‘Go!’ Beorn roars again. ‘Do you hear me? Go! Go!’
He brings his axe about; it strikes Wulfnoth on the thigh. The outlaw’s leg buckles beneath him and he falls back with a yelp.
And then the Normans are upon Beorn. In their mail and their helmets, with their swords drawn, they encircle him, and he is hurling himself and his axe at their shields: battering, twisting, striking low and high, trying to break through.
‘This way,’ Merewyn shouts as she makes for the other side of the ford. ‘Tova!’
Tova’s about to follow, but when she looks about to see where the priest is, he’s no longer there. Instead he’s running back towards the Normans surrounding Beorn.
‘Guthred!’ Tova cries, but it’s too late.
The priest throws himself at the flank of the nearest foreigner, grabbing at his sword arm, tearing him off balance, bringing him down with a crash of mail and water and gravel. The priest throws himself down on the man, pressing his head under the surface, and the foreigner is struggling, choking, kicking, trying to shake him off.
‘Tova,’ Merewyn calls. ‘Quickly, this way!’
She knows she should go. She knows it’s the only sensible thing to do. But she’s had enough of running. All this time on the road, exiles in their own land, and what good has it done them? However fast they flee, however many miles they travel, it isn’t enough.
Wherever they go, their enemies will always be there, hard on their heels. They will never escape. They can never go home. Nowhere is safe. And she realises she can’t do it any more. She won’t. If her fate is to die, then she’ll go to it with her head held high. Proud. Defiant. Not like a coward; like the heroes in the songs that she used to love. Fighting to the end, knowing she did everything she could.
Knife in hand, she tears across the ford, through the tumbling waters, crying out in anger. For all the blood they’ve spilled. For everyone at Heldeby. Everyone she ever knew.
She sees Cuffa crash his blade into the back of one of the Normans’ helmets. She sees Wulfnoth rise, his damp hair flailing, and lunge at the midriff of another. She sees Beorn swing his axe against one of the enemy’s heads. It clatters off his helmet, steel upon steel, and the Norman goes down, and Beorn is shouting something, but she can’t hear what.
She sees his face, dark with spatters of mud, or maybe blood. His eyes white with hate. She sees one of the foreigners shove his shield boss into Beorn’s jaw. She sees him reel back, barely out of reach of his foe’s sword point.
She sees it all happen slowly, as if time itself is drawing to a standstill. Every beat of her heart seems like an eternity as she prepares to fling herself at Beorn’s attackers. They haven’t seen her yet. She can hear Merewyn screaming her name, but only distantly.
And through the confusion and the flashing steel and the spray and the darkness, scurrying down the bank after them, she sees—
Oslac?
She stops. Is it him?
It is him. She recognises his cloth cap with the ear flaps, the curly hair trailing from underneath. What is he doing here?
He reaches the water’s edge and bends down. When he stands up again there’s something slung across his shoulder.
The scrip. Guthred’s scrip, with the book inside.
He glances up, and their eyes meet. And he yells something at her. She doesn’t hear what, but she can tell from the way he moves his lips.
Go, he’s saying. Go!
Where did he come from? Have the Normans seen him? Has Beorn? Has Guthred? She wants to shout and tell them, but she knows they won’t hear her.
Joy blossoms inside her. He didn’t leave, after all. Or he did, but he came back, and that’s what matters. He came back.
‘Don’t just stand there!’ Oslac yells. ‘While you still can, go!’
Here he comes, across the river, half-running and half-wading where it’s deeper, weighed down by the scrip, nearly falling a couple of times. The Normans still haven’t spotted him. Beorn lands a kick upon his foe’s chest, sending him sprawling, and he is twisting away, aiming a swing over the shield rim of the next man, smashing the edge into the enemy’s face—
And Guthred? Where is he?
A hand on her shoulder. She spins round, stepping back, thrusting her knife out in warning, but it’s only Merewyn. Clothes soaked and clinging to her skin, hair plastered against her face.
‘Come on,’ her lady is saying. Her eyes are wide and she is trembling from head to foot. ‘What are you doing?’