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The Year of the Warrior
Table of Contents
Erling's Word
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
CHAPTER XXVI
CHAPTER XXVII
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
CHAPTER XXX
CHAPTER XXXI
CHAPTER XXXII
CHAPTER XXXIII
AFTERWORD: A note to the reader
The Ghost of the God-tree
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
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CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
EPILOGUE
AFTERWORD
THE YEAR OF THE
WARRIOR
LARS WALKER
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any
resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.
Erling's Word copyright (c) 1997; The Ghost of the God-Tree copyright (c) 2000, by Lars Walker.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form.
A Baen Book
Baen Publishing Enterprises
P.O. Box 1403
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Riverdale, NY 10471
ISBN: 0-671-57861-8
Cover art by Gary Ruddell
First printing, March 2000
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
Typeset by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH
Printed in the United States of America
CLASH BY NIGHT
The wind blew colder, and clouds rode in on it, shrouding the stars. The men sat back to back, sharing
warmth. It was as black as Judas' grave.
There was one light in all the world.
It came towards us, over the meadow, from the direction of Thorolf Skjalg's grave.
We all saw him. The warriors groaned. They wept. They yammered like dogs. Some shouted, "Thorolf!
It's my Lord Thorolf come out to walk again."
He was a tall man, dressed in full armor, with shield and spear and sword at his belt. He glowed all over
with blue fire. He was coming to us.
"It's the battle-fetter!" someone cried. "Run! We've got to run!" But no one ran. No one stood on his
feet. A few tried to crawl, but most stayed in their places, watching the walker-again come nearer and
nearer.
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I could see Thorolf's eyes now. They were green-yellow, round and cold.
Then a hand fell on my shoulder. Erling said, "A psalm, Father! I don't ask you to fight, but sing me a
psalm that I may fight—that one about the mountains falling into the sea and shaking!"
I found I still had the crucifix in my hand, gripped so tightly it was wet with my blood. I tried to moisten
my lips. "Deus noster refugium . . ." I croaked. God is our refuge and strength . . .
I saw the demon cast his spear, and saw his mouth open in something like laughter. I saw him fend
Erling's spear in return. I heard the whacking of blades on shield, and saw the dead man lean and whirl;
and his leaps were head-high and his whirls faster than birds' wings.
I spoke my psalm again and again, gripping the crucifix as a drowning man clings to driftwood. . . .
Also by this author:
Wolf Time
Erling's Word
Book I of the
Saga of Erling Skjalgsson
To my Aunt Jean . . .
Frequently mistaken for an angel.
CHAPTER I
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Maeve screamed when they raped her. She screamed all the time they were raping her, and they raped
her many times, for she was young and fair. I tried to run to my sister, straining the chain they'd bound me
to, until some merciful soul laid the hammer of his axe against the base of my skull.
I was marching when I awoke, chained in a line with all the other Christian souls the Northmen had
taken, men and women, the young and the strong and the hopeful. We hoped again the following day
when a troop of bold young lads from Collooney came pounding over a hill and down upon us, swinging
their axes and shouting their slogan, and they looked like the angels of God to me, beautiful as the love of
children. But the Northerners met them with a tough shield wall and cast their spears and offered them
axe and sword and thrusting spear, and those fair lads died, except for a few who were taken and bound
with us. After that we saw no more resistance. The king was warring with the O'Neill that year, and much
taken up with other things.
My head ached as if Satan had poked a toe in my eye, but I cared nothing for that. I had set my heart to
praying. The abbot would have wondered at the fervor of my prayers. I pleaded—I begged God—I
promised Him that I would be a monk and a priest if only He would deliver me and my sister. I prayed
without ceasing; I made vows to all the saints I could think of. I watched the heavens and the earth for an
answer, refusing to doubt.
The Northerners had their camp in a river mouth in Sligo Bay, and they loaded us into one of their
ships—a fat knarr with an open hold amidships, where we huddled with the beasts they'd stolen, and ate
much the same fodder. I gazed back to shore, squinting for my miracle, refusing to know that I was
leaving Ireland. I had no words for what was happening, but surely we weren't being taken across the
sea. God was too good to let that happen.
But when we rounded Inishmurray and Sligo Bay fell from sight and only the waves to port and strange
shores to starboard, I knew that my miracle would not come. And so I knew there was no God, and the
only thing left was to die.
We were chained starboard of the mast, balanced by the livestock to port. The Northerners had strung
a rope down the center and warned us not to approach it. When one of them was making his way from
the stern to the foredeck, I gathered up my length of chain and threw myself at him. I caught him
unguarded and we struggled a moment before the other Northmen pulled us apart and kicked me
bloody. Then one of them, a squat bruiser who'd lost part of his nose and spoke barbarous Irish, put his
face down near mine and said, "We're going to Visby on Gotland to sell you. If you make us mad we
won't kill you, lad, no—we'll sell you to the Arabs, who'll take you far off to Eastland and geld you so
you'll be quiet and good."
So I limped back and sat in bilgewater, and Maeve stretched to the end of her chain so that she could
just touch my hand, and wept, and we sat like that until I slept.
Many are the years and uncounted the miles since the White Northerners took us from our home in
Connaught. Where is Maeve now? With our ancestors, I suppose, long since, and glad of the rest. And
I, against all hope, have stood before kings. I have seen a saint made and had for a friend the greatest
hero since Cu Chulainn. I've seen high times and headlong deeds to outrun and leave in the dust all the
dreams I dreamed, woolgathering in the monastery when I should have been construing my Latin.
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