So Rikke’s plan had worked. Seemed a mad plan, when she whispered it to him, her eyes in the darkness, the one that saw nothing and the one that saw too much, her breath hot on his face and smelling pleasantly of ale. Seemed a mad plan, but such a bold one he couldn’t say no. Never even thought of saying no. Didn’t know how he’d ever say no to her.

She was honest and wise and beautiful and strange and knew things no one else knew and said things no one else would’ve dared to and made him laugh when no one else could. He’d never met a woman like her. There weren’t any others.

“Come on, come on,” he whispered. “Come on.”

He’d heard of love but never thought it was anything for him to worry about. But maybe this was love, this having of a woman always at the back of your mind. This feeling that any time not with her was time wasted. This aching in him to get back into her bed.

The memory of her kicking her trousers off, sitting in Skarling’s Chair with her eyes on him and her legs open, would get him hard at all the wrong times. By the dead, he was getting hard right now, lying on the damp hilltop looking down at a battle.

But this was no day for lovers’ thoughts. This was a red day for red thoughts and red deeds. Rikke needed him, and the Great Leveller would pay a red visit to any man who put himself between them.

“Come on, come on, come on, come—”

He was up and sprinting before the echoes of Shivers’ second blast even faded, flying down the sedge-patched hillside.

He’d never been one for war cries. Why tell your enemy where you are? They’ll learn soon enough.

Surprise, that’s the key. Whether you’re fighting one man or a thousand or ten thousand. The more you’re fighting, the more important it becomes, ’cause shock spreads faster’n plague, faster’n fire, and turns the bravest into cowards.

So he rushed up silent as winter, silent as sickness. He knew the others were with him. His brothers, his cousins, every man he could gather, trekked the long, cold road back from the West Valleys in secret darkness to be here.

The baggage was ahead. Calder’s soft underbelly. The dirty horses and the mud-caked wagons that held the supplies. The smiths and the cooks. The women and the children who slogged after the men. Killing the fighters was cutting off the fingers, but hitting the baggage was cutting out the guts. And the Nail felt the fierce smile spread across his face, the fierce fire burning through his limbs, stronger and stronger with every stride.

Might be he loved Rikke, but battle was his oldest love, his first love. That was who he was and who he’d always be.

There were a few guards, but most were already running. He could hear their desperate cries, tugging him on. Women, too, shrieking and wailing. There was a fighter at the front, in bright mail with a bright spear, trying to turn his men, to form a wobbly shield-wall, but they weren’t halfway there. Far too late and far too few. The Nail ran right for him, faster’n ever, wind in his face. He always went at the hardest-looking bastard he could find. Bring down their toughest, break the rest.