I beckoned Oswi to my side. He was young, lithe, cunning, and savage. He had once been my servant before growing old enough and skilled enough to join the shield wall. ‘Sneak up the back of the cottages,’ I told him, pointing southwards, ‘go as far as you can, show yourself, stare at them, show them your naked arse, and then pretend to run away.’

He grinned, turned, and disappeared behind the southern hovel. Finan was lying flat at the street corner, peering towards the tavern through a patch of nettles. Still we waited. The rain was pelting, bouncing in the street, cascading from the roofs, and swirling in the gusting wind. Thunder crackled and faded. I pulled my hammer amulet free, clutched it, closed my eyes briefly and prayed that Thor would preserve me.

‘They’re coming!’ Finan called.

‘How?’ I needed to know whether Wighelm had stayed in the shield wall or was hurrying to catch us.

‘They’re running!’ Finan called. He wriggled back out of sight, stood and wiped mud from Soul-Stealer’s blade. ‘Or trying to run!’

It seemed that Oswi’s insult had worked. Wighelm, if he had possessed an ounce of sense, should have sent two or three men to explore the village, but he had kept his shield wall together and now hurried his men in pursuit of Oswi who, he must have assumed, was running with the rest of us. So Wighelm had broken his own shield wall and now chivvied his men up the street in what he fondly imagined was a pursuit.

And we burst from our alley, screaming a war cry that was as much a protest against the cold and wet as a challenge to the red-cloaked men. They were straggling in the muddy street, miserable because of the weather, and, best of all, scattered. We struck them with the force of the storm itself and Thor must have heard my prayer because he released a sky-splintering hammer of thunder directly over our heads, and I saw a young man turn towards me, terror on his face, and he raised his shield that I hit with my full weight, driving him down into the mud. Someone, I assumed it was Wighelm, was bellowing for the West Saxons to make their shield wall, but it was much too late. Berg passed me as I kicked the youngster’s sword arm away and the day’s gloom was lit by a bright spray of blood as Berg’s savage blade sliced the fallen man’s throat. Berg kept running, hamstringing a burly man who was shouting incoherently. The man screamed as Berg’s sword sliced through the back of his knees and then shrieked as Gerbruht lunged a sword into his belly.

I was running towards Wighelm who turned his spear towards me. He looked as terrified as his men. I knocked the spear aside with my sword, body-charged his shield, and threw him down into the mud. I kicked his head, stood over him and held Serpent-Breath at his throat. ‘Don’t move!’ I snarled. Finan snatched Wighelm’s spear and lunged it left-handed at the shield of a tall man half crouching to meet Folcbald’s charge. The spear struck the bottom edge of the shield, tipping it downwards, and Finan’s fast sword slashed viciously across the man’s eyes. Folcbald finished the blinded man with a savage two-handed thrust that pierced mail and ripped up from belly to breastbone. The flooded rut in the street turned red, the rain hammered and splashed pink, and the wind howled over the marshes to drown the agonised sobs.