Time of the Wolf by James Wilde Page A

chosen leads that way.”
    â€œHe must be punished for what he has done to Thangbrand,” someone muttered.
    Tostig searched for the speaker. All heads bowed, and the earl returned his attention to Hereward. “These are hard times, and there are harder times ahead. Everywhere I turn, I hear talk of portents and omens. You have deprived me of one of my strongest men when my huscarls are pressed to their limits. Here is your punishment, man of Mercia. You will replace Thangbrand in my warband, and we will see how you survive in the simmering cauldron that is Eoferwic. Pay back your debt, with your life if need be.”
    The earl turned on his heel and strode away. Hereward looked around at the faces of the scarred, bearded men surrounding him, every eye burning like an ember. They were brothers, and he had wounded one of their own. For every moment he spent in their midst, death would never be far away.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    I N THE BRIGHT OF THE NEW DAY , THE CIRCLE OF HUSCARLS shook their fists toward the blue sky and roared their approval. Their wooden shields rattled against their hauberks to the rhythm of their cheers. As they pawed the snow of the hall’s enclosure with their leather shoes, they released blasts of clouding breath with every contemptuous guffaw.
    On hands and knees at the center of the ring, Hereward kept his head down so that his blond hair fell across his swollen cheek. His mind flashed back to the first time his father had struck him after the death of his mother, and his rage burned. When he was ready, he stood up and let the icy wind cool him. Wiping the back of his hand across his bleeding nose, he shook the last of the din from his skull and turned to face his new brothers of the shield. Looking around the dense circle of weather-beaten faces, he saw contempt, but also a hint of fear. That was all he needed.
    â€œA cowardly blow,” he said.
    â€œ You speak of honor?” Kraki circled the Mercian, bear-like in his thick furs, leather, and chain mail, his silvery helmet casting pools of shadow round his eyes. “You fight like a cornered animal.” The commander of Tostig’s huscarls was a veteran of battles across the frozen river valleys of the Varangians and of the Byzantine campaigns in the hot lands to the south, Hereward had learned. That the Viking still lived was proof enough of his prowess, but his heavily scarred skin had become a map of his successes. Brutal and cold, loyal and fair, he seemed a stew of contradictions.
    â€œI fight to win.” Hereward spat a mouthful of blood onto the snow. From the moment he had joined the huscarls that morning, they had made it plain that he was to be punished for his savage attack on Thangbrand. As he stepped up to them with his new shield and axe, he had been tripped, then kicked and punched repeatedly. It would do little good to express the remorse he felt for the extent of the Viking’s wounds, he knew. Reparation had to be made, a balance struck, and the admission that he could not control his inner devil would carry little weight.
    Kraki pressed his face close. “This is Northumbria, and we are huscarls. We do not send a man before the Witan to account for his crimes. We have our own rules. Here we follow the old ways, of blood and fire. Honor is all.” He glanced around the circle. “A man of honor has firm principles. A man of honor fights for his friends in time of need. For his people, his land.” The huscarl leader looked the warrior up and down with unconcealed contempt. “You have no honor. You are nothing.”
    Hereward bit his tongue.
    Jeers ran through the ranks. From the edge of the hall ground, a large brown bear rose up on to its hind legs and bellowed in response to the sound it heard. Tostig had had the beast brought over from the Northlands, for entertainment and as a symbol of his own untamed power. Though it was shackled in its own enclosure, its roar chilled all who