‘Vengeance,’ he said.
I nodded in agreement. Wheeling about, I coaxed my horse into first a canter and then a gallop, drawing all the speed I could from his legs as we took off across that field of death in pursuit of Haakon and his band. All around rose the familiar battle-stench of blood and shit and mud and piss and horse dung and vomit, all intermingled.
‘Haakon,’ Magnus yelled, trying to catch his attention as we left the scattered, crimson-soaked corpses behind us and charged across thick tufts of grass. The Dane’s standard-bearer had at last thrown down the cumbersome banner and we rode over it, trampling the once-proud dragon and axe into the mud.
‘Come and face us, you whoreson,’ I called out. ‘You can’t run from us!’
The ground was soft and once or twice my mount almost stumbled, but nevertheless we were quickly gaining on them. They were five in number: his erstwhile standard-bearer, a fair-haired boy who could not have seen any more than twelve summers; his three hearth-troops; and, lagging a little behind them, the Dane himself, half running and half limping in a way that suggested he must have been wounded in the battle. They still had a few hundred paces to go until they reached the safety of the trees, and they must have been beginning to doubt whether they could manage it before we fell upon them.
To my flank there came a piercing shriek and a yell. Magnus’s horse must have tripped, for I glanced over my shoulder and saw it had gone down, and he with it. Hooves flailed and turf flew, and in the midst of it all the Englishman was struggling to extricate himself from the saddle.
‘Magnus!’ I said, but he didn’t seem to hear me. He had other things to worry about.
As did I. Brief thoughts of going back to help the Englishman were swiftly forgotten. Something much more important was at stake. It fell to me now to kill the Dane, to claim revenge on behalf of us both. That was the promise I’d made myself. Here was my chance to make good on it.
‘Haakon!’ I roared.
With every heartbeat I was growing closer, while the clash of arms and the shouts of men were growing more distant. He couldn’t ignore me any longer. At the sound of his name this time he stopped and turned to face me. Even though the nasal-guard of my helmet obscured my face, he must have recognised me.
He must have seen, too, that there was no longer any use in running. Fixing his gaze upon me, he drew his bloodied sword and stood his ground as I charged towards him. He realised that his time had come, but he was proud. I’d heard long ago that amongst the heathens to die without a weapon in one’s hand was the worst dishonour, for it meant they would not be permitted to dine with their gods in whatever afterlife it was they believed in. Whether that was true or not, and whether that thought was in his mind, I don’t know. More probably, like any man whose life had been spent travelling the sword-path, he considered it nobler to go to his grave fighting, a warrior to the end, rather than suffer the coward’s death and be cut down from behind.
A howl left his lips as he ran, staggering, at me, his sword raised high, his golden arm-rings shining. His braid had come loose and his greying hair flew behind him. He realised, I think, that I was responsible for burning his hall, for destroying everything he had spent so many years fighting to gain. He knew now what I had felt that night at Dunholm, when so much had been taken from me, when my own world had crumbled about me.
Our blades clashed with a shriek of steel, and then I was past him, turning sharply before coming at him again. I parried the blow he aimed at my horse’s neck, and the one after that, and the one after that, trusting in the steel not to shear, all the while waiting for my opportunity to come, as I knew it must. Waiting for him to give me the opening I needed. Blood trickled from a gash at his hip, and each movement he made seemed unsteadier than the last. He was slow to turn, and slower still between each sword-stroke.
‘Die,’ he yelled in that coarse voice of his, and he was weeping now. Weeping because he knew that his end was near. Weeping because he knew that I was toying with him. ‘Die, you bastard, you Norman filth! Die!’