PROLOGUE
A bitter north wind blew off the moors.
It sliced through Keegan’s thick winter cloak and shirt as he handed over his sword to the gate-wardens. Faint moonbeams cast deep shadows across the weathered ramparts and frost-rimmed towers of Aldercairn Keep. When the sentries were satisfied, he and his band were allowed to enter.
They passed between the close walls of the tunnel running under the ancient gatehouse, and Keegan didn’t breathe easy until they emerged in a courtyard on the other side, where another pair of guards opened the door to the inner keep. Bright light flooded across the snow at their feet. Tromping after his comrades, Keegan entered.
Heat from four great hearths wrapped him in a sweltering embrace as Caedman, their war leader, led them to a table at the end of the hall. Keegan loosened his cloak as he took a seat under an open window and glanced around. This was his first peace-meet. Warriors and house-carls sat shoulder-to-shoulder. Their deep laughter shook the timber walls. At the other end of the hall, a long table sat on a riser above the rest. The five men at the high table were adorned with silver and gold. Their white fur mantles gleamed in the firelight.
One of Keegan’s comrades gestured to a venerable man wrapped in a black bearskin cloak in the center seat. “That’s Old Jevick.”
“The Allastar thane?” Keegan asked.
“They say he hasn’t stepped outside of this big pile of rock in years.”
Keegan took in the banners hanging on the walls, the rows of trophies, and the roaring hearths. “I don’t blame him. This is a good place for an old man to rest his bones.”
As a cupbearer set down a double-handful of mugs before them, a loud thump echoed from the high table. Heads turned as Thane Jevick pulled himself to his feet.
“Welcome, sons of Eregoth.” His voice was shaky, but deeper than his years suggested. “I have called this peace-meet to discuss the troubles that plague our lands.”
Keegan looked around and saw heads nodding. Farms had been burned to the ground, men killed, and women and children taken away. Everyone knew from where the troubles came. He and his comrades had decided it was time to do something about it, and Caedman had brought them here to find out if anyone else felt the same.
The pounding of five hundred fists filled the hall as the aged chieftain returned to his seat. One by one, the other thanes introduced themselves. This took some time, as each attached numerous titles and accomplishments to his name. The last thane was a powerful figure. Flame-red braids hung down his leather breastplate.
“Many of you know me. I am Comarc of the Ragarson clan.” He rapped his knuckles on the table. “And I won’t bore you with the long list of my deeds.”
More fist pounding resounded. Everyone knew of the exploits of Comarc Ragarson and his Red Riders. His had been the driving force behind their country’s march to freedom, but that had been years ago, before Keegan’s birth. Would the Ragarsons ride again?
Thane Comarc looked around the hall. “But I will be the first to speak. We fought and bled to free our country. But now the ravens of war have come scratching at our windows again. Darkness lies heavy over our lands. And Liovard sits at the heart of it!”
There it was, spoken plain for all to hear. Keegan shifted on his seat as the assembly fell silent.
Taelish, the thane of the Nuodir, stood up. “You speak as if we can change things, Comarc. But this peace-meet is a waste of time. Clan Eviskine has grown too powerful. We must make an accommodation with them, or risk losing what we have left.”
Comarc spat on the table and ignored the pointed look it earned him from Jevick. “You Nuodir can go kiss Eviskine’s lily-white arse if you like, but the Ragarsons will fight to our last breath!”
A mighty roar shook the hall as a contingent of men jumped to their feet and pounded on the tables. The other thanes at the high table exchanged concerned glances behind Comarc’s back. One voice rose above the tumult.
“Why fight alone?”
Old Jevick peered into the crowd. “Who speaks?”
The hall had quieted, but the looks cast in the direction of their table couldn’t be called friendly. Keegan swallowed the last of his ale as his captain stood up.
“I am Caedman Du’Ormik, son of Londain.”
Murmurs spread through the hall. Old Jevick turned to speak with the other thanes, but Comarc didn’t wait.
“I’ve heard of you,” the Ragarson chief said. “Most of my fighters cannot decide if you’re a hero, or just a lucky fool. But only a clan thane has the right to speak here.”
Bench legs screeched as two men from Keegan’s band stood up and threw back their cloaks to reveal white mantles underneath. Tongues wagged at the sight.
“He speaks for Clan Indrig,” Thane Samnus said.
“And for the Hurrolds,” Thane Obern added.
Comarc snorted. “I see you’ve brought a pair of yapping dogs with you. Too bad they’re squatting at your heels instead of sitting up here with their rightful peers.”
“Go frig your mother, Comarc,” Samnus said. “I’m here to make sure you don’t run off with the women when the talking gets fierce.”
Comarc laughed. “I see you, Du’Ormik. Speak your mind.”
Caedman looked around the room. “I asked why we should fight alone. If every man stands only for his own hearth and clan as we’ve always done, then we’ll be split apart and killed, and our families taken as chattel.”
Keegan didn’t know what chattel was, but it sounded bad.
The Nuodir thane threw his cup to land with a clatter somewhere on the floor. “I’ve heard enough. These fools are the reason Liovard burns our villages and chases off our people.”
“If we unite,” Caedman said, “we can defend ourselves and perhaps win a lasting peace for our country, like the one promised years ago when our fathers and uncles rousted the Nimeans.”
Every man in the hall was on his feet now, banging and shouting to be heard. Keegan couldn’t tell what most of them were saying, in favor of Caedman’s idea or against. The thanes at the raised table yelled alongside their men. Comarc bellowed something about the debt of Eregothic blood being repaid a hundred times over, but Keegan lost the gist of his argument in the clamor.
A noise had caught his ear, faint at first, but it grew to a keening howl. Men quieted as the ceiling timbers shook. The flames in the fireplaces flickered and threatened to go out as shrieking winds blew down the chimney flues. Keegan looked around, but everyone was absorbed by the chaos ripping through the hall. Then the doors of the hall shook. The impact echoed in Keegan’s chest. Chairs fell over and table legs groaned as the warriors turned. Outside, a wolf howled.
A whisper rose from the crowd. “The Hunt!”
Keegan swallowed. With the second blow, the doors burst open and a crowd of intruders with gleaming steel in their fists rushed into the hall. Everyone stood gaping as the interlopers pushed through their ranks, shoving the clansmen back. Keegan climbed up on the table for a better view. The intruders towered over the warriors in the hall, with pale eyes glaring from under bestial helmets fashioned like wolves’ heads. They carried axes and hammers of dark iron and broad shields. Keegan knew them at once from stories he’d heard from his father.
Northmen.
Keegan watched them with awe, but then another entered the hall, and a sick feeling uncoiled in his stomach. Clad from crown to foot in a shell of black steel, the new arrival stood even taller than the other Northmen. Keegan clenched his hands into fists. He knew this one from stories, too. Wherever he appeared, people died. The clans called him the Beast.
A pair of figures entered behind the steel-skinned giant. The man had a narrow build and a lean face with features some might call refined, and he wore enough gilt to bury a prince. But it was the woman beside him who stole Keegan’s attention. The way she moved, and the curves under her sheer black gown, made his blood boil. Her skin glistened like wet silk. This was no ordinary woman. Upon her arrival, the hall fell into perilous silence.
Preceded by the Beast, the man and his lady walked arm-in-arm down the center of the hall, and the clansmen fell back before them. Those who did not move quickly enough were smashed out of the way by the Northmen. In that instant, Keegan understood who these people were. The man had to be Erric Eviskine, the Duke of Liovard. And that meant the lady at his side was…
The Witch. Sybelle, Queen of the Dark.
Keegan looked away from her eyes, not daring to meet them again even from this distance. The heels of the duke’s polished boots clacked on the floor until he and his paramour came before the thanes.
“Eviskine.” Comarc Ragarson’s mouth twisted. “This peace-meet is for patriots of Eregoth.”
The duke clasped the gold pommel of his sword. “Who dares to say I am no patriot?” He turned, and the large medallion around his neck swayed. “Am I not thane of one of the oldest clans?”
Mutters circulated through the crowd, but no one dared to speak up, not even Comarc, though he and the other chiefs glared back and forth. Then another voice spoke. Keegan’s stomach shrank as Caedman pushed through the crowd.
“I name you traitor, Eviskine,” Caedman said. “Even if no one else has the stomach to do it.”
The duke made a half-smile as if he’d heard a poor jest. “Jevick, it seems your house is infested with vermin.”
“I am a free man of Eregoth,” Caedman said. “Again I name you a traitor. A traitor to this land, which you have sown with blood and fear. A traitor to your own people by the company you keep. While others fought and bled for their country, you rolled over like a whore and let the enemy in.”
The lady laughed. For a moment, it seemed to Keegan that time stood still, and all he could hear was the cool melody of her voice. Then the moment was gone. He coughed into his sleeve. The back of his throat tasted like a burnt copper penny.
“Come, Erric,” she said. “I told you they would be intractable.”
The duke shook his head at the high table. “I would have saved you. Remember that.”
Keegan watched with an uneasy feeling as the duke and lady departed. They halted on the threshold and turned around. Keegan expected some parting words, some base insult. Instead, the witch whistled. The candles and hearth fires went out, plunging the hall into darkness.
Shouts echoed off the walls, punctuated by screams and the wet smacks of cleaving steel. A strange blue light flashed above Keegan’s head. What it illuminated below was like a vision from Hell. The weaponless clansmen used table legs and eating knives—anything they could find—as they fought for their lives, but the axes of the Northmen rose and fell like threshers’ flails, reaping a harvest that washed the floor in blood. Not three paces away, a warrior was cut down by a Northman. Keegan went for his belt knife, but the killer moved away to find another victim.
Samnus and Obert led the band into the mayhem after Caedman. Keegan started to go after them, but remembered his war leader’s words from before they entered the keep.
No matter what happens, Keegan, you must survive. You must tell the clans what you’ve seen and heard this night, or we are all lost.
Keegan located Caedman in the fray. Dark patches of blood matted the war leader’s leathers as he fended off the attacks of a Northman with his bare hands. Then Samnus and the others arrived and bore the invader to the floor. Keegan smiled, until the crowd parted as if drawn back by invisible strings, and a tide of dread filled his chest.
The Beast approached.
Steam rose from the giant’s armored hide as he strode toward Caedman. Keegan yelled a warning to his comrades, but it was swallowed by the cacophony. Then the crowd surged, and he lost sight of the fighters. A moment later he glimpsed a body on the floor. It was Caedman, laid out on his back like a dead man. Bile flooded the back of Keegan’s throat as he stumbled down from the table. He couldn’t catch his breath. The air was thick with the stench of blood and sweat. He turned, looking for a way out, and spied the window above his head. He leapt to catch the stone sill. As he pulled his upper body over the ledge, his shoulders caught in the narrow casement. A frantic wriggle broke him free from the stone’s embrace, and he pushed into the empty space beyond.
Keegan landed in a snowbank. A sour taste coated his tongue as he heard the cries from inside the keep. Then he was up and running across the frozen fields.
He didn’t look back.