“Sigtryggr says we should attack again,” my son said.

Finan used a knife to cut open my breeches. “Bind it tight, girl.”

“We have to help Sigtryggr,” I said.

“You’re doing nothing more, lord,” Finan said.

“I’ve done nothing yet,” I said bitterly, and moaned as pain stabbed through my skull.

I do not know how much time had passed. As I sat, half stunned, trying to clear my sight, it seemed as if we had only just arrived and the fight had been as brief as it was disastrous, but the fog had cleared, the sky was blue and the sun high. Horns were sounding from Sigtryggr’s ranks, men were cheering, Svart, huge and fearsome, was calling them back to the fight. “We have to help them,” my son said.

“Stay with your father,” Finan said. “I’ll lead this one.”

“Finan,” I called, and the effort provoked another lance of pain in my head.

“Lord?”

“Be careful!”

He laughed at that. “Lord,” he was talking to my son, “if your father can walk, get him downhill to the horses.”

“We’re not running away,” I insisted.

“I’ll come with you—” my son began speaking to Finan.

“You stay!” Finan ordered him sharply. “And get your father to the horses. You, girl, help him.”

I waited for Finan to leave, tried to stand, and fell back, dizzy. “We stay here,” I growled, and so I just watched the second assault on Sköll’s fortress and it fared no better than the first. We had made such a mess of this fight. We had been impetuous, unwilling to wait, trusting to fate to see us across the ditches and over the wall, and fate had spat in our faces. The defenders were throwing more blocks of masonry pulled from the Roman ruins, and each was heavy enough to crush a skull. Finan, evidently abandoning our plan to attack the northern corner, had ordered Cuthwulf and his archers to harass the men defending the wall we had assaulted before, but most of the arrows were wasted on shields. I could see snarling-wolf shields stuck with a score of arrows, and behind them the Norsemen hurled down stones or thrust with spears. Finan even managed to get one ladder against the wall, but before he or anyone could climb it, a man leaned down and swept it aside with an ax. Gerbruht seized the man’s arm and hauled him over the ramparts, and I saw my men’s spears rising and falling in vengeance, but that was their one small victory.