Redeemed.

The old Northman twisted around as he heard Gorst’s howl, eyes going wide, bringing his shield up. The long steel chopped deep into it, splitting the timbers, wrenching it around on his arm, driving the metal rim into his head and tossing him tumbling sideways.

Gorst stepped up to finish the job but again there was someone in his way. As always. Hardly more than a boy, swinging a hatchet, shouting. The usual stuff, probably, die, die, blah, blah, blah. Gorst was happy to die, of course. But not for this fool’s convenience. He jerked his head sideways, let the hatchet bounce harmlessly from his shoulder-plate, spun about, long steel curving after him through the wet air. The boy tried desperately to block it but the heavy blade snatched the hatchet from his hand and split his face wide open, spraying brains.

The point of a sword whispered at him and Gorst whipped back from the waist, felt the wind of it across his cheek, a niggling discomfort under his eye. A space had opened in the screaming crowd, the battle blooming from a single press to mindless clumps of sodden combat at the very centre of the Heroes. All concepts of lines, tactics, directions, orders, of sides even, vanished as though they had never been. And good riddance, they only confuse things.

For some reason a half-naked Northman stood facing him, with the biggest sword Gorst had ever seen. And I have seen a lot. Absurdly long, as if it had been forged for a giant’s use, dull grey metal gleaming with rain, a single letter stamped near the hilt.

He looked like some lurid painting by an artist who never saw a battlefield, but silly-looking people can be just as deadly as silly-sounding ones, and Gorst had coughed out all his arrogance in the smoke of Cardotti’s House of Leisure. A man must treat every fight as though it is his last. Will this be my last? We can hope.

He rocked back, cautious, as the man’s elbow twitched up for a sideways blow, shifted his shield to meet it, steel ready to counter. But instead of swinging the Northman lunged, using the great blade like a spear, the point darting past the edge of Gorst’s shield and squealing down his breastplate, sending him stumbling. A feint. The instinct to jump back was powerful but he forced himself to keep his eyes fixed on the blade, watched its path curve through the rain, an arc of glistening droplets following after.

Gorst wrenched himself sideways and the great sword hissed past, caught the armour on his elbow and ripped it flapping off. He was already thrusting but the point of his steel caught only falling water as his half-naked opponent slid away. Gorst switched back for a savage head-height cut but the man snaked under it, hefted the great sword up with shocking speed as Gorst’s steel swept down, blades ringing together with a finger-numbing clang. They broke apart, watchful, the Northman’s eyes calmly focused on Gorst in spite of the hammering rain.