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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

Towards the end of the long summer day we entered a lengthy sound that narrowed the further south we travelled. To our left the land rose in tall tree-lined slopes. To the right, the hills were lower. We saw people on both shores and many boats on the water, mostly small fishing vessels and squat cargo ships, laden with goods. The halls we passed were intact, smoke drifting from their golden thatched roofs, livestock plump in their pens and crops green in the fertile fields that surrounded them. This was a prosperous land, and the water, sheltered from the open sea, felt safe and welcoming.

We arrived at our destination as the sun was low in the west. The shadows were long, but the last rays of the setting sun made the shingled roof of the great hall gleam. The hall was grand indeed, longer and taller than any building I had seen before in my young life. Inside, it reminded me of the halls at Eoforwic and Bebbanburg, with its carved columns, large hearth fire, and the boards and benches laid out for the guests. The walls were adorned with trophies, both of hunting and war. There were several skulls too. One, that seemed to be a type of deer, had huge antlers, as broad as a man is tall. There were also smaller, yet somehow even more impressive trophies: a boar skull with vicious, yellow tusks, and a hefty skull with finger-long fangs, that I surmised must have belonged to a proud bear. Hanging from the beams and pillars were splintered shields, torn and stained banners and bent, notched and shattered weapons, which I presumed had been taken from fallen enemies.

The inside of the hall was impressive enough, but the outside was like nothing I had seen before. The long roof rose in the centre, seeming to invoke the form of a great, overturned longship, with the keel being the spine of the roof. Along the length of the hall the walls were bolstered with stout pillars that angled up to meet the shingled curvature of the roof. Where they met the earth on either side of the building I could not shake the image of so many oars dipping into the sea.

A feast had already been prepared, and the rich smells of roasting mutton, frying fish and richly spiced stews wafted all the way down to the wharf as we disembarked and followed Eldgrim and his warriors to the hall. At first I wondered how the king’s steward could have known of our coming, for surely such a lavish spread must have been prepared in our honour. But there was no way that our arrival could have been foreseen. This quantity and amount of food was the norm for our host. I marvelled at such a thing, but on seeing him, I could barely imagine the quantities of food a man would need to consume to maintain such a massive girth.