Then Sköll’s men had appeared, and Osferth had kept his shield wall in place because no one attacks a shield wall lightly. He expected Sköll to shout a challenge, to taunt us with insults, and then ride away rather than lose men in an assault on a shield wall. Osferth had faith in numbers, and we were the larger force, and clever as he was, Osferth could not imagine that Sköll would dare start a fight he was doomed to lose.

But Sköll had already lost face by failing to capture Eoferwic. He had led an army east and he had been defeated, and all he had to show for the effort was a few slaves and some skinny cattle. His men were not going to become rich from this expedition, and like all the Northmen, he had promised his followers wealth. That was why they were in Britain. Sköll had vowed to become King of Northumbria, and he would have promised his chieftains land, silver, women, cattle, and slaves. Instead they were retreating back to their steadings on Cumbraland’s western coast. A Norse chieftain who failed to reward his men was a chieftain who would lose his reputation.

But Sköll had seen the shield wall, and seen a chance to win a victory that would yield horses, mail, saddlery, weapons, and captives. It would not even begin to approach the plunder that he would have gained at Eoferwic, but to retreat from the shield wall’s challenge would brand him as a coward and a failure. He had no choice. He had to attack, and he had seen just how vulnerable Osferth was. And I had tried to think myself into Sköll’s place. How would I attack this shield wall? How would I tear it into red ruin? And the answer was obvious to me, though Osferth, clever as he was, had not seen it.

A shield wall is a terrifying thing to assault, but Sköll’s men were mounted, and they could ride around the wall and attack it from the rear, especially as Osferth’s wall was straddling the road with its flanks in the open pastureland. I did not doubt that Osferth would take them back to the tree line before that could happen, and Sköll’s horsemen would have a hard time with the tangling undergrowth and low branches, and my horsemen would offer another challenge, but Sköll, I knew, had no intention of letting Osferth fight a messy battle at the edge of the wood. He planned to cut down Osferth’s shield wall in the open country, and to make that happen he had sent a handful of horsemen to circle behind us, and those men were now moving quietly toward us, hidden by the trees on the western ridge, and when they saw Sköll’s larger force was close enough, they would burst from the trees to charge the rear of Osferth’s wall. Even a half-dozen spearmen, mounted on good horses, could tear a shield wall apart if they attacked from behind, and the result would be panic as Osferth’s men turned to fight off the sudden assault, and during that panic Sköll’s main force would charge. There would be a brief fight, a slaughter, then the horror of blood-slicked grass where the wall had once stood.