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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

My hands were full and I had barely any time to react, so, not wishing to be bereft of my sword, I dropped Scomric’s head and snatched the object from the air with my left hand.

Runolf stepped to where Ljósberari’s severed head had thudded to the rushes.

“Perhaps not a fair exchange,” he said, picking up the head, “but I will take it.”

I looked down at what Runolf had thrown to me. With a surge of pointless pleasure, given our predicament, I saw that it was the finely carved, ivory-handled seax. It was smeared with Chlotar’s blood, but otherwise unscathed.

“Thank you,” I said. “I never thought to see it again. Though I doubt I will own it for much longer.”

The heat from the fire was growing, and a glance at the double doors showed me they were splintering. A gap had been opened in the timber and I could see movement through it. Axes bit into the wood, widening the opening.

“Anything is possible,” Runolf said, striding down the hall towards the fracturing doors and the waiting horde outside.

I hurried after him, gazing up at Leofstan’s inverted corpse as I passed. The breeze tugged at the old monk and he spun slowly at the end of the rope, as if he watched our progress. I shuddered. There was no time to see to his body, or to pray for his soul.

“I’m sorry, my friend,” I whispered. It seemed that soon enough we would all be killed, our bodies destroyed by the same fire that had turned the sleeping quarters into an inferno and was even now consuming the light bearer himself, just as flames had licked at the bodies of his countless victims.

Shards of wood were flung into the hall where a heavy axe-head dug into the doors. Outside the hall, Ljósberari’s folk were howling. Perhaps there were words in their wails, but I could not make them out.

“What are we going to do?” I asked Runolf.

He flicked the blood from his war axe.

“Fight them, if we have to.”

“There are too many,” I said, but I could think of no better suggestion and so resigned myself to the truth of it. “But better to die fighting, than to burn to death.”

“We are not dead yet,” Runolf said. “Perhaps we will not need to fight.”