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

“Expand your stance,” he snapped, rapping my shin with the long stick he carried for the purpose of helping me not to forget his lessons. “Come now, Killer,” he said, “you can do better than that. I am still injured, and yet I am faster than you. Where is your youth?”

I practised the parry, feint and lunging attack he had explained to me once more, pushing my aching body to the extreme of its endurance. I had been lifting heavy beams of oak all day and every day before that, and my muscles screamed in protest at the lack of rest.

And yet I did not halt or complain. The flames of battle had burnt away my childish notions of glory. I had witnessed the truth of it, and knew that the instruction Gwawrddur provided might well keep me alive when next I was called to stand against an enemy.

I missed Cormac. The Hibernian had been a good sparring partner and a better friend. He was headstrong and foolish, but also brave and honourable, and I would have given anything then to have had him standing with me before Gwawrddur’s piercing glower. Tears stung my eyes as I remembered Cormac. No matter how much I wished it, I would never again hear his musical voice, or clash blades with him as we vied to prove who was the better swordsman.

I cuffed the tears away. I would cry no more. I had shed enough tears for Cormac when we had laid him to rest. I was a warrior now, and men who lived and died by the blade did not weep like women.

Gwawrddur pushed me to exhaustion, but when I finally shrugged off my byrnie, wrapping myself in my cloak to sleep, my mind was full of thoughts that swirled like one of the vast murmurations of starlings that drifted over the moors, rising and falling; a living cloud. Sleep was slow to embrace me on those nights, and I wished Hereward was yet at Werceworthe. The Northumbrian warrior would have given me good counsel. Perhaps his lord, Uhtric of Bebbanburg, might have offered us help with the building and equipping of the ship. But Hereward had done what his lord had commanded of him when we defeated the Norse invaders and shortly afterwards, as soon as the rains subsided, he bade us farewell and rode northward in search of his master, and the war that still raged in Pictland.