Warriors of the Storm by Bernard Cornwell Read Free Book Online Page A

thin-faced, blue-eyed young man, serious and thoughtful. He wore his hair long in Norse fashion, and had persuaded Sihtric’s daughter to make a scribble on his left cheek with oak-gall ink and a needle. ‘What is it?’ I had asked him as the scars were still healing.
    ‘It’s a wolf’s head, lord!’ he had said, sounding indignant. The wolf’s head was my symbol and the inked device was his way of showing loyalty, but even when it healed it looked more like a smeared pig’s head.
    Now the two of us rode eastwards. I still did not fear any enemy war-band because I had a suspicion of what Ragnall really wanted, and it was that suspicion that kept us riding into the afternoon, by which time we had turned north and were following a Roman road that led to Northumbria. We were still well to the east of Eads Byrig, but as the afternoon waned we climbed a low hill and I saw where a bridge carried the road across the river, and there, clustered close to two cottages that had been built on the Mærse’s north bank, were men in mail. Men with spears. ‘How many?’ I asked Berg, whose eyes were younger than mine.
    ‘At least forty, lord.’
    ‘He doesn’t want us to cross the river, does he?’ I suggested. ‘Which means we need to get across.’
    We rode east for an hour, keeping a cautious eye for enemies, and at dusk we turned north and came to where the Mærse slid slow between pastureland. ‘Can your horse swim?’ I asked Berg.
    ‘We’ll find out, lord.’
    The river was wide here, at least fifty paces, and its banks were earthen bluffs. The water was murky, but I sensed it was deep and so, rather than risk swimming the beasts over, we turned back upstream until we discovered a place where a muddy track led into the river from the south and another climbed the northern bank, suggesting this was a ford. It was certainly no major crossing place, but rather a spot where some farmer had discovered he could cross with his cattle, but I suspected the river was usually lower. Rain had swollen it.
    ‘We have to cross,’ I said, and spurred my horse into the water. The river came up to my boots, then above them, and I could feel the horse struggling against the current. He slipped once, and I lurched sideways, thought I must be thrown into the water, but somehow the stallion found his footing and surged ahead, driven more by fear than by my urging. Berg came behind and kicked his horse faster so that he passed me and left the river before I did, his horse flailing up the far bank in a flurry of water and mud.
    ‘I hate crossing rivers,’ I growled as I joined him.
    We found a spinney of ash trees a mile beyond the river and we spent the night there, the horses tethered while we tried to sleep. Berg, being young, slept like the dead, but I was awake much of the night, listening to the wind in the leaves. I had not dared light a fire. This land, like the country south of the Mærse, appeared deserted, but that did not mean no enemy was near, and so I shivered through the darkness. I slept fitfully as the dawn approached, waking to see Berg carefully cutting a lump of bread into two pieces. ‘For you, lord,’ he said, holding out the larger piece.
    I took the smaller, then stood, aching in every bone. I walked to the edge of the trees and gazed out at greyness. Grey sky, grey land, grey mist. It was the wolf-light of dawn. I heard Berg moving behind me. ‘Shall I saddle the horses, lord?’ he asked.
    ‘Not yet.’
    He came and stood beside me. ‘Where are we, lord?’
    ‘Northumbria,’ I said. ‘Everything north of the Mærse is Northumbria.’
    ‘Your country, lord.’
    ‘My country,’ I agreed. I was born in Northumbria and I hope to die in Northumbria, though my birth had been on the eastern coast, far from these mist-shrouded fields by the Mærse. My land is Bebbanburg, the fortress by the sea, which had been treacherously stolen by my uncle and, though he was long dead, the great stronghold was still