Page 77 of Feast

“Just barely,” Gunnar answered. “One more second and Slaine would have cracked the fucker’s skull open.”

Ika turned away from the battered nith and looked toward the entrance of the Rolf’s den. She pulled away from Thusar and rushed toward that dark opening, terrified of what she might find inside.

“Ika wait!” Thusar shouted behind her. “It’s not safe! There could be more of them inside.”

She didn’t care. If there were more nith inside her lifelong home, she would kill them all with her bare hands.

But the shadowy den was empty. No nith.

And no sign of Rolf.

The den had been ransacked. The whole place was in disarray. The stacks of firewood had been knocked over. The furs and bedding were scattered all around the floor. Even the drawings on the walls had been defaced.

Ika felt a bitter taste in her mouth. This place had been her home for as long as she could remember. Now it had been invaded and desecrated. The sight of it turned her stomach.

And even worse, Rolf was gone.

Her vision blurred as her eyes began leaking, partly from sadness, partly from anger, and most of all from an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

She sensed Thusar’s silent presence behind her.

“Rolf’s dead,” she sobbed. “The nith killed him.”

Her legs started to give out, but Thusar caught her before she fell.

“Easy,” he said gently. “We don’t know that he’s dead. There’s no body, and I don’t smell any blood.”

“Then where is he?” Ika cried.

Thusar touched her face, thumbing away the water spilling from her eyes and rolling down her cheeks.

“I don’t know,” he said. “But maybe our nith friend outside can give us some information.”

The nith.

Thusar’s reminder ignited a blaze of vengeance inside Ika’s chest. The strength surged back into her limbs.

Before Thusar had a chance to react, Ika snatched the stone knife from this sheath on his hip and darted back outside.

“Ika wait!”

Outside, the other ukkur were handling the half-conscious nith who was propped up against the wall of the cliff. Gunnar had ripped away the sleeve of the creature’s uniform, and he was using the cloth to bind the creature’s wrists behind its back.

The nith groaned in pain and protest. Its beady eyes rolled in their sockets, and its black tongue lolled from its elongated jaws.

Ika charged toward the nith with a savage little growl.

“Careful,” Muk gasped. “That thing’s still dangerous, Ika. It could bite you.”

But Ika was unafraid.

She had dealt with the nith once before, and she had been the one doing the biting then. That time, she had only been concerned for her own safety, but now it was Rolf’s life on the line. She was almost feral with rage and hatred.

With viper-like quickness, Ika’s free hand darted out and seized the nith’s drooping tongue. She yanked that slimy appendage, stretching it to a painful length, and the nith yowled.

Ika set the edge of the stone knife against the side of that tongue and nicked it, drawing some green-black blood. The nith groaned in pain and the tongue tried to jerk back, but Ika held tight.

“Consider that a warning,” she snarled. “Just to let you know I’m not playing around. Now, here’s how this is going to work: I’m going to ask you questions, and you’re going to answer them. If you refuse to do so, or if I smell a lie, then I’ll cut out your rotting tongue and feed it to the ukkur who attacked you.”