Warriors of the Storm by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online

said, sounding disappointed.
    ‘Wouldn’t you?’
    ‘The more he kills of us, lord, the fewer to fight on Ceaster’s walls.’
    I ignored that foolish answer. Ragnall had no intention of killing his men beneath Ceaster’s ramparts, not yet anyway. So what did he plan? I looked back in puzzlement. It was a dry morning, or at least it was not raining, though the air felt damp and the wind was chill, but it had rained hard in the night and the ground was sopping wet, yet I had seen no hoofmarks crossing the drover’s path. If Ragnall wanted horses and food then he would find the richer steadings to our south, deeper inside Mercia, yet it seemed he had sent no men that way. Perhaps I had missed the tracks, but I doubted I could have overlooked something so obvious. And Ragnall was no fool. He knew reinforcements must join us from the south, yet it seemed he had no patrols searching for those new enemies.
    Why?
    Because, I thought, he did not care about our reinforcements. I was staring northwards, seeing nothing there except thick woods and damp fields, and I was thinking what Ragnall had achieved. He had taken away our small fleet, which meant we could not cross the Mærse easily, not unless we rode even further eastwards to find an unguarded crossing. He was making a fortress on Eads Byrig, a stronghold that was virtually impregnable until we had sufficient men to overwhelm his army. And there was only one reason to fortify Eads Byrig, and that was to threaten Ceaster, yet he was sending no patrols towards the city, nor was he trying to stop any reinforcements reaching the garrison. ‘Is there water on Eads Byrig?’ I asked Sihtric.
    ‘There’s a spring to the south-east of the hill,’ he said, sounding dubious, ‘but it’s just a trickle, lord. Not enough for a whole army.’
    ‘He’s not strong enough to attack Ceaster,’ I said, thinking aloud, ‘and he knows we’re not going to waste men against Eads Byrig’s walls.’
    ‘He just wants a fight!’ Sihtric said dismissively.
    ‘No,’ I said, ‘he doesn’t. Not with us.’ There was an idea in my head. I could not say it aloud because I did not understand it yet, but I sensed what Ragnall was doing. Eads Byrig was a deception, I thought, and we were not the enemy, not yet. We would be in time, but not yet. I turned on Sihtric. ‘Take the men back to Ceaster,’ I told him. ‘Go back by the same path we came on. Let the bastards see you. And tell Finan to patrol to the edge of the forest tomorrow.’
    ‘Lord?’ he asked again.
    ‘Tell Finan it should be a big patrol! A hundred and fifty men at least! Let Ragnall see them! Tell him to patrol from the road to the river, make him think we’re planning an attack from the west.’
    ‘An attack from the …’ he began.
    ‘Just do it,’ I snarled. ‘Berg! You come with me!’
    Ragnall had stopped us from crossing the river and he was making us concentrate all our attention on Eads Byrig. He seemed to be behaving cautiously, making a great fortress and deliberately not provoking us by sending war-bands to the south, yet everything I knew about Ragnall suggested he was anything but a cautious man. He was a warrior. He moved fast, struck hard, and called himself a king. He was a gold-giver, a lord, a patron of warriors. Men would follow him so long as his swords and spears took captives and captured farmland, and no man became rich by building a fortress in a forest and inviting attack. ‘Tell FinanI’ll be back tomorrow or the day after,’ I told Sihtric, then beckoned to Berg and rode eastwards. ‘Tomorrow or the day after!’ I shouted back to Sihtric.
    Berg Skallagrimmrson was a Norseman who had sworn loyalty to me, a loyalty he had proven in the three years since I had saved his life on a beach in Wales. He could have ridden north any time to the kingdom of Northumbria and there found a Dane or a fellow Norseman who would welcome a young, strong warrior, but Berg had stayed true. He was a