After seizing Leeds, the Viking host scattered like loose sand, plundering whatever riches they could lay their hands on. Their main prizes, of course, were the governor's manor and the monastery in the town's heart, though some raiding parties fanned out into the countryside to loot villages.
A week later, those roaming bands trickled back. After a brief respite, Ragnar left behind a hundred men—the old, the lame, and the wounded—to guard the baggage train and ships, while he led the rest of the army on foot toward their next target.
The march from Leeds to Mancunium took them through a belt of hills that badly slowed their progress. It was not until the afternoon of the third day that the Vikings finally glimpsed the city walls.
Unlike Leeds, Mancunium boasted a four-meter-high stone rampart, seemingly the relic of Rome's vanished might.
Fortune favored the invaders: the northern wall, long neglected, had collapsed in one section, and hundreds of laborers were scrambling to repair it. At the sight of the oncoming horde of fierce, axe-wielding Northmen, the workers shrieked in terror, abandoned their tools, and fled into the city.
"Now's our chance—forward!"
Once more the Vikings hurled themselves at the breach in a boar's-head formation, with Ivar at their fore. But instead of frightened peasants, they met a line of Anglo-Saxon soldiers clad in iron.
These men bore square shields and had drawn up a wall across the eight-meter-wide street. Seeing this, Ivar raised his longsword and signaled his warriors to form a wedge behind him.
"inn!"
Spitting upon the ground, he bellowed Odin's name and charged. His blade drove through the first rank; hot blood splashed across the faces of those behind—but instead of breaking, the Saxons held firm. Their courage and discipline far exceeded the Northmen's expectations.
"Ha! These stunted Angles can actually hold their ground!"
Ivar stabbed furiously into the gaps between shields. Each time he felled a foe, another man immediately stepped forward to fill the space.
To his right, Bjorn swung his axe in mighty arcs against the shield wall. Wood splinters flew—but two long spears suddenly thrust out from the gaps. His axe lodged in an oaken shield, forcing him to pull back in haste. Even so, a spearpoint caught him in the belly; though his mail turned the blow, blood still seeped through the rings.
At the rear, Nils loosed arrows at enemy bowmen perched on rooftops. Yet the Saxons were innumerable, and after a bitter exchange, it was the Viking archers who faltered and fell.
Time dragged on. The Anglo-Saxon shield wall stood like an immovable cliff, while the Vikings' assault waned. As the clash of steel grew fainter, Ivar gave the signal to withdraw.
Suddenly, cries rose outside the city. Turning, he saw a host of Saxons pouring from the western woods, led by a mounted knight carrying a red-and-yellow striped banner.
A moment later, Rurik shouted in alarm:
"The royal standard of Northumbria! By the gods—it must be King Ælla's household guard!"
Caught between hammer and anvil, Ivar was forced to retreat from Mancunium. Above, archers massed along the wall and showered the fleeing Vikings with arrows.
Crushed on all sides, the three hundred raiders broke and scattered. When they finally rejoined Ragnar's main force, their panic infected the others; more and more men fled without orders, until the whole host teetered on the edge of collapse.
"Ivar! Rurik! Hold the line!"
Seeing disaster at hand, Ragnar and four nobles led men forward to stem the rout, buying the army three precious minutes.
When those minutes passed, the Viking host had managed to shrink into an irregular defensive ring and survived the worst. But the cost was grievous: of Ragnar's personal war-band, barely half remained alive, and one noble lay among the dead.
As dusk fell, the Northmen huddled close and withdrew. Once clear of the enemy, Ragnar counted heads and found his strength reduced by a third. Barely one thousand and fifty men remained.
"Why would Ælla abandon his capital to appear here, in Mancunium of all places?"
Five Saxons had chased too far and were taken captive. Ragnar wasted no time in questioning them—and the answer shocked him.
"So, Ælla had gathered his forces not against us, but to crush a noble revolt. He meant only to repair Mancunium's walls. And I blundered straight into him—an ambush born of chance!"
Hearing the prisoners' account, Ragnar cursed himself for ignoring Lennard's counsel. Had he struck directly at York, they would even now be dividing treasure in the royal palace, not bleeding upon these fields.
After a hurried night's rest, the Vikings marched eastward. Crossing a ridge, Rurik suddenly pointed back in alarm:
"Northumbria's army—they're still on our heels!"
The pursuers numbered some fifteen hundred, including two hundred iron-clad household guards—the very men who had barred the street the day before.
Amidst them rode twenty horsemen in gaudy attire, likely nobles or local gentry. Yet to Rurik's astonishment, not one bore stirrups.
"Impossible…"
The chronicles record that metal stirrups had been invented in China's Eastern Jin dynasty centuries ago, and by now were widespread in war, giving rise to armored cavalry. Rurik himself had seen the Pecheneg nomads and the imperial guards of Constantinople wield them to deadly effect. That the Britons lacked so simple a device struck him as absurd.
"Without stirrups, their riders are no shock cavalry—merely a mobile force. All the better for us."
By noon, Saxon archers appeared in the woods flanking the road. They loosed arrows from afar, not aiming to kill but to delay. By sunset, the pursuers had closed to within two kilometers.
At last, the Northmen abandoned all hope of escape. At a derelict farmstead, they halted, resolved to stake everything on the morrow.
The sunset burned red across the sky, as if the heavens themselves bled. On the eve of slaughter, most of the Vikings plunged into wild revelry—drinking, brawling, coupling—swearing oaths to meet again in Valhalla. The camp roared with drunken chaos.
Rurik did not join them. Alone, he studied the ground. To the north of the road lay open, level fields—ideal for battle. For decades, the Britons had copied the Vikings' shield-wall tactics. If he was right, both sides would soon lock shields and clash head-on, until one line broke.
"One thousand against fifteen hundred—and our men's spirits already broken. Our chances of victory are scarcely three in ten."
He turned his gaze south, toward a slope that ran beside the road. He frowned, thinking long and hard. At last, a plan to break the enemy began to take shape.