Guthmund looked at him attentively. Ogvind the Swede: a very hard man. Threats no good. And he needed these men to use their full strength up the steep hillside.

“This is how it is,” he said. “If we win, I’ll let you go. If we lose, I’ll leave you chained to the machines. Maybe the Christians will be merciful to you. Fair?”

Ogvind nodded. Struck by a sudden thought, Guthmund turned to the black deacon, the machine-master.

“What about you? Will you fight these for us?”

Erkenbert’s face set. “Against Christians? The emissaries of the Pope, the Holy Father, whom I myself and my master called to this abode of savages? Rather will I embrace the crown of holy martydom and go …”

A hand plucked at Guthmund’s sleeve: one of the few slaves taken from York Minster who had survived both Ivar’s furies and Erkenbert’s discipline.

“We’ll do it, master,” he whispered. “Be a pleasure.”

Guthmund waved the mixed party up the steep hillside, going first himself with the fishermen and minster-men to reconnoiter, the Ragnarssons struggling up next under their ton-and-a-half burdens. Slowly, still cloaked by the rain, six onagers and a thousand Vikings moved into position four hundred yards from the Frankish stockade. Guthmund shook his head disapprovingly as he realized that there were not even sentries posted on the seaward side—or if there had been, they had all drifted over to the other side to watch and listen to the far-off rumor of battle.

The first sighting shot from an onager bounced short, kicked up and flicked a ten-foot post stump-first out of the ground. The minster-men pulled out coigns, lifted the frames a trifle. The next volley of five twenty-pound boulders smashed down twenty feet of stockade in a moment. Guthmund saw no point in waiting for a second volley. His army headed straight for the gap at a run. The startled Franks, mostly archers, bowstrings useless, faced with a thousand veteran warriors ready to fight on foot at close quarters, broke and ran almost to a man.

Two hours after setting foot onshore, Guthmund looked out from the Frankish gate. All his training told him to parcel the loot, abandon the now-unnecessary machines, and get back to sea before vengeance fell on him. Yet what he saw looked uncommonly like a beaten army streaming back. If so, if so …

He turned, shouted orders. Skaldfinn the interpreter, priest of Heimdall, looked at him in surprise.

“You’re taking a risk,” he said.

“Can’t help it. I remember what my grandpa told me. Always kick a man if he’s down.”