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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

I am exhausted. To write these words each day is a struggle. My eyes strain and my fingers cramp, but I am gripped by a pain much worse than that of my decrepit body. It was my wish to recount these tales of my life before I face God’s judgement for my sins, but to recollect the past is to relive it, and over these recent months I have often wondered at the wisdom of inflicting such hurt upon myself. To live again through the agony of Leofstan’s death was terrible. I longed to set aside my quill then and write no more, but Coenric, God bless the boy, brought me warm tisanes of woundwort and all-heal. He prayed with me and convinced me to carry on. But now I feel the weight of time resting heavy on my mind and body. Outside, the monks are sowing the winter barley, and the smoke from burning leaves tells me that another summer has passed since first I put quill to parchment for this record of my life.

There is still much to tell. But I am tired and every book, just as every life, must come to an end. And this seems as likely a place to pause my story as any. Ever since we had arrived in Rygjafylki and found the first burnt buildings and charred corpses left by Ljósberari, we had travelled under a cloud. Even when the skies had been clear and the days warm, it had felt as though we had been cursed, and when we had boarded Gullbringa and begun our journey upriver, travelling ever closer to the dark soul that hid beneath the guise of bringing light to those who followed him, I often felt that we would never survive; that our corpses would be added to those we saw on the stakes beside the river. Even the land itself seemed to be against us, and I still feel a deep sorrow when I think of brave Bealdwulf and how he was sacrificed to the spirit of the forest, and Os, with his easy grin and quick jests, reduced to a wheezing wreck in that stinking hut where we were imprisoned. It had been a truly dark time, but with Ljósberari’s death, it seemed that our luck had changed, or perhaps, having fulfilled the Almighty’s plan by ridding the world of Scomric’s evil, He once more looked upon us with favour.