And behind us the big men with the strangely long axes struck. Those men, like Gerbruht and Folcbald, both Frisians, let the axes fall over the defenders and then hauled back, using the long spiked beard of the blade to gaff the enemy like fish. The heavy blows on my shield ended as the first ax blows landed, I heard a shout from above, then blood splashed on my splintered shield and some dripped through a split in the wood. There was another bellow from above me, and a Norseman came tumbling over the rampart to fall at my feet. Vidarr Leifson, beside me, stabbed down with his short seax, the man jerked like a landed fish and then died. I remember the man dying, and then little more. My axes were working, at least until Sköll’s men learned to hack at the long shafts with their own axes, but every man we killed or wounded on the wall was immediately replaced by another, and it was one of those newcomers who hurled down a great block of stone that shattered my weakened shield and struck the left side of my helmet.

I showed the battered helmet to the poet. “See the gash?”

Father Selwyn fingered the metal that had split where the stone had crushed the helmet. “That must have hurt, lord.”

I laughed. “I had a headache for days after, but at the time? It didn’t hurt, I was knocked unconscious.”

Father Selwyn ran an ink-stained finger across the scar that disfigured the silver wolf that crested the helmet. “You never had it repaired, lord?”

“It’s a reminder of my stupidity,” I said, making the young man smile. “And I have other helmets.”

“Were you attacking the northern tower when it happened?”

“We hadn’t got that far. The idea was to draw men away from that corner.”

Like almost everything else that day, the plan to weaken the northern corner by attacking the southwestern angle of the fort did not work. Sköll had crammed a small army into Heahburh, and he had no need to weaken any part of his ramparts. All he had to do was let us make futile attacks on his walls until we finally abandoned the assaults, and then pursue us to destruction. That had been his plan ever since he had withdrawn from Bebbanburg, and, like fools, we obliged him.

My attack on the northern stretch of the wall failed. We lost another seven men, Sköll lost two men. We had sixteen wounded, including myself, and Sköll had maybe a half-dozen injured at the most. I did not see our retreat from the wall and its ditches, I was unconscious. I had been struck by the lump of stone that splintered my shield and split my helmet. I fell, and Finan later told me how Gerbruht and Eadric seized my arms, rescued Serpent-Breath, and dragged me back. A spear struck my left thigh while they hauled me over the banks. The blade cut deep, but I was unaware of it. Finan tried to keep the men at the wall, tried to gaff yet another Norseman and haul him down to the inner ditch, but when my men saw me being pulled back to the safer ground beyond the ditches they lost heart. They retreated with me, pursued by Norse jeers and thrown spears.