‘Lord,’ Beornoth hissed, elbowing me.

I must have fallen half asleep, but woke abruptly. Serpent-Breath was drawn, lying hidden in the straw beside me and I instinctively took her hilt. I looked to my right where the rowers had bedded down. I could see none moving and could hear nothing but snoring, but after a moment I also heard low muttering and assumed that sound had alerted Beornoth. I could make out no words. The muttering stopped then started again. I heard the filthy straw rustling and the clink of the chains. That sound had not stopped all night, but sleeping men move their feet and I had dismissed it. The moon was low in the sky, so little light leaked through the barn’s broken roof, but all the rowers appeared to be sleeping. I listened, trying to distinguish the noise a chain might make if it were being slowly drawn through the ring of an ankle fetter, but all I heard were snores. An owl called. One of the children at the other end of the barn cried in her sleep and was hushed. A chain clinked again, stopped, and then sounded louder. The straw rustled, then went quiet. I waited, tense, my hand tight on Serpent-Breath’s hilt.

Then it happened. A big man, little more than a shadow in the darkness, stood and charged towards me. He bellowed a challenge as he lunged at me. The chain clattered behind him. I shouted too, a wordless shout of rage, and I lifted Serpent-Breath and let the big man run onto the blade. I was trying to stand, but the weight of the man pushed me against Beornoth and we both fell back. Serpent-Breath had gone deep, I had felt her punch through layers of muscle, but the man, still roaring, swung at me with a seax, which must have been the blade I had given to Irenmund, and I felt my mail rip and a sharp pain score across my left shoulder. I had been driven down to the barn’s floor. I was still gripping Serpent-Breath and was suddenly aware of warm blood soaking my right hand. Beornoth was shouting, children were screaming, I heard Finan curse, but I could see nothing because I was still trapped beneath the big man who was breathing gutturally, gasping into my face. I heaved him off me, managed to get to my knees, and ripped Serpent-Breath up. I should have been using Wasp-Sting because there was no room to wield the long blade, but before I could free the sword, two more men came at me, their faces distorted by fear and rage. The big man was dying, but had my left leg in his grip. I twisted Serpent-Breath in his guts just as one of the two men lunged at my belly and in the moonlight I saw a small knife in his hand. I twisted away and the dying man’s grip tripped me so I fell again and the man with the knife followed me down, snarling, the knife aimed at my right eye. I held his wrist with my left hand, the right still holding Serpent-Breath, and the knife-man snarled again and used his strength to drive his blade down. He had been pulling an oar and his strength was prodigious. I wanted to slash his neck with Serpent-Breath, but the second man was trying to tug the sword away from me, and I remember thinking that this was a futile way to die. The first man was inching the knife closer. In the dim moonlit barn I could see it was not really a knife, but a ship’s nail, a spike, and he was grunting with the effort of trying to push it into my eye while I was trying to thrust his hand away and still keep hold of Serpent-Breath.