LITMIR.BIZ

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at us. ‘Get back into the marsh!’ I shouted at him. ‘Go! Go!’ Iseult and Eanflæd were with us now and they seized the priest and hurried him towards the path. It might lead nowhere, but it was better to face the remaining Danes there than on the firm ground at the hill’s foot.

      And those black-cloaked Danes were coming. They had slaughtered the handful of soldiers, seen their two men killed and now came for vengeance. ‘Come on!’ I snarled at Leofric and, taking the wounded horse by the reins, I ran onto the small twisting path.

      ‘A horse won’t help you here,’ Leofric said.

      The horse was nervous. Its face was wounded and the path was slippery, but I dragged it along the track until we were close to the small patch of land where the refugees huddled, and by now the Danes were also on the path, following us. They had dismounted. They could only come two abreast and, in places, only one man could use the track and in one of those places I stopped the horse and exchanged Serpent-Breath for Leofric’s axe. The horse looked at me with a big brown eye. ‘This is for Odin,’ I said, and I swung the axe into its neck, chopping down through mane and hide, and a woman screamed behind me as the blood spurted bright and high in the dull day. The horse whinnied, tried to rear and I swung again and this time the beast went down, thrashing hooves, blood and water splashing. Snow turned red as I axed it a third time, finally stilling it, and now the dying beast was an obstacle athwart the track and the Danes would have to fight across its corpse. I took Serpent-Breath back.

      ‘We’ll kill them one by one,’ I told Leofric.

      ‘For how long?’ He nodded westwards and I saw more Danes coming, a whole ship’s crew of mounted Danes streaming along the swamp’s edge. Fifty men? Maybe more, but even so they could only use the path in ones or twos and they would have to fight over the dead horse into Serpent-Breath and Leofric’s axe. He had lost his own axe, taken from him when he was brought to Cippanhamm, but he seemed to like his stolen weapon. He made the sign of the cross, touched the blade, then hefted his shield as the Danes came.

      Two young men came first. They were wild and savage, wanting to make a reputation, but the first to come was stopped by Leofric’s axe banging into his shield and I swept Serpent-Breath beneath the shield to slice his ankle and he fell, cursing, to tangle his companion and Leofric wrenched the wide-bladed axe free and slashed it down again. The second man stumbled on the horse, and Serpent-Breath took him under the chin, above his leather coat, and the blood ran down her blade in a sudden flood and now there were two Danish corpses added to the horseflesh barricade. I was taunting the other Danes, calling them corpse-worms, telling them I had known children who could fight better. Another man came, screaming in rage as he leaped over the horse and he was checked by Leofric’s shield and Serpent-Breath met his sword with a dull crack and his blade broke, and two more men were trying to get past the horse, struggling in water up to their knees and I rammed Serpent-Breath into the belly of the first, pushing her through his leather armour, left him to die, and swung right at the man trying to get through the water. Serpent-Breath’s tip flicked across his face to spray blood into the thickening snowfall. I went forward, feet sinking, lunged again and he could not move in the mire and Serpent-Breath took his gullet. I was screaming with joy because the battle calm had come, the same blessed stillness I had felt at Cynuit. It is a joy, that feeling, and the only other joy to compare is that of being with a woman.

      It is as though life slows. The enemy moves as if he is wading in mud, but I was kingfisher fast. There is rage, but it is a controlled rage, and there is joy, the joy that the poets celebrate when they speak of battle, and a certainty that death is not in that day’s fate. My head was full of singing, a keening note, high and shrill, death’s anthem. All I wanted was for more Danes to come to Serpent-Breath and it seemed to me that she took on her own life in those moments. To think was to act. A man came across the horse’s flank, I thought to slice at his ankle, knew he would drop his shield and so open his upper body to an attack, and before the thought was even coherent it was done and Serpent-Breath had taken one of his eyes. She had gone down and up, was already moving to the right to counter another man trying to get around the horse, and I let him get past the stallion’s bloodied head then scornfully drove him down into the water and there I stood on him, holding his head under my boot as he drowned. I screamed at the Danes, told them I was Valhalla’s gatekeeper, that they had been weaned on coward’s milk and that I wanted them to come to my blade. I begged them to come, but six men were dead around the horse and the others were now wary.

      I stood on the dead horse and spread my arms. I held the shield high to my left and the sword to my right, and my mail coat was spattered with blood and the snow fell about my wolf-crested helmet and all I knew was the young man’s joy of slaughter. ‘I killed Ubba Lothbrokson!’ I shouted at them. ‘I killed him! So come and join him! Taste his death! My sword wants you!’

      ‘Boats,’ Leofric said. I did not hear him. The man I thought I had drowned was still alive and he suddenly reared from the marsh, choking and vomiting water, and I jumped down off the horse and put my foot on his head again.

      ‘Let him live!’ A voice shouted behind me. ‘I want a prisoner!’

      The man tried to fight my foot, but Serpent-Breath put him down. He struggled again and I broke his spine with Serpent-Breath and he was still.

      ‘I said I wanted a prisoner,’ the voice behind protested.

      ‘Come and die!’ I shouted at the Danes.

      ‘Boats,’ Leofric said again and I glanced behind and saw three punts coming through the marsh. They were long flat boats, propelled by men with poles, and they grounded on the other side of the huddled refugees who hurried aboard. The Danes, knowing Leofric and I had to retreat if we were to gain the safety of the boats, readied for a charge and I smiled at them, inviting them.

      ‘One boat left,’ Leofric said. ‘Room for us. You’ll have to run like hell.’

      ‘I’ll stay here,’ I shouted, but in Danish. ‘I’m enjoying myself.’

      Then there was a stir on the path as a man came to the front rank of the Danes and the others edged aside to give him room. He was in chain mail and had a silvered helmet with a raven’s wing at its crown, but as he came closer he took the helmet off and I saw the gold-tipped bone in his hair. It was Guthrum himself. The bone was one of his mother’s ribs and he wore it out of love for her memory. He stared at me, his gaunt face sad, and then looked down at the men we had killed. ‘I shall hunt you like a dog, Uhtred Ragnarson,’ he said, ‘and I shall kill you like a dog.’

      ‘My name,’ I said, ‘is Uhtred Uhtredson.’

      ‘We have to run,’ Leofric hissed at me.

      The snow whirled above the swamp, thick enough now so that I could hardly see the ridge top from where we had glimpsed the pigeons circling. ‘You are a dead man, Uhtred,’ Guthrum said.

      ‘I never met your mother,’ I called to him, ‘but I would have liked to meet her.’

      His face took on the reverent look that any mention of his mother always provoked. He seemed to regret that he had spoken so harshly to me for he made a conciliatory gesture. ‘She was a great woman,’ he said.

      I smiled at him. At that moment, looking back, I could have changed sides so easily and Guthrum would have welcomed me if I had just given his mother a compliment, but I was a belligerent young man and the battle joy was on me. ‘I would have spat in her ugly face,’ I told Guthrum, ‘and now I piss on your mother’s soul, and tell you that the beasts of Niflheim are humping her rancid bones.’

      He screamed with rage and they all charged, some splashing through the shallows, all desperate to reach me and avenge the terrible insult, but Leofric and I were running like hunted boars, and we charged through the reeds and into the water and hurled ourselves onto the last punt. The first two were gone, but the third had waited for us and, as we sprawled on its damp boards, the man with the pole pushed hard and the craft slid away into the black water. The Danes tried to follow, but we were going surprisingly fast, gliding through the snowfall, and Guthrum was shouting at me and a spear was thrown, but the marshman poled again and the

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