Excerpt: Northland

A sword is a good way to kill a tyrant king, but it doesn't work so well on a god, not when he's just trying to warm up. "Don't do that," Ferr tells one of the brigands who's busily dumping snow on his fire. "I was just getting it the way I liked it." He pulls the sword out of his shoulder by the blade and rams the holder's forehead with it, then swivels around and pitches it through the other man's back, who topples forward onto the last few coals of the fire. Ferr draws the blade and slices the man's head off, then props him up with a stick and sets to work rebuilding from the ashes. He has no qualms with burnt dead flesh. Anything to bring back the feeling here. This is the furthest south he's ever been; the furthest he would've assumed anyone had been, if those bandits hadn't shown up. Maybe people pilgrimage down here all the time, he thinks. Test their souls against the elements, maybe drop an offering over the edge of the brink, even though it's only ten feet or so to the churning half-frozen waters. He's an indestructible god and he still feels colder than he ever has. Wonder what a normal person would feel. But he stops himself going down that path, because -- he truly believes this -- if he starts to think about people then he'll become one of them. Ordinary. Killable. Not what he wants. So he worries himself with the big problems and difficulties of life, the ones that he and he alone can deal with. Last summer he saved most of the world's population by finding and stepping on an undiscovered yet endangered species of scorpion which would have spread a virulent disease across the continent. A few years back, he singlehandedly murdered a wizardly type who was trying to summon the planet through a sort of gate which would've turned everyone into the playthings of a malevolent butcher-entity, the likes of which even he couldn't have conquered. You know, the big important things. No sense worrying about what affects the locals, or the fate of two men catching fire in a blizzard.