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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

Without waiting any further, Leofstan took a tight grip of the arrow just below the iron head and pulled it hard. Gersine’s moaning intensified and I struggled to hold his leg still as Leofstan tugged on the arrow that was grasped by the muscle and sinew it had passed through. For what seemed a long time Leofstan wrestled with the arrow and Gersine moaned and cried, biting down so hard into the wood that it splintered. Then, with a glut of dark blood, the arrow came free, sliding from Gersine’s flesh.

Gersine trembled. His face was white and his eyes were scrunched shut. Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth where the splintered wood had cut his gums. More blood flowed from either side of his leg, from both where the arrow had entered and where it had left his flesh.

Beorn made to pull the hot knives from the fire, but Leofstan held up his hand.

“Let it bleed. The blood will help flush out any dirt that came in with the arrow.”

We sat silently for several heartbeats, the only sound Gersine’s shallow breathing, interspersed with his grunting moans of pain. Blood pumped from his wounds, dripping down his leg and into the earth.

“Now,” said Leofstan, when he deemed enough time had passed and sufficient blood had flowed.

Beorn snatched up the blades from the fire. Each glowed dimly in the shadows of the trees and the great rock that shaded our campsite. The warrior dropped to his knees beside me and I could feel the heat washing off the knives. Beorn hesitated for the briefest of moments and then clamped the blades against the two puncture marks, enclosing Gersine’s calf in a burning metallic grip.

Gersine screamed, his voice gurgling behind the splintered birch wood, before turning to weak sobbing. His body bucked and shook with the pain and Leofstan added his own weight and strength to mine to hold him still. The dusk air was filled with the scent of cooking meat and burnt hair. When the smoke stopped rising from the leg, Beorn pulled the blades away, pushing them back into the flames to burn off any remnants of Gersine’s skin.

Gersine had gone limp, and I helped Leofstan to bandage his leg in clean cloths and then to wrap Gersine in a blanket.

I left Gersine to rest and walked a few paces away from the fire, down to the edge of the river beside Gullbringa. Kneeling, I splashed some of the cool water on my face.

Ingvar had climbed aboard his boat again and was staring upstream. His nervousness was infectious and I peered upriver, but saw nothing apart from water, trees and rocks. Ingvar hadn’t stopped looking northward since we had rejoined the river after the falls.