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into him.

    He dropped her arm - she was valueless. He then registered her alarm as she saw the basket with the children in it. She wailed and dived towards Varrin. Authun in an instant realised - she was the children’s mother.

    ‘Catch her.’ Authun’s command had no explanation, as orders in battle do not. The huge Varrin dropped his left arm and lifted her off her feet to pin her squirming at his side.

    It hadn’t occurred to Authun how he would feed two newborns on the three-week voyage back, and he almost laughed as he saw how nearly his plans had come to failure from such an oversight. The fates had dropped the woman into his lap.

    ‘With us,’ said Authun, striding outside. The church was already burning but he pitched the torch onto the roof for good measure.

    Varrin shouldered the basket, the children crying and the tiny woman under his other arm still struggling. The raiders set off down the hill. The West Men were finally sorting out their defence and had managed to find some more skilful bowmen. Arrows flew past the Norsemen, one even glancing off Kol’s helmet as they retreated down the slope. They quickly moved their shields to their backs as they ran. Making the boat would be the most perilous part, as they had to cross the open beach. Authun had an answer to that.

    ‘Kol, Eyvind,’ he said, ‘harry our pursuers. Hide here and when they pass attack them from the rear. Take the bowmen first.’

    Both men discarded their spears and took out their axes. Then they were gone, inside a house to set their ambush. Against the burning church, Authun picked up a different pattern of movement. A rider. The lord’s bodyguard were arriving - trained fighters. Authun had heard traders call these men by many names - gesith, thegns and even, like his own retainers, housecarls. Authun was not a sentimental man and knew they were every bit as good as his own warriors. There couldn’t be many assembled so quickly but, squinting through the smoke and firelight, he could see at least three horses now. When more arrived, they would dismount to attack. The weapon of fear would be useless against them. It would be spear against spear, with the mob at the thegns’ backs. He had no time to waste.

    ‘The ship! The ship!’

    The remaining six raiders ran through the village. Authun left four to lie in wait in the shadows of the last houses before the beach and shouted to the two on the ship to come up and defend the gap in the staves. Only he and Varrin pressed on, his kinsman carrying the basket, the king now driving the mother.

    On the hill Eyvind and Kol died bravely. Kol split a bowman’s skull with his axe from behind with his first blow and knocked a thegn unconscious through his helmet with his second. His third strike cleft a bowman from shoulder to chest. He never made a fourth - two spearmen came at his flank and struck him in the head and belly. He fell to the ground and a farmer cut off his head with a hand scythe. Eyvind broke a bowman’s arm with a poor stroke from his battleaxe. He made up for his slack work with his second blow, taking a spearman’s jaw clean off and managing to continue the arc of his axe so it embedded itself in another’s arm. Four thegns were on him then with axes, and though he landed a solid blow on the shoulder of one warrior it was at too great a cost. The axe jammed momentarily in the man’s collarbone, and another West Man had a free swipe at Eyvind’s arm. Eyvind saw his right hand come off at the wrist. He tried to draw his knife with his remaining hand but the enemy were too quick for him. An axe split his temple, another bit into his neck, a third sank into his thigh - the blows were rapid, tight as a drum roll. Eyvind was dead but he and Kol had done their job, and the West Men moved more warily through the remaining houses - until they saw the pair guarding the entrance to the beach. Brimming with their success in taking down two of the raiders, the farmers