“You can’t send him out to fight me,” said Vigdjarf. “He’s a thrall. He’s my own thrall. You must have stolen him in the night. I can’t fight my own thrall. I appeal to the marshals.” He looked across to the two armed and armored men waiting either side of the square.
“You’re very quick to call people thralls,” said Shef. “First you say some travelers are thralls, and they have to fight you to prove they’re not. Then when someone wants to fight you, you say he’s a thrall too. Maybe it would be simpler if you just said everyone was a thrall. Then all you’d have to do would be make them act like thralls. Because if they don’t—they aren’t.”
“I won’t fight him,” said Vigdjarf positively. “He is my own property, stolen in the night, and you are all night-thieves.” He turned to the marshals, began to protest again.
Brand looked over his shoulder. “If you won’t fight him, that’s up to you,” he remarked. “But I can tell you one thing for sure. He’s going to fight you. And anybody else who gets in his way.”
With a hoarse bellow, Cuthred had stepped away from his handlers, was walking forward across the square. His eyes were set and unblinking, and as he came he began to sing. From his brief career as a minstrel, Shef recognized the song. It was the old Northumbrian lay of the Battle of Nechtans-mere, where the army of the Northern English had been wiped out by the Picts. Cuthred was singing the part where the valiant retainers refused to fly or surrender, but formed the shield-wall to fight to the last man. Hastily Brand and Shef moved out of his path, saw him go by, still walking slowly but braced for a pounce at every step.
Vigdjarf, facing him, grabbed at his second’s cloak, waved again to the marshals, saw them all back away, leaving him face to face with the enraged man he had gelded.
At five paces range, Cuthred charged. No feinting, no feeling-out. No defense. The attack of an enraged churl, a swineherd or a plowboy, rather than a king’s champion. The first blow started with the tip of the curved cutlass touching Cuthred’s spine and came down in a sweeping arc at Vigdjarf’s helmet. Reflex alone would have served to block it, for any but a joint-locked grandfather. Vigdjarf, still yelling protests to the marshals, had his shield up without thought, took the blow full on the shield-boss.
Dropped almost to his knees, driven down by the sheer weight of the blow. And the second one was already in the air, and the third after it. Making no attempt to guard, Cuthred danced round his enemy, slashing from every angle. Splinters flew from the iron-rimmed and bossed linden-shield at every blow, in instants Vigdjarf seemed to be holding only a hacked remnant. A furious clang echoed round the square as for the first time Vigdjarf managed to get his sword up for a parry.
“I don’t think this is going to last very long,” said Brand. “And it’s going to be nasty when it finishes. Mount up, everyone. Shef, get some rope.”
Cuthred’s attack had not slowed at any moment, but Vigdjarf, a veteran, now seemed to have pulled himself together. He was using both sword and the fragment of battered half-moon of shield left to him to block strokes. He had also realized that Cuthred never parried, never got into a position to do so. The shield in his hand might as well have been there only for balance. Twice in quick succession he lunged out of a parry, stabbing for the face. Both times Cuthred had sprung sideways already, angling for another cut.
“He’s going to get one home,” muttered Brand, “and then…”
As if remembering his wits, Cuthred suddenly changed tactic, instead of hacking at the head and body, stooped, slashed backhand at the knee. Vigdjarf had seen that many times, far more often than the crazed attack he had just survived. He leapt over the stroke, came down crouching and swung in his turn.
With a groan of dismay the English watching saw the slash come down full across Cuthred’s thigh. They waited for the spurt of arterial blood, the last agonized stroke, easily blocked, the sideways topple and the killing slash or stab. This was how it always ended. Vigdjarf’s teeth showed across the square as he waited for Cuthred to crumple.