“War is in the wind – the ravens are gathering.”

Conn the thrall let fall a huge armload of logs before the cavernous fire-place and faced about to meet the gaze of his sombre master. Conn was tall and massively yet rangily built, with broad sloping shoulders, a mighty, hairy chest, and long heavily muscled arms. His features were in keeping with his bodily aspect – a strong stubborn jaw, low slanting forehead topped by a shock of tawny tousled hair which added to the wildness of his appearance, as did his cold blue eyes. Garments he wore none, except a loin cloth; his own wolfish ruggedness was protection enough against the weather, ordinarily. For he was a slave in an age when even the masters lived lives ferociously hard and hardening.

Now Conn faced his master, and flexing his mighty arms absently, asked: “What was it that the farers in the longship shouted to us this morning, when we were out in the fishing boat?”

“You heard them, did you not, fool?” harshly asked Wolfgar Snorri’s son. “Can you not understand human speech? As the dragon-ship swept past the point, the Vikings shouted to me that there was a gathering of eagles on the east coast of that cursed Ireland – Brian Boru is moving against King Sitric of Dublin, and the word has gone to all the sea-farers to gather for the slaughter. This time the sea-kings will crush that doddering old fool and his naked kerns, once and for all. It shall be as it was in the days of Thorgils the Conqueror. Too long have the kings of Dublin borne the insolence of the western Gaels.”