“Get me up,” I growled, and my son gave me his arm and I forced myself up. I swayed, my head hurt, but I stayed on my feet.

“Don’t die, Lord Uhtred!” Sköll shouted. “I want to kill you myself. I will add your head and your banner to the trophies in my hall.” His ramparts were crowded. His men were grinning and laughing. We were beaten, and Sköll knew it. “But don’t go away yet!” he called. “Stay an hour or so and I’ll wake up my úlfhéðnar.” He laughed again, then went from the parapet.

And I knew it could only get worse. The úlfhéðnar would be unleashed to crown Sköll’s victory. And two kings would die.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Many a carcass they left to be carrion,

Left for the white-tail’d eagle to tear it, and

Left for the horny-nibb’d raven to rend it, and

Gave to the scavenging war-hawk to gorge it, and

That gray beast, the wolf . . .

I had to smile. “Horny-nibbed raven?”

“You think it should be horny-beaked, lord?” Father Selwyn asked anxiously.

“You’re the poet,” I said, “not me.” I remembered the ravens flying up from the Tine valley, hosts of black wings in a dread morning, coming to the feast we were preparing for them. “But I didn’t see any wolves,” I told the young priest, “except of course for the úlfhéðnar.”

“So Sköll,” he said, “sent his úlf—” he paused, uncertain of the word again.

“His úlfhéðnar.”

“His úlfhéðnar to fight you, lord?”

I nodded. “We didn’t think he would, at least not while we were so close to his walls.”

“Why not, lord?”

“He had us beaten! We had a choice. Either we assaulted again and more of our men would die, or else we ran away. That would be the time for Sköll to let loose his savages. When he said he’d wake up his úlfhéðnar we thought he was just trying to frighten us. Trying to persuade us to give up and retreat down the hill.” I closed my eyes, imagining. “Can you understand what would have happened?” I asked the poet. “Broken men, wounded men, defeated men, stumbling down a steep hillside pursued by the wolf-fighters. Our men would have panicked. It would have been a slaughter.”

We almost gave Sköll the chance to inflict that slaughter. I was standing unsteadily, my sword arm around my son’s shoulders, and still dazed when Sigtryggr came to find me. He walked slowly, there was blood on his left shoulder where his mail had been torn open, and his shield arm was hanging limp. He frowned when he saw me. “You’re hurt,” he said. I was wearing a dead man’s helmet that had blood on its rim.

“So are you, lord King.”

“Spear-thrust,” he said dismissively.

“You can still hold a shield?”

He shook his head, then turned to look at the fort. “It’s a bastard,” he said quietly, and I knew that was an admission of failure.