Ivar’s face split in a grin of triumph and contempt. “You come late to our meeting, boy,” he remarked. “Do you think you can succeed where champions fail?”
Shef raised his eye again, stared deliberately into Ivar’s face. As he did so he filled his mind with the thought of Godive—of what this man, this creature, had meant to do with her. What he had done with so many slaves and captives. If there was a protection against Ivar’s spell, it lay in justice.
“I have succeeded where you failed,” he said. “Most men can do what you cannot. That is why I sent you the capon.”
Ivar’s grin had turned into a rictus, like the bared teeth of a skull. He flicked the tip of his sword slightly. “Come on,” he whispered. “Come on.”
Shef has already decided what to do. He had no chance at all toe to toe with Ivar. He must use other weapons. Drag him down. Use Ivar’s open contempt against him.
Shuffling gingerly forward along the gangplank, Shef aimed a clumsy two-hand thrust with the spear-point on the end of his shaft. Ivar batted it aside without moving eyes or body, waiting for his incompetent enemy to move closer or lay himself open.
Swinging the halberd way up over his head, Shef prepared for a mighty stroke, a stroke that would split an armored man from nape to crotch. Ivar grinned more broadly as he saw it, caught the moan of disbelief from the bank. This was no holmgang, where the parties were bound to stand still. Such a mighty stroke could be avoided by an old grandfather. Who would then step over and stab for the throat while the wielder was off balance. Only a thrall-bred fool would try it: and that was what this Sigvarthsson was.
Shef swung down with all his force, aiming not at Ivar but at the plank at his feet. The great blade, swung in a drawing cut, slashed clean through the wood. As Ivar, surprised and off balance, tried to leap back the two steps to his ship, Shef dropped the halberd, threw himself forward, grappled Ivar round the body. Fell instantly with him down into the cold, muddy current of the Ouse.
As the two men hit the water Shef gasped reflexively. Instantly his mouth and windpipe filled. Choking, he struck out for the surface. Was held and forced below. He had dropped the halberd, but his loose-fitting helmet had filled with water, was dragging his head down. A hand like a strangling snake was crushing his throat, but the other hand was free, was groping toward the belt and the gutting-knife in it. Shef grasped Ivar’s right wrist in his left hand with the force of desperation.
For an instant both men broke the surface, and Shef managed to blow his lungs clear. Then Ivar had him again, was forcing him down.
Suddenly the cold inner revulsion that had held Shef half-paralyzed since the fight had started—the dragon-fear—was gone. No scales, no armor, no dreadful eyes to look into. Just a man. Not even a man, shrilled some triumphant fragment of Shef’s mind.
Twisting fiercely in the water like an eel, Shef grappled his enemy close. Ducked his head, butted forward with the rim of his helmet. The rim which he had filed again and again to razor-sharpness. A crunch, something giving way, Ivar trying for the first time to wrench back. From the bank above there came a great roar as the craning watchers saw blood spreading in the water. Shef butted again and again, realized suddenly that Ivar had shifted his grip, had caught him in a stranglehold, rolled him under. Now Ivar was on top, face in the air, grimly concentrating on holding his enemy under. And he was too strong, growing stronger with every breath.
Shef’s right hand, thrashing wildly, caught Ivar’s knee. There is no drengskapr in this, thought Shef. Brand would be ashamed of me. But he would have taken Godive and cut her in pieces like a hare.
He drove his right hand firmly under Ivar’s tunic, seized him by the crotch. His convulsive, drowning grip closed round the roots of Ivar’s manhood, squeezed and twisted with every ounce of the strength years at the forge had given him. Somewhere, he heard dimly, there was a scream of mortal agony resounding. But the Ouse drowned it, the muddy stream poured choking in. As Shef’s straining lungs also gave way and let in the cold, rushing, heart-stopping water, he thought only the one thing: Crush. Crush. Never let go…