judging by the widening of eyes and the opening of mouths, they were surprised that I could speak their language.

  Several of the smaller Jötnar raised their weapons and pointed them at me. The larger creatures copied them soon after and I exhaled in annoyance. Why don’t they ever take the easy way out?

  “Alright, just remember, you asked for this.” I pushed off with my tail and started the battle anew. I used my mana to temporarily boost my speed and surprise a quadruped Jötnar with the lower body of a big cat. I hit it dead center, crumpling its armor like it was an aluminum can.

  A large fist wrapped around my tail a second before I was slung through the air and slammed into the ground a dozen feet away. I twisted out of the way of a giant, misshapen foot and sunk my teeth into the creature’s calf. My venom poured through my fangs and entered its blood stream. Acid venom warred against glacial blood as its blood vessels were destroyed.

  I fed my tail through the gaps in the giant’s armor, then heaved and slammed it onto its back. I swung around until I could reach its head. I took its head in my mouth and bit down, crumpling the thick metal of the helmet and turning the softer skull beneath into putty.

  The creatures went wild then, whooping and hollering at me.

  “Yeah—yeah. Bring it on you ugly frozen dinners. I’ll give you a reason to scream.” I hissed. I freed my tail from the fist of the dead giant and faced down the army.

  I coiled my body like a spring and aimed at another twenty-footer with what appeared to be goat horns on its head. If they wanted a fight to the death, I was all too happy to oblige—but they turned tail and ran instead. Fleeing at speeds that would’ve turned racehorses green with envy, the creatures disappeared into the dark forest, leaving behind the dead or dying bodies of their comrades.

  Oh, no you don’t. I launched myself at the back of the last twenty-footer and tackled it. I sunk my teeth into its shoulder, wrapped my tail around its legs, then pulled it to the ground and pinned it beneath my bulk. It tried to fight its way free, but it was in my territory now that I had a hold on it.

  I glanced around to make sure the coast was clear and saw the fleeing form of the last Jötnar as it disappeared into the forest. “So,” I looked at the pinned giant. “You’re going to tell me how you know me, yes?”

  “I—I don’t—” I sunk my teeth into its shoulder again and allowed a few drops of venom to enter its blood stream. The giant screamed as its veins and muscles were eaten from the inside via the acid.

  “Now, while I’m not a fan of frozen dinners as a matter of choice, we do what we have to when we’re starving,” I hissed. “So, either tell me what I want to know, or I’m going to see if you taste better than you look.”

  It let out a low-pitched whine, then began to talk.

  Chapter 9

  WE WERE AIRBORNE WITHIN the hour. Clouds parted and the sky trembled as the ten Asgardian airships tore through the sky at two-hundred and sixty knots, or three-hundred miles per hour.

  I looked over the side of the ship from my place on the deck and whistled appreciatively at the rapidly moving scenery as the trees of the forest gave way to a flat plain that seemed to stretch on forever in every direction.

  “What are we going to do if Asgard has truly fallen?” Ayla asked. It was the first time she’d spoken since I’d delivered the information I’d gleaned from the Jötnar, and we departed. I glanced over at her and saw that she, Fin, Hali, and Thor were sitting at a table near the center of the ship. They were playing some kind of card game while the ship’s crew bustled around them.

  Because of the size and capacity limitations of each airship, Fenris and I couldn’t ride on the same ship. Fenris, Lena, Solon, Talia, Uriel, and the elves that served as Lena’s bodyguards boarded another ship, while the caravan was allowed to load onto a couple of ships at the rear of the formation.

  “It hasn’t,” Thor denied.

  “But, what if—”

  “It. Hasn’t,” he said forcefully. “Torga was clearly mistaken, even if he was telling the truth about understanding the Jötnar, which I’m not sure he was. The Jötnar are infamous liars and tricksters. He wouldn’t be the first, nor the last to fall victim to their lies.”

  “I would definitely be the last to fall for that particular Jötnar’s lies,” I calmly replied. Let the whelp believe whatever he wanted to believe. I knew what the Jötnar told me was the truth. It’s not easy to lie when your veins were being dissolved from the inside out and you’re begging for the sweet release of death. Of course, the smart ones would lie as a final act of revenge against the one torturing them. That’s one of the reasons torture was usually hit or miss, depending on several factors. The biggest of which was the one doing the torturing and the one getting tortured. In this case though, I didn’t think the frost giant was intelligent enough to plan that far ahead, so his information was probably accurate.

  Regardless, if Thor didn’t believe me, we wouldn’t be racing towards Asgard as fast as the airships could carry us.

  After seven hours we came to a sheer cliff face that extended far beyond the clouds. The pilot of each ship shifted the rudders until we were moving parallel to the cliff wall. We climbed for so long, and the magic of the ship made the journey so smooth, by the time we reached the apex and leveled out, I’d almost forgotten we were flying in a vertical line.

  As we leveled out, I could see our destination on the horizon. The sky was littered with a thousand black dots of various sizes, and in the center of the mass of rocks floated Asgard: a mammoth city of gold built into the side of a mountain. We flew through the night and into the next morning before Thor informed us that we were closing in on our destination.

  I looked ahead of us and saw that he was right—though I was wrong in my earlier estimate. Asgard wasn’t built into the side of a mountain. It was a mountain unto itself.

  "How far until they know we’re here?” I asked.

  "Thirty miles, give or take. Depends if Heimdall is working today. If he is, then they knew we were coming since before we entered the howling mountains."

  "Good." I nodded my head. "Alright, then. Get your asses over here and get ready for trouble.”

  "Why?"

  "Just do it, Thor," Ayla said. “If Dad believes it’s necessary, then I believe him. He rarely leads us down the wrong path.”

  Thor rolled his eyes, then trudged along behind her. “I’m telling you, he’s mistaken. There’s no way in hell Asgard was taken by—”

  “Incoming!” the captain yelled. A heavy impact suddenly caused the airship to list to one side. The forward mast exploded into splinters as the wood deflected whatever projectile had been fired at us.

  Ayla stumbled mid-step and, almost as if I were watching the entire thing in slow motion, fell over the edge of the ship.

  “Ayla!” I cried. I dove over the side of the ship and tucked my wings tightly against my body to reduce drag. She screamed as she fell, her body plummeting towards the ground faster than I could follow.

  Her eyes widened as she watched me fail to reach her.

  With the ground rapidly approaching, I hissed angrily and unfurled my wings. I activated the jewel embedded in my skull and retrieved the mass I
’d stored away. My body expanded rapidly, ballooning several tens of feet per second until I was long enough to shove my head beneath Ayla’s body.

  I felt something slam into the side of my head, just behind my left eye. I involuntarily twitched to keep whatever it was from slamming into my eye, almost dropping Ayla in the process. “Ayla, you need to hang on!”

  She didn’t respond.

  “Ayla—Ayla?” I called out.

  “Master?” I heard Findral call out to me.

  I rotated my head to see Findral hovering above my head in all her glory. Gone were the thick robes she’d been wearing since I’d woken up from my decade long nap. A thick veil of blue fire covered her from scalp to toe, and tongues of flame would periodically snap off of her naked form and scorch the air around us. She had two massive black wings at her back, which bore a striking resemblance to a bat, baring the veins of bright blue fire that crisscrossed them multiple times.

  “Findral, how’s Ayla? She isn’t answering me.”

  Findral landed on my head and was quiet for a few seconds. “She’s alive, but barely. It looks like she hit her head pretty hard when you caught her.”

  “Can you take her to Lena?”