There were still twenty Arabs between him and the gate. His shield was flapping like a broken wing. He flung it away and snatched a javelin from the gore-slick roadway as a black-helmed swordsman turned to meet him. Beyond him was another Arab, a huge black-clad beast with an enormous axe, hacking great shivers of wood out of the gate. Erlan knew he’d have it open soon but the swordsman blocked his way. Their blades rang, his bones jarred to the marrow, the Arab’s eyes flared, curved steel whipped across his thigh. Erlan screamed in pain, spraying spittle in his enemy’s face, feeling the strength leak from his limb as he fell to his knee. The Arab slashed down his blade, expecting to finish him, but Erlan threw himself forward, driving Wrathling’s pommel into the man’s groin. The Arab buckled, the javelin slid through Erlan’s fingers, he jabbed upwards, and the point went through the man’s throat like a street vendor’s skewer. The man choked, coughed blood into Erlan’s face, blinding him, then fell to the ground. For a second Erlan couldn’t see.

‘Get up, get up, you young lout!’ yelled Einar’s voice. ‘We ain’t done yet.’ Erlan felt a powerful hand grab the scruff of his tunic and haul him to his feet. He palmed the worst of the blood from his eyes and snatched his new long-knife from its sheath at his back. He looked up. To his horror, the axeman and his comrades were throwing down the splintered remains of the bars that locked the gate in place. The last of them had hardly touched the ground when the doors flung wide and a torrent of men burst through the gap like the breaking of a tidal wave.

Erlan had time only to seize Einar’s shoulder and dive out of the way, dragging the fat man with him. A dozen Arabs were through – then fifty, sixty, a hundred men. His head and shoulders smashed against the stone wall behind the gate, knocking the wind out of him. From the ground, he could see only the door and the racing figures, hear the yells of triumph, taste the sour nausea of disaster and defeat in his throat. Everything was a blur, everything shifting, everything moving. Everything except the door.

It was a mad hope. Mad and forlorn. His head was ringing. But all he could think was: close the gate.

There it was. Close the gate.

He stood, put his shoulder to it and pushed. Pushed against the ocean but the ocean gave not an inch. The weight of men was too heavy. Then, suddenly, there was another man beside him, heavyset, and swearing like a blacksmith in a language he knew well.

‘Heave,’ Erlan rasped through gritted teeth.