BooksBarbecue
Back A Night of Flames Save as PDF
Chapters (76)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise forMATTHEW HARFFY
  3. BY MATTHEW HARFFY
  4. Title Page
  5. Copyright
  6. Dedication
  7. Maps
  8. Epigraph
  9. Contents
  10. Place Names
  11. One
  12. Two
  13. Three
  14. Four
  15. Five
  16. Six
  17. Seven
  18. Eight
  19. Nine
  20. Ten
  21. Eleven
  22. Twelve
  23. Thirteen
  24. Fourteen
  25. Fifteen
  26. Sixteen
  27. Seventeen
  28. Eighteen
  29. Nineteen
  30. Twenty
  31. Twenty-One
  32. Twenty-Two
  33. Twenty-Three
  34. Twenty-Four
  35. Twenty-Five
  36. Twenty-Six
  37. Twenty-Seven
  38. Twenty-Eight
  39. Twenty-Nine
  40. Thirty
  41. Thirty-One
  42. Thirty-Two
  43. Thirty-Three
  44. Thirty-Four
  45. Thirty-Five
  46. Thirty-Six
  47. Thirty-Seven
  48. Thirty-Eight
  49. Thirty-Nine
  50. Forty
  51. Forty-One
  52. Forty-Two
  53. Forty-Three
  54. Forty-Four
  55. Forty-Five
  56. Forty-Six
  57. Forty-Seven
  58. Forty-Eight
  59. Forty-Nine
  60. Fifty
  61. Fifty-One
  62. Fifty-Two
  63. Fifty-Three
  64. Fifty-Four
  65. Fifty-Five
  66. Fifty-Six
  67. Fifty-Seven
  68. Fifty-Eight
  69. Fifty-Nine
  70. Sixty
  71. Sixty-One
  72. Sixty-Two
  73. Author’s Note
  74. Acknowledgements
  75. About the Author
  76. An Invitation from the Publisher

The men dropped to their positions, grasping the rope that would hoist the yard and the reefed sail up the mast. I was about to drop down onto my sea chest, ready to add my weight and strength to the task, when something tugged at my attention. There was something out there, visible for a moment only as it rose on the crest of a wave. A dark shape. A seal surely. We had seen some of the creatures shortly before the storm struck. Perhaps the inquisitive beasts, like dogs sniffing at a dying bull, had come to investigate the wallowing hulk of Brymsteda and its forlorn crew.

I wiped the salt spray and rain from my eyes to get a better look, but the seal, if that is what it had been, had vanished, and around us all I could see were waves once more.

Wait, there it was again. A movement, dark against the darkness of the water. A splash. A flash of pale skin. It couldn’t be!

Most of the crew were already seated and, in time with Alf’s calls, they heaved the yard aloft, the shortened sail falling freely now beneath it. As soon as the sail was raised, the wind caught it, billowing out the reefed expanse of wool. In moments we would be swinging away from the gusting gale, to race before the storm.

“A rope!” I yelled. The shape I had seen bobbing in the wind-tossed waves was no seal, it was Eadmaer and he dragged Gwawrddur behind him. “A rope, by Christ’s bones!” I shouted again, panic in my voice. “They’re out there!”

Snell, standing close to Runolf at the helm, was the fastest to react. He rushed over with a long coil of rope in his hands.

“There,” I shouted over the bluster of the gale.

He peered into the gloom. Biting his lower lip, he gauged the distance. They were not close.

“Can you make the throw?” I asked. “Is the rope long enough?”

“It will have to be,” he said, and let fly the rope with a great underarm throw. Holding one end, the other streaked out over the water, and splashed into the tumult of the waves someway short of Eadmaer and Gwawrddur. Quickly, Snell pulled the rope back in, coiling it expertly.

The sail was up now, and I could feel the ship responding beneath us, turning, becoming more stable by the moment. Soon Brymsteda would be skimming across the waves, borne on the power of the great wind. Even with the reefed sail, we would rapidly be carried away and there would be nothing Runolf or anyone else could do to slow us. We needed the sail to keep steady and afloat, but if Snell did not manage to reach Eadmaer and Gwawrddur with his next throw, they would be as lost as we had believed them to be moments before.