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Back A Night of Flames
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

I thought of the strange twists in my life that would soon see me racing a Norseman for entertainment, when less than a year before I had sprinted away from armed Norse who had almost certainly rested at this very place before sailing south to attack us. Those men were dead, some by my hand. It was hard to take in the changes in my life. I could barely recall the time before I had picked up a blade to fight. That Hunlaf seemed like a different person, a distant memory of someone else’s dream.

“Your life might not depend on it,” said Sygbald, from where he leaned against one of the standing stones, “but my silver does. So see that you do not lose.”

“I need a piss,” I muttered, acutely aware of the pressure in my bladder.

“Then go,” said Gwawrddur. “Your adversary is ready.”

I looked over to see Varin bending and stretching. Like me, he was stripped to the waist. His torso was pale and finely muscled, and on his right arm I was surprised to see blue lines of tattoos like Drosten’s. I held up a hand and hurried out of the circle of stones. One of the dogs followed after me, and behind the hound came a young boy.

“Away with you,” I snarled, but both boy and dog continued to follow me. “I need to piss.”

“Me too,” said the boy happily.

Sighing, I ignored him and carried on.

There was no shelter from the eyes of those at the stones, so after I had created some distance between us, I loosened my breeches. The relief I felt at finally emptying my bladder was tempered somewhat by the certitude that Thurid was watching me from the circle of stones. Beside me, the boy dropped his breeches and let out a stream of piss, narrowly missing the dog that came to sniff around us. I could not help smiling as the boy emulated my sigh of pleasure, grinning up at me.

“What’s your name?” I asked him as we walked back to the stones.

“Lambi,” he said with a wide smile, pleased that I had deigned to speak to him. He must have been no older than five or six years. “Varin will beat you. He never loses.”

I frowned. The prospect of losing before Thurid dismayed me. There was little sense in it, I knew, but I yearned to prove myself in some way to her.

“Fast is he?” I asked.

“Like the wind.” He emulated Toki’s swagger beside me, making me smile. The similarity was suddenly very apparent. “One day I will be faster though.”

“Varin is your brother?”

Lambi nodded.