Rurik hurried back to camp at a trot. Asking about, he soon found Ragnar—who, to his relief, was sober—leaning over a board, intent upon a game of chess.
"Thank the gods," Rurik thought. "At least he has not drunk himself insensible. There may yet be hope."
Seeing his subordinate approach, Ragnar silenced him with a raised hand. He intended to finish the match before discussing weightier matters.
The game was Hnefatafl, a northern pastime beloved by the Vikings. Its rules were simple: the defending side commanded a king and twelve warriors, who must escort their sovereign to the board's corners. The attackers, twenty-four in number, sought only to hem the king in and slay him.
"Hmph. A careless move, and I am undone. It seems I have no chance left," Ragnar muttered. After long hesitation, he resigned the game, tossed his opponent two silver coins, and turned to Rurik. "You come to me instead of joining the revels. What is it? Short of coin?"
"No." Rurik refused the proffered handful of silver, his face grave. "I have devised a stratagem against the enemy. For this, my lord, I beg you gather the nobles."
"You want a night attack?" Ragnar barked a laugh. "Forget it. Six years ago I beat Ælla that way and snatched his crown in the confusion. A humiliation he will never wash away. But the man is no fool—this time he has ringed his camp with hounds. Keen beasts, those. They'll scent out a stranger from fifty paces."
Remembering that past triumph, Ragnar laughed heartily. Yet at the thought that he now struggled against a king once mocked as witless, the mirth soured. His mood darkened. He waved Rurik off. But Rurik refused to yield. Seizing the game pieces, he began laying out the morrow's battle upon the board.
On the left side he placed fifteen tokens, symbolizing Ælla's fifteen hundred men; on the right, ten to represent the one thousand Vikings.
"Both armies will fight in shield wall. We are the weaker. If we stand toe-to-toe, we will be crushed. My counsel is this: concentrate our best on the southern flank, break through swiftly, seize the slope south of the road, and from that height rain down arrows upon Ælla himself."
Ragnar's eyes brightened as the plan took shape. He rose to summon the nobles—only to find each lost in his own debauchery.
Lennard was locked in bed with two shield-maidens and ignored all calls.
Ulf slumped drunkenly against a tree, clutching a half-jar of mead; Rurik shook him for long minutes, half-thinking the man already dead of drink.
Ivar, dead drunk, was quarreling with Bjorn over whether Thor or Jörmungandr was the mightier foe.
Through a camp thick with the stench of mead, sweat, and impending doom, Ragnar and Rurik scoured for allies. Only near midnight, after endless pleading, did they finally secure the adjustments to their battle plan.
May 5th, 843 A.D. Dawn.
As arranged, all Vikings clad in iron took their place on the left. Their shield wall locked, they struck their weapons against their shields in unison and began a slow advance westward.
Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.
From the mist ahead, another wall of shields emerged—more than a thousand square oaken boards. To rouse their courage, the Saxons too beat upon their shields. Two parallel wooden walls closed upon each other in grim silence.
At a hundred paces, a volley of arrows rose from behind the Saxon line, descending like a black rain upon the Vikings. Now and again a scream was torn from the ranks.
Yet the iron-armored warriors in the van bore the worst of it with little harm, their progress steady. The center and right, less well protected, slowed their pace, so that the Viking line grew angled, their left jutting forward into a diagonal.
To preserve strength, Nils and his hundred archers held their fire. Their silence puzzled the Saxons, who began to wonder whether the Northmen had already spent their arrows.
Two minutes passed. The shield walls were now but thirty meters apart. Breath came heavy and harsh. Rurik fixed his gaze on the enemy opposite him; the man cursed him ceaselessly in a tongue Rurik could not understand, striving in vain to unsettle him.
Half a minute more—and the walls collided. Rurik lunged, his blade opening a deep gash across an enemy's cheek, bone shining beneath. As the man reeled in agony, Rurik struck again, thrusting through his throat. Triumph flared—then a shadow loomed. He ducked instinctively; an axe glanced from his helmet with a resounding clang.
Close. Too close.
Raising his head, he found himself facing a new foe, broad of shoulder and fresh with strength. The Saxon swung his axe in tireless arcs, each blow jarring Rurik's shield arm.
But the man was green. When he hacked furiously at the round shield, Rurik slipped his dragon-blade beneath, driving it clean through the man's leg. Another foe down.
"Valhalla!" A roar split the air to his left. Berserkers clad in bear pelts smashed a breach in the Saxon wall with great axes and hurled themselves through. Nearby Vikings surged to follow. Under the relentless assault, the Anglo-Saxon shield wall buckled, then collapsed, ceding the entire southern flank.
"Now—it's our turn!"
From the rear, Nils, who had long itched to join battle, shouted and led his hundred archers up the southern slope. There they loosed volley after volley at the rider in the enemy's center, crowned and conspicuous.
After three such storms of arrows, horse and rider toppled together. Nils did not pause to rejoice; he ordered his men to pour shafts into the same quarter.
Though his arms burned, he drew and loosed until all thirty arrows in his quiver were spent. His fingers bled, the bowstring slick and red with his blood.
Breathing raggedly, he sank to the ground. Before him, the field lay strewn with corpses, Saxons cut down by the three thousand arrows that had scythed their ranks. The fallen white horse bristled with shafts like a monstrous porcupine.
"No man could live through that," Nils murmured.
Yet he watched with weary eyes as attendants led forth a fresh steed and lifted a figure riddled with arrows upon its back, bearing him away under heavy guard.
Whether the king lived or died, his men had lost their will. Their shield wall dissolved in an instant.
The royal guards cast aside shields and swords to run faster; some stripped off helmets, others shrugged off armor as they fled. Even the red-and-yellow banner of the Northumbrian crown was abandoned, seized at last by Ivar.
Surveying the ruin, Nils whispered, "This time it is Rurik who has won us the day. I wonder what reward Ragnar will grant him?"