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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

Together, we then recited the words of the paternoster and continued to pray over the injured man for some time. I drew a kernel of comfort from the familiar words and my feeling of dejection abated somewhat, in the way that the sun will force its warmth and light through a bank of storm clouds. Perhaps God was watching over us after all, I thought, gladdened by the small ember of faith that had come to me in the dark of the hut. I clutched onto it, blowing life into it with my prayers.

Glancing over at the rest of the men, I saw they were huddled together, deep in conversation, still planning how we might overpower our captors and break free of this shit-filled prison. I marvelled at their attitude. There seemed little chance that we might escape from this place, but what else could we do but plot and scheme? Runolf, I noted, was not engaged with them. He sat off to one side, his back against the wall, his brow resting on his drawn-up knees.

As often before, I was reminded of Hereward’s wisdom as a leader of men. Left without focus, we would have bickered and then fallen into despondency just like Runolf, waiting for the time to pass until our inevitable death in Ljósberari’s purifying flames. Looking about me at the shadowed forms of my companions, I could not deny that was the most likely outcome. We were unarmed, Gersine was crippled from his injury, Os might not recover from the beating he had received, and Runolf, the strongest and most fearsome of warriors in our band, had had his spirit broken and now sat in morose silence.

“Do you believe we can escape?” whispered Leofstan.

I thought for a moment, watching Drosten and Gwawrddur deep in conversation.

“Anything is possible,” I said with a grim smile. “I don’t think they know when they have been beaten.”

“And you, Hunlaf? Do you think we have been beaten?”

I pondered all that we had heard and seen on our journey here. The torture and murders in the name of this Ljósberari’s perverse faith, his twisted bastardised notions of good and bad, light and dark, that were almost certainly spawned from somehow reading The Treasure of Life. The stench of this prison sickened me, as did the thought of those who had languished here before us; the countless men and women who lined the path, and dangled from gibbets over the river’s dark waters.