The sword flew out of Magnus’s grasp, to land well on Shef’s side of the line. All eyes flew to the umpires. Shef stepped back a pace, two paces, looked firmly at the sky. A buzz as the audience realized what was happening, a low growl of approval—a growl that went on as the keenly intent audience began to realize the potentialities of Shef’s weapon and the problem the two Hebrideans were facing. Stone-faced, Magnus stepped forward, recovered his blade, hesitated, then saluted briefly with it and returned to his side of the line.

This time Shef swung the weapon over his left shoulder, and struck like a woodsman felling a tree, left hand sliding down the weapon as it swung, concentrating all his force and all the weight of the seven feet of metal behind the slicing half-yard of blade. Kolbein leapt quickly and decisively to save his partner, and got the shield well up above head height. The axe slashed through its edge and swung on, turned only slightly by the resistance of the metal rim, shore through two feet of lindenwood, and embedded itself with a thunk in the muddy ground. Shef jerked it free and stood once more on guard.

Kolbein looked at the half-shield still strapped to his arm and muttered something to Magnus. Impassive, Halvdan Ragnarsson stepped forward, picked up the severed oval of wood and tossed it to one side.

“Shields may only be replaced at the agreement of both parties,” he observed. “Strike.”

Magnus stepped forward with something like desperation in his eyes now, and swung a wicked blow with no warning, just above knee height. A swordsman would have jumped it, or tried to—it was just above the height a man might be expected to manage. Shef moved his right hand slightly and stopped the blow dead with his weapon’s metal-reinforced shaft. Almost before Magnus could regain the shelter of his partner’s shield, he was stepping forward, this time swinging upward, with the spike side foremost. A thump as it met the remnants of the shield, a resistance which this time was not one of wood alone, Kolbein staring at the foot-long spike which had driven through shield and forearm, splitting ulna and humerus bones.

Stone-faced, Shef slid his hand high up the head of the halberd, gripping tight, and jerked back. Kolbein staggered forward, put a foot over the line, recovered himself and straightened up, face white with shock and pain. There was a simultaneous yell as his foot went down, and then a confusion of cries.

“Fight’s over, past the mark!”

“He struck at the shield-bearer!”

“He struck at the man. If the shield-bearer puts his arm in the way …”

“First blood to the smith, settle all bets!”