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Back A Burning Sea
Chapters (54)
  1. CAST OF CHARACTERS
  2. PART ONE
  3. CHAPTER ONE
  4. CHAPTER TWO
  5. CHAPTER THREE
  6. CHAPTER FOUR
  7. CHAPTER FIVE
  8. CHAPTER SIX
  9. CHAPTER SEVEN
  10. CHAPTER EIGHT
  11. CHAPTER NINE
  12. CHAPTER TEN
  13. CHAPTER ELEVEN
  14. CHAPTER TWELVE
  15. PART TWO
  16. CHAPTER THIRTEEN
  17. CHAPTER FOURTEEN
  18. CHAPTER FIFTEEN
  19. CHAPTER SIXTEEN
  20. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
  21. CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
  22. CHAPTER NINETEEN
  23. CHAPTER TWENTY
  24. CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
  25. CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
  26. CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
  27. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
  28. CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
  29. CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
  30. PART THREE
  31. CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
  34. CHAPTER THIRTY
  35. CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
  36. CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
  37. CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
  38. CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
  39. CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
  40. CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
  41. CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
  42. PART FOUR
  43. CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
  44. CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
  45. CHAPTER FORTY
  46. CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
  47. CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
  48. CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
  49. CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
  50. CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
  51. CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
  52. CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
  53. HISTORICAL NOTE
  54. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

So she did, swallowing her revulsion, her warm soft lips brushing against his, so cold and brittle.

‘I’ve always. . . loved. . . you.’

‘I know… And I—’

She stopped. His eyes had changed, become hard like glass. Just like that he had gone. She reached up and closed his eyelids. ‘I love you,’ she finished, feeling tears chase down her cheeks. But he couldn’t hear her, and she was alone.

CHAPTER THREE

Illustration

The mess was sickening.

But not half so sickening as the glee on the faces of Osvald and his retinue, or the cheer that went up as the holy man’s head bumped off the platform into the hearth in a billow of sparks, or the speed at which the hall-hounds moved in to lick up the gore.

Meanwhile, Erlan had made up his mind.

He left the hall as soon as he could get away, left Osvald slumped on the table, a spill of mead lapping at his arms. The other hall-folk were already asleep or soon would be. Erlan passed the twins on his way out. ‘Where are you going?’ asked Leikr.

‘To get some rest,’ he lied. ‘You should too.’ Then he went to work.

He fetched his gear from a chest he kept in the far corner of an outer hall where he slept, then slipped down to the row of jetties on the bank of the Dagava. Aska followed at his heel through the darkness.

It was cold, but the sky had cleared and the residual snow made it easy to see. He soon found his boat, pulled a short distance up the bank where he’d left it. The little knarr had been a gift from King Ringast when he’d left Uppsala. It had carried him across the East Sea. Smaller than most cargo vessels, it could be handled by a light crew or even one man, if he had skill. He put his shoulder to the prow. The slope worked in his favour and he soon had the stern easing into the dark waters with barely a sound.

He was tense with excitement, something inside goading him on. Seek him in the south. The phrase kept turning in his mind, more urgent with each repetition.

He unbuckled Wrathling and was about to lay it in the boat when he stopped and pulled the blade half from its sheath. The steel shimmered in the starlight. He had cleaned off Vassili’s blood. Shame he couldn’t erase the memory of what he’d done so easily. He swore and slammed the hilt back into its sheath, angry to have shed innocent blood twice that day, angry to have ever taken orders from a worm like Osvald.