The Throne of Ice & Ash (The Runewar Saga #1) (PREVIEW)

1: A Scholar's Courage

"A man's greatest weapon is his courage."

- Yofam Dragontooth, Slayer of the wyvern Vardraith, First Drang of the Iron Band

The day Bjorn lost all he held dear, a late winter wind howled past his ears.

Death, it whispered. Icy fingers reached beneath his wolf-fur cloak and clawed into his flesh, then burrowed deeper still. Death with the wind.

He froze in place, listening, his task at hand momentarily forgotten. Terror every bit as cold as the wind burned him. He knew this whisper; he'd heard it before. Bjorn had never been considered brave, but these occasional visions frightened him more than anything else.

But, as swiftly as it had seized him, the gust billowed past, and he could suck in a breath once more.

"Bjorn!"

He startled from his reverie and looked around at his elder brother, first with confusion, then with guilt. He tried to hide both. From Annar's tone, it was not the first time he had said his name. The world resolved back as it had been before the strange wind's passage. Snow drifted gently down from the gray clouds to settle on the wooden planks of the scaffolding on which they stood. Around them, Oakharrow was silent and still; winter rarely saw folks venturing from their homes before dawn.

The absence of an audience, and their impending arrival, brought him back to his task. Bjorn looked at the sword in his gloved hands. It was hardly heavier than any other blade, and though he could not claim to be a warrior, he had inherited at least a sliver of his father's strength. But the sword could have been made of lead from how it weighed on his arms.

The weight of my cowardice.

Bjorn glanced at Annar and tried to hide all the thoughts spinning behind his eyes. He thought he succeeded. Schooling his expression to icy stillness had been a lifelong practice, especially against his eldest brother's penetrating stare.

Annar's own hard features seemed carved of stone, the severity of purpose rarely replaced by anything as soft as a smile. Though Bjorn had their father's height, well apparent now as a young man of seventeen, he lacked the strength and ironclad will that Annar had inherited. Annar was the firstborn son, and thereby the jarl's heir, destined to rule the jarlheim upon their father's death. And already, with the affliction upon Lord Bor's mind, Annar acted as the jarl, and others all but accepted him as such.

Annar had been born to rule. Bjorn often wondered if it was in his brother's nature to command, or if he had shaped himself to the role. He wished he could form himself half as well. But if he had learned anything in his brief life, it was that a leader could not be forged from a coward.

"If you intend to take your swing," his brother finally spoke, "you'd best do it now." Each word fell like a hammer blow.

Bjorn held his brother's gaze for a moment, if only to prove he could, before looking back at the figure before him. It was bent over a wooden block, its stuffed, sackcloth head resting on the blood-stained oak. Its broom handle neck lay exposed, the wind fluttering the cloth around it.

A strawman it was, similar to what yeomen used to drive crows away from their fields. Yet when Bjorn looked at it, he saw a live man kneeling in its place, his imagination vivid in its depiction. The condemned's expression was twisted with fury and fear. His long hair, dark with grime, hung over glittering black eyes. Pink scars crisscrossed his skin. Even bent over a block, the envisaged captive was an imposing sight, his frame larger even than Bjorn's father, who was renowned far and wide as "Bor the Bear."