OUTLAW Chapter One

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Outlaw takes place seven years after Raven left off. Alaric has been left broken. His army destroyed, his eye taken. He has nothing left to fight for. No hope to cling on to. He believes the gods have deserted him, and he has spent years sulking in the shadows of his hall, drinking the days away.

Until a rider arrives at his doorstep, bringing a desperate plea for aid from the Cimbri, a tribe far to the north of Germania. They are being attacked by a foreign power from across the sea. Their army has been broken, their spirit crushed. Seeking the help of the famed Ravensworn to come to their aid, Alaric listens to the stranger’s story with some amusement.

He has no army to march to their rescue. No longer the feared lord of war, he tells the man he cannot help, that refuge must be sought from someone else. But in the end, Alaric is a warrior born, and he has his mind changed.

Setting off north with nothing but three young would-be warriors to call his own, Alaric arrives in the far north, to a small, isolated fort named Tastris. What he finds will haunt him forever. Starved children dart between ramshackle huts. Untrained civilians stand in the battle line to defend the last of their people from foreign invasion.

And in the middle of it all, a chief who refuses to acknowledge how his people have plummeted to such lows, a hidden fortune in Roman coins, and a pit full of bones, hiding within a murderous secret.

Alaric must face the battle of his life. He will fight not for himself, not for glory, but for the first time ever, simply because he feels it is the right thing to do.

In a desolate outpost, for a desperate cause. The Raven banner will fly once more.

Keep reading for a sneak peak at the first chapter of the book!

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Chapter One

A man told me once that defeat can do you good, in the long run. You learn from your mistakes, become wiser for them. He said a little humility can be the makings of a man, that he will lead his warriors better in the future, be more understanding to their needs.

I have to admit I thought it a load of bollocks at the time. Just the drunken ramblings of a once-great man who had led his warband to ruin. He sat in the corner of the feasting hall, the shadows clinging to him like a wet cloak. I had thought him nothing then. A coward, a nithing.

I thought of his words as I sat in the shadows of a hall myself, as if the darkness would protect me from the memories of my own great defeat. They didn’t. His words didn’t ring any truer either. I felt no humility, no sudden worldly understanding of what it was to lead men in war. I felt no sympathy for those who were weaker than me, no sudden urge to reach out to the world and put right some wrongs.

I just felt sick. Embarrassed. Shamed. It had been six years since my great defeat. Six years of skulking in the shadows, hiding from the sun, disconnecting from the world.

I had been a great man once. Alaric, Lord of the Ravensworn. Five hundred men had ridden at my back, and our enemies quivered when we did. I was a lord of war, a battle turner, ring giver, chief killer. An oath breaker. That’s what men used to call me, what they whispered as I walked by. I was feared by chief and peasant alike, and I revelled in my status. Sure, I’d work for the highest bidder. And sure, maybe a couple of times, I’d begun a war on one side and ended it on the other. But so what? I had men to feed, a reputation to garner. I never gave a shit what people thought. Anyone got in my way, I made them a corpse.

That was until my past eventually caught up with me. I’d gotten in too deep, made some dodgy deals, found myself stuck between the anvil that was my enemies in Germania and the hammer that was Rome. They’d crushed me like an egg. Five hundred men I had led into battle one glorious summer’s day. You wouldn’t think it to see me now.

I’d built the hall I languished in. Not myself, of course. I was a man of wealth and status back then. But I’d watched as my men sweated and laboured as beam by beam the great feasting hall began to take shape. It was the place I had brought my wife once we had made our vows, the place I planted the seed of our first child in her womb. I thought it most likely it would be the place that I’d die.

It was mid-morning, late spring, and the birds were singing and the trees were blooming. My wife was outside with the children. I could hear them whooping and splashing in the shallows of the river, enjoying the return of the warm sun. I was on my second jug of ale, already settled down to brood the rest of the day away, when there was a clamour of voices outside, the thrum of hoofbeats through the timbers, a clink of metal drifting on the air.

I sighed, briefly considering if it was worth getting up for, then quickly decided it wasn’t. I was just refilling my cup when one of my men burst into the hall, daylight offending my one remaining eye. ‘There are men here, Lord,’ said Batur, a young warrior who had sought me out and offered his service the year before. He was an eager enough lad, a thin wisp of a youth in dire need of bulking up if he was going to survive the warrior’s path, but he wasn’t the brightest spark, to say the least.

‘No shit,’ I spat, feeling a small sense of joy at the hurt look in the young man’s eyes.

‘What should we do, Lord?’ he asked. He had a narrow face, Batur, raven hair that fell in curls to his shoulders, dark eyes and pale skin. His beard was sparse and fluffy, more like the left offs from a woollen tunic then a man’s beard. My wife kept telling him it would thicken, though she always had been an optimist.

I sighed again. ‘Ask my wife to bring the children inside. Then get my sword and shield, one for yourself too. Are the other two still out?’

I had two other men who still called me Lord. Sedric and Kai. They had left two dawns ago with our only four horses and two carts, off to the nearest tribe for provisions. I had been expecting them back that morning at the latest.

‘No sign of them yet, Lord.’

‘Then if these riders come to make war, we shall have to kill them ourselves. Now get to it.’

I could smell his fear as he left. It’s one thing to practise with sword and shield, to harness your muscles and quicken your reflexes. It is another entirely to use those skills to take a man’s life.

Standing slowly, swaying with the effects of the ale, I walked through my empty hall, ignoring the smell of the soiled hay on the floor, to the sleeping chamber I shared with my wife at the rear. Inside was a chest, a chest I had not bothered to open in a long time. But open it I did, and I stood watching as the dust from the lid floated into the air and caught the light of the sun filtering through from the open window. Inside, wrapped in the faded red of a raven banner – an unwelcome reminder of happier times – was my mail and helmet.

I hadn’t looked on it in months, years maybe. So it was to my surprise that both were polished and in good condition. I smiled to myself, wondering how a man as ungrateful as me managed to have a wife so continuously thoughtful. I could hear her and the children making their way through the hall as I begun the laborious process of getting it on.

‘There are men, Alaric!’ Saxa squealed as she scurried into our sleeping chamber, my two boys, Ludwig and Eric, in her wake.

‘How many?’ I asked, struggling to get my head through the hole in my mail shirt.

‘Six, Father!’ Ludwig said, his voice an excited squeak. Everything’s an adventure when you’re seven. ‘Will you fight them?’

‘Not if I can help it.’ I’d managed to get my head and arms into the mail; getting it over my stomach, though, was proving harder than I’d care to admit. It had been many a year since I’d bothered to wear the thing, and I’d drunk myself through countless barrels of ale in that time. ‘Damn thing,’ I muttered to myself as I tried to wriggle it over my bulging belly.

Saxa moved forwards and yanked hard on the end of the mail. I almost collapsed as my body took its full weight. At least I finally had the thing on. ‘Sure it never used to weigh this much.’

‘You’re not getting any younger, my dear.’ Saxa leaned in and kissed me softly on the cheek. ‘Or slimmer, for that matter.’

‘Thanks for the morale booster,’ I said, reaching back into the chest and snatching up my helmet. It was unremarkable, as far as helmets go. Just plain iron, not too dissimilar to the ones used in Rome’s cursed legions. But it had served me well in the past.

‘Are you forgetting something, Lord Alaric?’ Saxa asked as I made my way out of the door.

I doubled back, kissed both my boys on the head, kissed Saxa on the lips and told them to shut the door when I was gone. ‘Not that, welcome as it was,’ Saxa said again as I made to leave. ‘This.’

She reached into the chest and unfurled the red banner, holding it out for us all to see. ‘The Ravensworn!’ Ludwig screamed, jumping up and down in excitement. ‘You never go to war without your banner, Father!’

‘Been a long time since I’ve been to war, boy,’ I muttered, but I reached out and grabbed it all the same. ‘Need a spear to fix it to.’ In a flash, Eric was out the door. He came stumbling back with a spear twice his size. He was five that summer and still barely spoke a word. Short and podgy where Ludwig was tall and thin, he had a fearful face, large round eyes that seemed to quiver every time I met them. He would mumble sweet nothings with Saxa when she put him to bed each night, but I found it hard to get more than four or five words from the boy when the sun was up. ‘My thanks,’ I said as I ruffled his hair. He reddened with pride and embarrassment. I fixed the banner to the spear and walked out without looking back.

The sunlight outside offended my bloodshot eyes – or eye, I should say. I’d lost the left one same time I’d lost my army, though I have brooded over that enough for now. The world was a plethora of colour, the greens of the leaves, the blue of the sky reflecting on the water. I blinked three times as my eye adjusted, fidgeted in my ill-fitting mail. ‘Lord.’ Batur handed me my shield. It had the same black raven on the same red background that adjourned my banner. It had stood for something once; men had bled and died for that symbol, had bragged to friends and family that they were privileged enough to ride and fight under it. Alas, that was a long time ago.

‘Have they said anything?’ I motioned to our guests, who sat astride their mounts fifty or so paces away.

‘They asked for you, Lord. I said you would be out when you were ready.’ I pretended not to notice the quivering in Batur’s shield and took two paces’ forwards, trying to muster up the bravado I had once been famed for.

‘Morning, friends. How may I be of service?’ I called, hoping I was swaggering in my mail, looking a great deal more comfortable than I felt.

‘We are here to see Lord Alaric. I have already told your lad there. If your lord is not here than please tell us where we can find him. We are on urgent business.’

Well, that was rude. I know I hadn’t exactly been keeping up appearances for the last few years, but to not be recognised entirely seemed to bring me to a whole new low. ‘What business do you have with Lord Alaric? He is not expecting anyone.’

The man who had spoken before growled in frustration. In one fluid motion, he freed his sword and kicked his mount into action. He covered the small patch of land between us in moments. ‘I am here to see Lord Alaric. I have ridden many weeks to get here, through hail, wind and rain, and I did not do that to be denied at the end of my journey by some pompous guard deemed unfit enough to travel on campaign with his lord! Now, where is he? Has he travelled south to fight against Rome once more? Did he winter with his friend, King Balomar, in the lands of the Marcomanni?’

I got an immediate whiff of horse sweat and leather. Then the man’s foul breath, his sickly yellow teeth so close to my good eye that given a few more moments I could have worked out what he’d had for breakfast. ‘Hmmm.’ I made a show of thinking, scrunching up my eye and fingering my lips. ‘What was the question again?’

Truth was, I was playing for time. The man had asked if I was fighting Rome or wintering with Balomar, a king in his own right down south. Neither of which I had done in a long time. Whoever he was, whoever had sent him, they seemed to have no up-to-date knowledge of my fall from grace. I was enjoying being the great lord again, if only for a moment.

‘Wotan’s beard, man! Did you lose half your brain when you lost that eye! You there!’ he called to Batur, who still stood trembling behind his shield. ‘Where is your lord?’

Batur said nothing, just poked out a wobbly finger from behind his shield and pointed at me. I followed the finger, fixing my face in a frown as I looked myself up and down. ‘Ahh, yes, I am Alaric Hengistson, once Lord of the Ravensworn, the greatest warband to ever roam these lands. My apologies, I didn’t realise it was me you were looking for. Been a while since armed strangers rode across half the country to find me.’

To my satisfaction, he was speechless. His mouth worked for a while, but it seemed he couldn’t quite get a tune from his tongue. ‘Now then,’ I continued, not even trying to hide my mirth, ‘are you here to kill me or hire me?’

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