How was it to be broken? Even as he cut and stabbed and thrust, even as he felt his own strength drain with the blood he must be losing, Arngrim tried to think, just as the King had urged him to. If they couldn’t batter their way through the Danes, what was to be done?

Then Egil reared up before him once more. The Beast of Cippanhamm had lost his helmet, and some lucky English blow had smashed his teeth, turning his mouth into a bloody pit lined with jagged stumps. But his eyes were wild. He was laughing.

And he recognised Arngrim.

In that instant Arngrim thought of Cynewulf and his prophecy. If not for the Menologium this battle might not be taking place at all, for Alfred might not have found the determination to wage it - and if not for the Menologium the Beast would not have the faith in his own invulnerability which must have carried him through battle after battle, to this field. They were here, Arngrim thought, both of them, positioned like counters on a game board, because of the Weaver, the sage of the furthest future. And yet they could die here.

Egil threw himself forward.

Their shields slammed. Arngrim was thrust back half a pace. Egil stepped back to drive again, but before the Dane could close Arngrim raised his shield and slammed its boss into Egil’s face. Egil staggered, his nose a bloody ruin, and Arngrim had room to draw Ironsides from its scabbard on his back. But Egil came on again, spattering Arngrim with blood and spit and snot, and their shields clashed once more. It was almost with relief that Arngrim realised that he could give himself up to this elemental fight, let himself fall into the pit of darkness inside him.

But he must think. To break the Danish shield wall was more important than to sate himself in a private war with this animal of a man - and in a flash he saw how he could do it.

With a roar and a vast exertion he shoved Egil back once more. And the next time Egil came at him, rather than facing Egil’s charge, he flung himself backwards. He clattered into the fyrdmen behind him and finished up on his back.

Egil, off balance and caught by surprise, ran a couple of steps forward and tumbled over. His huge strength had been holding this section of the Danes’ wall together, and without his support the Danes around him slipped and fell. A length of the skjaldborg collapsed, battered Danish shields knocking against each other.

And the English, roaring, rushed into the gap like flies into a wound.

Arngrim’s ploy had worked. Now all he needed was a grain of luck for himself, a splinter of time.

But his luck ran out. Egil was already on his feet, and standing over him. The blade of his axe flashed.