Free The Burning Land by Bernard Cornwell

shining glory and I saw nothing but pitiable despair.
    “Start,” Harald called to his men.
    One of his warriors, a grinning brute who looked as if he could out-wrestle an ox, stepped behind the woman at the southern end of the line. He was carrying a battle-ax that he swung high, then brought down so that the blade split her skull and buried itself in her trunk. I heard the crunch of the blade in bone over the noise of the river, and saw blood jetting higher than Harald on his horse. “One,” Harald called, and gestured to the blood-spattered axman who stepped briskly to his left to stand behind a child who was screaming because she had just seen her mother murdered. The red-bladed ax rose.
    “Wait,” I called.
    Harald held up his hand to check the ax, then gave me a mocking smile. “You said something, Lord Uhtred?” he asked. I did not answer. I was watching a swirl of blood vanish and fade downstream. A man severed the rope tying the dead woman to her child, then kicked the corpse into the river. “Speak, Lord Uhtred, please do speak,” Harald said with exaggerated courtesy.
    There were thirty-three women and children left. If I did nothing then all would die. “Cut her free,” I said softly.
    The rope round Skade’s neck was cut. “Go,” I told her.
    I hoped she would break her legs as she jumped from the palisade, but she landed lithely, climbed the ditch’s far slope, then walked to the river’s edge. Harald spurred his horse to her, held out a hand, and she swung up behind his saddle. She looked at me, touched a finger to her mouth, and held the hand toward me. “You’re cursed, Lord Uhtred,” she said, smiling, then Harald kicked his horse back to the far bank where the women and children had been led back into the thick-leaved trees.
    So Harald had what he wanted.
    But Skade wanted to be queen, and Harald wanted me blind.
    “What now?” Steapa asked in his deep growling voice.
    “We kill the bastard,” I said. And, like a faint shadow on a dull day, I sensed her curse.
    That night I watched the glow of Harald’s fires; not the nearer ones in Godelmingum, though they were thick enough, but the fainter glimmer of more distant blazes, and I noted that much of the sky was now dark. For the last few nights the fires had been scattered across eastern Wessex, but now they drew closer and that meant Harald’s men were concentrating. He doubtless hoped that Alfred would stay in Æscengum and so he was gathering his army, not to besiege us, but probably to launch a sudden and fast attack on Alfred’s capital, Wintanceaster.
    A few Danes had crossed the river to ride round Æscengum’s walls, but most were still on the far bank. They were doing what I wanted, yet my heart felt dour that night and I had to pretend confidence. “Tomorrow, lord,” I told Edward, Alfred’s son, “the enemy will cross the river. They will be pursuing me, and you will let them all get past the burh, wait one hour and then follow.”
    “I understand,” he said nervously.
    “Follow them,” I said, “but don’t get into a fight till you reach Fearnhamme.”
    Steapa, standing beside Edward, frowned. “Suppose they turn on us?”
    “They won’t,” I said. “Just wait till his army has gone past, then follow it all the way to Fearnhamme.”
    That sounded an easy enough instruction, but I doubted it would be so easy. Most of the enemy would cross the river in a great rush, eager to pursue me, but the stragglers would follow all day. Edward had to judge when the largest part of Harald’s army was an hour ahead and then, ignoring those stragglers, pursue Harald to Fearnhamme. It would be a difficult decision, but he had Steapa to advise him. Steapa might not have been clever, but he had a killer’s instinct that I trusted.
    “At Fearnhamme,” Edward began, then hesitated. The half-moon, showing between clouds, lit his pale and anxious face. He looked like his father, but there was an uncertainty in him which was