‘Make way!’ a voice shouted behind me, and I ducked aside as a spearman ran through our ranks with a great burning shaft of wood. He thrust it at the enemy’s faces, they twisted aside from the glowing tip, and we jumped into the gap. The fire scorched our faces as we hacked and thrusted. More flaming brands flew over iis. The enemy closest to me had twisted away from the heat, opening his unprotected side to my neighbour, and I heard his ribs snap under the spear’s thrust and saw the blood bubble at his lips as he dropped. I was in the enemy’s second rank now, and the fallen timber was burning my leg, but I let the pain turn into a rage that drove Hywelbane hard into a man’s face, and then the men behind me kicked sand onto the flames as they pushed forward, driving me on into the third rank. I had no room now to use my sword, for I was crushed shield to shield against a swearing man who spat at me and tried to work his own sword past my shield’s edge. A spear came over my shoulder to strike the swearing man’s cheek and the pressure of his shield yielded just enough to let me push my own shield forward and swing Hywelbane. Later, much later, I remember screaming an incoherent sound of rage as I hammered that man into the sand. The madness of battle was on us, the desperate madness of fighting men trapped in a small place, but it was the enemy who was giving way. Rage was turned into horror and we fought like Gods. The sun blazed just above the western hill.

‘Shields! Shields! Shields!’ Sagramor roared, reminding us to keep the wall continuous, and my right-hand neighbour knocked his shield on mine, grinned, and stabbed forward with his spear. I saw an enemy’s sword being drawn back for a mighty blow and I met it with Hywelbane on the man’s wrist and she cut through that wrist as though the enemy’s bones were made of reed. The sword flew into our rear ranks with a bloody hand still gripping its hilt. The man on my left fell with an enemy spear in his belly, but the second rank man took his place and shouted a great oath as he slammed his shield forward and swung his sword down.

Another burning log flew low over us and fell on two of the enemy, who reeled apart. We leapt into the gap, and suddenly there was empty sand ahead of us. ‘Stay together!’ I shouted, ‘stay together!’ The enemy was breaking. Their front rank was dead or wounded, their second rank was dying, and the men in the rear were those who least wanted to fight and so were the ones who were easiest to kill. Those rear ranks were filled by men who were skilled at rape and clever at pillage, but had never faced a shield wall of hardened killers. And how we were killing now. Their wall was breaking, corroded by fire and fear, and we were screaming a victor’s chant. I stumbled on a body, fell forward and rolled over with my shield held above my face. A sword slammed into the shield, the sound deafening, then Sagramor’s men stepped over me and a spearman hauled me upright. ‘Wounded?’ he asked.