Storm of Steel by Matthew Harffy

Author:Matthew Harffy [Harffy, Matthew]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781786696380
Publisher: Head of Zeus

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They beached Brimblæd and camped on the sand. An alder had been washed up in the recent storms, roots and all, so they built a great blaze. As dusk fell Fraomar pointed out a few boys in the distance, their white faces peering down at the men on the shore. Fraomar beckoned to them, but they did not approach and as night came they vanished into the gloom.

Beobrand ordered guards be set around their camp, but they saw nobody else after the boys. They had seen tendrils of smoke rising from behind a stand of elm, but decided not to seek the hospitality of the locals. The fire made from the washed-up alder was warm, and the mood of the men was buoyant. Even Coenred had stopped his sulking and smiled thinly as the men joked with him, understanding, Beobrand hoped, that they would only jest so with a man they liked.

Beobrand took one of the watches and listened to the sounds of the men around the campfire. The night was still and cold, the darkness a thick blanket that provided no warmth. The soft song of the night washed over him. The murmur of the waves from the Narrow Sea and the wind sighing through the branches of the elms, lulling him into a dazed waking-slumber. His thoughts were like dreams. Images and ideas, fears and longings, played in his thought-cage, as jumbled and muddled as the surf tumbling onto itself on the beach. An owl’s shrill call split the quiet and Beobrand came fully awake. He stared into the darkness, the skin on his neck prickling. The bird screeched again and then all was still.

It was only a bird. For the second time that day he heard the echo of Acennan as if his friend’s shade stood beside him in the darkness. He shivered, but was not afraid.

Later, when he lay down on the sand, wrapped in a blanket and his damp cloak, he was surprised that his mind seemed devoid of worries, as if he had had his fill of dreaming whilst awake. He fell into a deep, untroubled sleep and awoke to the camp being packed away.

Cynan saw him rousing and smiled.

“A quiet night for once,” he said. “It makes a difference from storms.”

Beobrand looked up to the sky. It was a clear, egg-shell blue, with barely a wisp of cloud in the east.

Later, he wondered whether the gods had been listening when Cynan spoke. Or perhaps it had been Ferenbald’s assertions the day before that had reached their ears, for, despite the clear morning, as the day drew on, they had neither good weather nor a favourable breeze.

They set off on the rising tide, thrust southward into the Narrow Sea by a strong northerly wind. There was winter in that wind, and those men who had them, pulled on mittens. The others stuck their hands under their arms when they did not need them to perform some task. Beobrand noticed Cargást taking a thick pair of woollen gloves and trailing them in the frigid water that rushed past the hull.

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