Chapter Sixty-Six

Njord saw the commotion from aboard ship. It wasn’t what he had been expecting and yet those dreams recently had shown him a figure with two opposing faces. With his father off the scene that could only mean it was someone he had yet to meet.

Hearing the cries and screams, seeing the plume of smoke rising into the air – just one – he called his friends to arms.

Everything was organised quickly and soon they were scaling the cliffs some distance away prepared to check things out before rushing in blindly. Who knew, maybe the Vercians celebrated their nuptials in this way, but he very much doubted it.

He thought about Tyr then, who was often predicting his early demise. They had joked about it often, he and the other Norsemen, young and older alike. But what if the soothsayer had been right? There would be no male heir to Eggsor – he had vowed never to take up that mantle – and he would have lost a close friend and cousin.

Beyla would be devastated. Princess Amber now, he corrected hims