With one hundred and fifty warriors from the three turtle-ships storming the battlements, the defenders' last hope of resistance collapsed. Within half an hour, the surviving garrison had cast down their arms and surrendered.
At the lord's hall, Rurik found Ivar stripped of his mail, binding a wound to his left shoulder.
"Damn Sweyn," Ivar growled. "He set an ambush of heavy crossbows against me. Have you any word of him? I swear I'll drink from his skull."
"He fled," Rurik replied darkly, recounting the scene before their gathered warriors. The hall rang with laughter.
"This man dares call himself king? Pfah." Ivar winced as the movement tugged his wound, his dark brows knotting with pain.
That afternoon, Ivar summoned the town's two thousand inhabitants and more than a thousand warriors. Side by side with Rurik, he strode onto the balcony of the hall's upper floor to proclaim his rule.
"Who votes aye? Who opposes?"
None dared speak against him. Only the faint weeping of women and children drifted through the crowd. Ivar ignored the vanquished, signaling his men to heap the plunder before the hall.
Before dividing the spoils, he seized Rurik's arm.
"For this victory, none deserve greater thanks than Rurik Hakonarson. His ships and stratagems saved many lives and brought Dyfflin swiftly beneath our banner. By Odin, let his name be spoken to the ends of the earth until the world itself falls away."
The host roared as one, shouting Rurik's name:
"Serpent of the North!"
"Serpent of the North!"
"God's Chosen!"
"Serpent of the North!"
The cheers thundered across the town. Clearly, "Serpent of the North" had eclipsed "God's Chosen" as his epithet, the dragon standard on his ships mistaken by many for the coils of a monstrous serpent.
Suppressing a grimace, Rurik joined the division of treasure overseen by Ivar. The shares were allotted thus:
Warriors: five and a half parts
Ivar: one and a half parts
Rurik: one and a half parts
The noble houses of Manchester and Lancaster: the remaining one and a half parts
"My dearest brother, you choose first."
"You are certain?" Rurik searched his eyes, but Ivar was earnest. With a nod, Rurik vaulted the balcony rail, landing lightly below, and made his choice.
Though Tynburg lacked hands, he would not take slaves—too unreliable, too dangerous, little more than powder-kegs waiting to explode.
After some thought, he selected two golden brooches set with sapphires. The nobles of Britain prized such adornments, and both he and Hlíggýth ought to have them, lest they seem ill-fitted among their peers.
"Ten pounds of silver in all," a steward reminded him. "You have two hundred and thirty pounds yet to claim."
In the minutes that followed, Rurik asked for one hundred and fifty pounds of silver, fifty battered suits of mail, three heavy crossbows, sixty light arbalests, and all the Latin books in the town.
When all was tallied and loaded onto wagons, he stood aside, amused, to watch the others make their choices.
For the common plunderer, armor, swords, silver, and jewels were most prized. Wine and slaves came second; cloth and iron tools, third. Grain and livestock—cumbersome to carry—were least desired of all.
By dusk, most men were well satisfied. At Ivar's bidding, the town gave itself over to three days of riotous feasting.
That night, drunk beyond measure, Ivar clapped Rurik again and again on the shoulder.
"You've done me a great service, brother. When you march against the Picts, call on me."
"Likely not for two years yet," Rurik replied.
The fighting in the north, he reckoned, would not be too difficult. The true challenge would be governance. Mishandled, it could devolve into a long and bitter struggle to keep order.
He resolved first to train a cadre of clerks, literate and skilled in numbers, before contemplating fresh conquest.
When the feasting was done, Rurik's fleet sailed northward along the coast. On the voyage, sailors spoke of the "Giant's Causeway," and his curiosity was piqued.
"Where lies this marvel of nature?"
"A half day's sail further north," a tall young pirate answered.
At sunset they reached a strange and desolate shore. The tide was falling, and jagged gray pillars emerged from the retreating waters, their hexagonal faces gleaming like bronze in the dying light.
The columns, more than ten meters tall, were set so evenly that they formed a great causeway stretching for miles into the sea, as though giants had carved them with axe and chisel.
"By the gods," the men whispered, leaping ashore. One struck with an axe at the stone, but the blow left only a pale scar. After brief debate, they agreed: such a wonder must be the handiwork of giants.
As the tide fell further, still more columns rose into view. Jorunn pointed to the horizon.
"Look—the causeway runs out to sea!" And indeed, tens of thousands of pillars jutted from the waves, like a bridge to Jötunheim itself, the cold, barren realm of the frost and mountain giants.
Rurik alone stood unmoved. He knew what later scholars would claim: these basalt pillars were born not of giants but of volcanic fire, the molten rock cooling and cracking into hexagons millions of years ago.
"Enough gawking. Pitch camp. We cross the strait at dawn."
At the mouth of the Derwent he landed, then rode three days inland. By late May, he returned at last to his own hall.
Above Tynburg, the dragon-banner streamed in the wind. Rurik's heart eased. In his absence, his greatest fear had been that his lands would be plundered.
"My love, you're home at last!"
On the palisade stood Hlíggýth, a book in hand, basking in the sun. At the sight of him she dropped it and ran barefoot, losing a shoe in her haste, and flung herself into his arms.
He tousled her dark chestnut hair with careless affection. "How fares the land?"
"The summer harvest was plentiful. We've taken in two groups of Norse farmers, one hundred and five households in all."
He gave her the sapphire brooch, which she fastened at her breast.
"The heavy iron ploughs," she continued, "cut faster and deeper than the light wooden ones. The gentry are clamoring for them. I've let them copy the design—on the condition that they devote a third of their land to the three-field system. Nearly half refused, preferring their old ways."
"Patience," Rurik said. "When the oats and peas are harvested in autumn, they will see the truth for themselves."
The land prospered, and for a time Rurik and his wife enjoyed a rare season of peace—until, in June, fresh troubles arose.