Muirtach was swinging already. A lunging lever from Cwicca deflected his stroke, guided it onto the bowstring of the fully wound but unloosed catapult.

A deep twang, a thwack louder than a whale-fluke on water.

“Son of the Virgin,” said Muirtach, staring down.

One arm of the catapult, released, had slammed forward the six inches which were all that it could travel. In those six inches it had expended all the stored energy that could drive a barb a mile. The whole side of Muirtach’s bare chest was crushed in as if from the hammer-blow of a giant. Blood ran from the Irishman’s mouth. He stepped back, sat down, slumped back against the wagon wall.

“I see you have turned Christian again,” said Shef. “So you will remember, ‘an eye for an eye.’” Reversing his halberd, he drove its butt-spike deep through Muirtach’s eye and into the brain.

In the brief seconds of the confrontation everything had changed. Shef looked up and saw only backs. The Ragnarsson attackers had turned away, were throwing down their weapons, unbuckling their shields. “Brother,” they shouted, “fellow, messmate.” One, incongruously, was pulling open his tunic, hauling out a silver emblem. A Wayman, maybe, who had decided to stay with a father or a chief rather than march out of York. Behind them hundreds of men were moving forward in a bristling wedge, the giant figure of Brand at its apex. In front of the wedge the plain was covered only with men running, men limping, men standing in knots with their hands raised. The Ragnarsson army had broken. Its survivors had the choice only of running for their lives in heavy mail or hoping for immediate mercy.

Shef lowered “Thrall’s-Wreak,” suddenly weary. As he started to clamber from the wagon a flash of movement caught his eye. Two horses, one a rider with a scarlet cloak, grass-green trousers.

For an instant Ivar Ragnarsson stared from his saddle across the lost battlefield at Shef standing on the cart. Then he and his horse-swain were away, clods flying in the air from the trampling hooves.

Brand strode over, clasped Shef’s hand.

“You had me worried there, thought you were running away. But toward battle, not from it. A good day’s work done.”

“The day’s not done yet. There is still an army behind us,” said Shef. “And Sigvarth. The Mercians should have been at our backs this dawn. He has held them twelve hours longer than I thought possible.”

“But maybe not long enough,” said Magnus Gaptooth from his place on the wagon. He stretched out an arm, pointed. Far away across the level plain, a stray shaft of winter sunlight sent up a prickle of darting reflections: the spear-points of an army, deployed and advancing.

“I need more time,” said Brand gruffly in Shef’s ear. “Go talk, bargain, buy me some.”