The Gael wakened to the familiar salt scent of the sea. A gull screeked. Lying still, the black-haired man twitched his nostrils in the manner of a wary wolf. He scented nothing of that which was all too familiar-raw, blood. Blinking against the flaming sun and the lingering grogginess of unconsciousness, he squinted open his eyes.

“Blood of the gods,” he muttered. “This be no afterworld, surely-I live!”

Slowly, alert to the flashing pain of broken limb or back or neck, he sat up. There was no flash, but only twinges from a body badly used by the wind. He was whole. Those twinges might have brought moans and lamentations and supine confinement to other men. To him, they were but the boon companions of weapon-men. He was whole; it was enough.

He looked about.

Strewn around him were his companions, lying as they had fallen along a stretch of beach that would have enclosed the house of one of those self-proclaimed “kings” of Britain since the Romans left. A tiny smile tugged at his mouth when he saw the rise and fall of the great barrel that was the chest of Wulfhere Skull-splitter. The giant lived also. Slitted eyes roved; assured their owner that so did all breathe-though there were but seven others.

Before the gale, they had been one and twenty.

He swallowed. There was thirst on him. With a grunt he rose, saw the gleam of his sword, and retrieved it. He wiped it again and again on his sun-hot trews before returning it to the sand; a watery sheath was no more trustworthy than a crowned man.

As he unbuckled belt with pendent sheaths, he looked around himself the more.

Of their ship there was no sign. Dragged back by the wind, he mused grimly, and chased on to be buried in the sea. We are stranded here, then. And… where is “here”?

The sweet sandy shore was a lie. This was a barren and inhospitable speck on the waters, and it would offer little comfort to man or beast. Only the fowls could come and go at will, for aye there were ugly-voiced gulls, and he heard the honk of wild ducks or geese.