The Flame Bearer (The Last Kingdom Series, Book 10) by Bernard Cornwell Page A

idea how I would capture the fortress, I just knew my enemies believed they had scared me away from my father’s lands, and I would let them believe that until my swords turned that land red.
    We had reached the gaunt stone that stood tall beside the path. I touched it, wondering if it still possessed some dark power. ‘He was very specific,’ I said.

    ‘The priest?’
    ‘About meeting us here. Why not meet us by the woodland?’ I asked. ‘Or closer to the fort?’
    ‘You tell me.’
    ‘He wants us to be here,’ I said, still touching the great stone pillar, ‘so that we can’t see what happens on the other side of the trees.’
    Finan still looked puzzled, but I gave him no time to ask questions. Instead I walked on south towards the trees and whistled through my fingers. I heard a brief answering whistle, then Eadric appeared at the woodland’s edge. He was probably the best of my scouts, an older man with a poacher’s uncanny ability to move silently through tangled woods. He carried a horn, which he would blow if the West Saxons came from the fort, but he said all had been quiet since sundown. ‘They haven’t even sent out scouts, lord,’ he said, evidently disgusted by the enemy’s lack of precautions.
    ‘If I’m right …’ I began.
    ‘… which he always is,’ Finan put in.
    ‘There’ll be men leaving the fort tomorrow. I want you to watch for them.’
    Eadric scratched his beard, then grimaced. ‘What if they leave from the far side?’
    ‘They will,’ I said confidently. ‘Can you find a place to watch the southern walls?’
    He hesitated. The land around the fort was mostly flat with few coppices or other hiding places. ‘There’s bound to be a ditch,’ he finally allowed.
    ‘I need to know how many men leave,’ I said, ‘and which direction they take. You’ll have to bring the news back after dark tomorrow.’
    ‘I’ll have to find a place tonight then,’ he said cautiously, meaning that he would be seen if he tried to find a hiding place in the daylight, ‘and if they find me tomorrow …’ he left the sentence unfinished.

    ‘Say you’re a deserter, show them your cross, and tell them you’re tired of serving a pagan bastard.’
    ‘Well, that’s true enough,’ he said, making Finan laugh.
    The three of us followed the track through the wood till I could see the fort’s ramparts outlined by the glow of the fires burning in its courtyard. The cattle path led gently downhill for over a mile, running straight as a Roman road across the pastureland. Two mornings from now Brunulf would follow that path, bringing eleven men and, doubtless, an apologetic refusal to pay any gold to Sigtryggr. ‘If Brunulf has any sense,’ I said, ‘and I suspect he does, he’ll send scouts to make sure we’re not ambushing the path in the wood.’ The woodland was the key. It was a massive tract of old trees, of fallen trunks, of tangling ivy, and thorny undergrowth. I wondered why it was not being tended, why no foresters had thinned out the brush or pollarded the trees, and why no charcoal was being made here, or great oaks turned into valuable timber. Probably, I thought, because there was a dispute about ownership, and, until a law court gave a judgement, no one could claim rights over the wood. ‘And if we do set an ambush here,’ I went on, ‘and Brunulf sends scouts first, he’ll find it.’
    ‘So no ambush,’ Finan said.
    ‘It’s the only place,’ I said, ‘so it has to be here.’
    ‘Sweet Jesus,’ Finan swore in frustration.
    Eadric grunted. ‘If you asked me to scout it, lord, I wouldn’t search the whole wood. It’s too big. I’d just search maybe a bowshot either side of the path?’
    ‘And if I was Brunulf,’ Finan added, ‘I wouldn’t fear an ambush here at all.’
    ‘No?’ I asked. ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because it’s in full view of the fort! When he’s riding to the place where he knows we’re meeting him? If we wanted to kill him why wouldn’t we