BooksBarbecue
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

Drosten let out a long breath and stared once more out to sea. Far off, I saw a sudden spray of water jetting into the sky. Men cried out, pointing to the spot where many birds circled, darting into the water. I wondered what I was witnessing, then, a moment later, a leviathan’s glistening mouth, seemingly as large as Brymsteda, broke the surface, surging out of the deep. The creature rolled, its massive, knobbly head disappearing once more beneath the waves, the arch of its great back and the short fin there visible for a time, then, at last, towering over the dark water, the wing-like flukes of a tail, stark and dripping and as wide as the sail that billowed before our mast. The tail stood there, dark against the sky for a heartbeat, and then it was gone, vanished beneath the waves once more, leaving only foam and the dotted sea birds to mark its passage.

I had never seen anything like it before. The power of such a huge creature was unimaginable, and to think of it even now swimming in the darkness beneath the flimsy keel of the ship made me tremble. That God had chosen this precise moment to have one of His most monstrous creatures appear before us could surely not be chance. All along the ship, men were flocking to the port side, peering at the churned sea in the distance, where the gulls and kittiwakes flitted and flapped in the water in search of any debris left by the whale’s passing.

The strakes before me dipped perceptibly closer to the seething water and Runolf shouted at the men to move back from the edge. I made the sign of the cross, humbled at what I had witnessed and praying that God did not see fit to send the whale to splinter Brymsteda’s hull, to send me and the other sinners aboard to our dooms.

“I am no murderer,” Drosten said, his voice quiet and meant only for me to hear. The rest of the crew was abuzz with the sighting of the great fish and nobody was paying attention to us. “But it is true that the bride of the king’s cousin died because of me.”

I said nothing, waiting for him to continue to unburden himself from a memory that clearly weighed heavily upon him.