moving to the right to counter another man trying to get around the horse, and I let him get past the stallion's bloodied head then scornfully drove him down into the water and there I stood on him, holding his head under my boot as he drowned. I screamed at the Danes, told them I was Valhalla's gatekeeper, that they had been weaned on coward's milk and that I wanted them to come to my blade. I begged them to come, but six men were dead around the horse and the others were now wary.
I stood on the dead horse and spread my arms. I held the shield high to my left and the sword to my right, and my mail coat was spattered with blood and the snow fell about my wolf-crested helmet and all I knew was the young man's joy of slaughter. 'I killed Ubba Lothbrokson!' I shouted at them. 'I killed him! So come and join him! Taste his death! My sword wants you!'
'Boats,' Leofric said. I did not hear him. The man I thought I had drowned was still alive and he suddenly reared from the marsh, choking and vomiting water, and I jumped down off the horse and put my foot on his head again.
'Let him live!' A voice shouted behind me. 'I want a prisoner!'
The man tried to fight my foot, but Serpent-Breath put him down. He struggled again and I broke his spine with Serpent-Breath and he was still.
'I said I wanted a prisoner,' the voice behind protested.
'Come and die!' I shouted at the Danes.
'Boats,' Leofric said again and I glanced behind and saw three punts coming through the marsh.
They were long flat boats, propelled by men with poles, and they grounded on the other side of the huddled refugees who hurried aboard. The Danes, knowing Leofric and I had to retreat if we were to gain the safety of the boats, readied for a charge and I smiled at them, inviting them.
'One boat left,' Leofric said. 'Room for us. You'll have to run like hell.'
'I'll stay here,' I shouted, but in Danish. 'I'm enjoying myself.' Then there was a stir on the path as a man came to the front rank of the Danes and the others edged aside to give him room.
He was in chain mail and had a silvered helmet with a raven's wing at its crown, but as he came closer he took the helmet off and I saw the gold-tipped bone in his hair. It was Guthrum himself. The bone was one of his mother's ribs and he wore it out of love for her memory. He stared at me, his gaunt face sad, and then looked down at the men we had killed.
'I shall hunt you like a dog, Uhtred Ragnarson,' he said, ‘and I shall kill you like a dog.'
'My name,' I said, 'is Uhtred Uhtredson.'
'We have to run,' Leofric hissed at me.
The snow whirled above the swamp, thick enough now so that I could hardly see the ridge top from where we had glimpsed the pigeons circling.
'You are a dead man, Uhtred,' Guthrum said.
'I never met your mother,' I called to him, 'but I would have liked to meet her.'
His face took on the reverent look that any mention of his mother always provoked. He seemed to regret that he had spoken so harshly to me for he made a conciliatory gesture.
'She was a great woman,' he said.
I smiled at him. At that moment, looking back, I could have changed sides so easily and Guthrum would have welcomed me if I had just given his mother a compliment, but I was a belligerent young man and the battle joy was on me.
'I would have spat in her ugly face,' I told Guthrum, 'and now I piss on your mother's soul, and tell you that the beasts of Nifiheim are humping her rancid bones.'
He screamed with rage and they all charged, some splashing through the shallows, all desperate to reach me and avenge the terrible insult, but Leofric and I were running like hunted boars, and we charged through the reeds and into the water and hurled ourselves onto the last punt. The first two were gone, but the third had waited for us and, as we sprawled on its damp boards, the man with the pole pushed hard and the craft slid away into the black water. The Danes tried to follow, but we were going surprisingly fast, gliding through the snowfall, and Guthrum was shouting at me and a spear was thrown, but the marsh man poled again and the spear plunged harmlessly into the mud.
'I shall find you!' Guthrum shouted.
'Why should I care?' I called back. 'Your men only know how to die!' I raised Serpent-Breath and kissed her sticky blade, 'and your mother was a whore to dwarves!'
'You should 'have let that one man live,' a voice said behind me, 'because I wanted to question him.'
The punt only contained the one passenger besides Leofric and myself, and that one man was the priest who had carried a sword and now he was sitting in the punt's flat bow, frowning at me.
'There was no need to kill that man,' he said sternly and I looked at him with such fury that he recoiled. Damn all priests, I thought. I had saved the bastard's life and all he did was reprove me, and then I saw that he was no priest at all.
It was Alfred.
The punt slid over the swamp, sometimes gliding across black water, sometimes rustling through grass or reeds. The man poling it was a bent, dark-skinned creature with a massive beard, otter skin clothes and a toothless mouth. Guthrum's Danes were far behind now, carrying their dead back to firmer ground.
'I need to know what they plan to do,' Alfred complained to me. 'The prisoner could have told us.'
He spoke more respectfully. Looking back I realised I had frightened him for the front of my mail coat was sheeted in blood and there was more blood on my face and helmet.
'They plan to finish Wessex,' I said curtly. 'You don't need a prisoner to tell you that.'
