The shouting in the background was getting angry as the watchers grasped Shef’s tactic. They might start to close in and narrow the ring. As Flann tried his favorite backhand sweep downward—a little slower now, a little too predictable—Shef stepped forward for the first time and parried fiercely, aiming the base of his thick blade at the tip of the longsword. No snap. But as the Irishman hesitated, Shef slashed out of the parry at the back of the other man’s arm—a quick spurt of blood.

Shef was out of reach again, refusing to follow up his advantage, circling to his right, changing step as the other man advanced and then moving to his left again. He had seen the momentary shock in the warrior’s eyes. Now there was blood running down over Flann’s sword-hand, quite a lot of it, enough to weaken him in a few minutes if he did not finish things quickly.

For a hundred heartbeats they stood close to the center of the ring, Flann trying now to thrust as well as cut, stabbing out with his buckler; Shef parrying as well as dodging, trying to knock the sword from his enemy’s blood-smeared hand.

Then Shef felt, suddenly, the confidence draining from his enemy’s blows. Shef began to move again, springing on tireless feet, circling his opponent, moving always to the left, trying to get behind the other’s sword-arm, careless of the energy he expended.

Flann’s breath came almost as a sob. He hurled the buckler at Shef’s face and followed it with a ripping upward stab. But Shef was in a crouch, knuckles of his sword-hand on the ground. His parry deflected the thrust far over his left shoulder. In an instant Shef straightened and drove his own sword deep beneath the naked, sweating ribs. As the stricken man shuddered and staggered away, Shef seized him in a wrestler’s grip round the neck and poised his sword again.

Shef heard through the yelling the voice of Killer-Brand. “You gave him to Naströnd,” it shouted. “You must finish him.”

Shef looked down at the pallid, terror-stricken, still-living face in the crook of his arm, and felt a surge of fury. He drove the sword deeply home through the chest and felt the pain of death leap through Flann’s body. Slowly, he dropped the corpse, retrieved his sword. Saw Muirtach’s face, pale with rage. He stepped over to Ivar, where he stood with Godive now at his side.

“Most instructive,” said Ivar. “I like to see someone who can fight with his head as well as his sword-arm. You have saved me a silver ring too. But you have cost me a man. How are you going to pay me back?”

“I am a man as well, lord.”