'Do you think it will work?' I asked, watching the big man's jaw bulging and contracting beneath his thick red beard.
'It'll work, lad,' Svein mumbled. 'Might also bring every whoreson ever weaned on a Welsh tit.' He screwed up his face. 'We'll see.'
Luckily, the wind still came from the east and it was not long before the fire spat the first bright red cinders up into the air to be carried over the bluff's edge. They looked like fireflies taking wing for the first time, and when the sun began its descent in the western sky the fire was roaring and crackling noisily and throwing off so much heat that we had to toss new branches on from a distance, even then shielding our faces with our forearms. Svein had removed his mail and tunic, and his heavily muscled chest and arms, criss-crossed with scars and old wounds, glistened in the firelight. His great red beard and hair resembled the flames that challenged the gathering dusk. To me he was the very embodiment of the god he favoured, mighty Thór, slayer of giants.
'It's working!' I yelled, pointing to a house down in the fortress below. Its thatch sprouted a small, hungry flame.
Svein looked up. The sky was full of flying cinders and ash. 'Looks like black snow,' he said, hands on hips, his eyes following thousands of cinders as they drifted over the bluff. Most would be spent and harmless by the time they reached the dry thatch of the houses below, but some would be still glowing, full of the promise of the fire that had spawned them. It was these embers that now began to do their work, smouldering awhile before bursting into flame. The Welsh were running around frantically, flinging water on to roofs and wattle frames, but their livestock hampered their efforts. Fearful of the falling cinders, sheep and cows ran in all directions making a din that carried up to us as we stood above looking upon Sigurd's mischief.
'Of course it's working,' Svein the Red said eventually, throwing the last of the branches into the angry flames. Embers were landing on his bare shoulders but he did not seem to notice. 'Well, lad, let's get down there and join the fun.' He bent to gather his gambeson and brynja. 'There's nothing more we can do up here and I don't intend to miss out on the bitches that come running out with their braids burning.'
'Maybe we should stay up here for a while, Svein?' I said, scanning the darkening hills. 'Our fire could bring men from every village this side of Offa's wall. They'll think Caer Dyffryn is in trouble.'
'It is.' He grinned.
'We're not staying to keep watch?'
'We're not,' Svein said, wriggling into his massive brynja. His red hair appeared first, followed by his broad face and bushy beard. 'If they come, we'll kill them,' he said simply. And with that we left the seething flames and climbed back down the tor to join the others facing the southern gate.
The fire had taken a hold on their homes, so the Welsh had no choice but to come out and face us, which they did bravely, old and young taking their places behind their warriors in the shieldwall. But it was butchery. For the second time that day the dry grass was made wet with the blood of the slaughtered. Their chief, the man who had met Penda and me between our two war bands at the beginning, was taken bloodied but alive. As the sun set, old Asgot performed the Blood Eagle on him and sent his soul screaming to the afterlife. There were other screams too, those of women whom the Wolfpack used for their own enjoyment. My hands were still shaking, my muscles still shivering with the battle clamour, when Svein brought me a girl, small and black-haired and no older than sixteen with terror in her eyes. I was covered in dark, stinking gore and must have looked like some hellish creature as I stood in the darkness which was stirred by the glow of burning timbers.
'Here, Raven. The lads were slobbering over this one,' Svein said, 'but I told them she was your pillow for the night.' He laughed. 'You look like a sack of horseshit. Have some fun, lad. Celebrate the happiness of still breathing and still having all your bits where they belong. Come and find me when you're done. We'll drink till we can't remember our own names. It's been some day, eh?' He pushed the girl to me and I took her arm without a word. Svein nodded and flashed his teeth, then turned and walked off into the shadows, back towards the cauldron of noise amongst the ruins of Caer Dyffryn.
There was a small thatched shelter by the fortress's main gate, in which guards must have been stationed, and I took the girl into that dark hut. At first she fought. She did not cry out – not once – but she scratched my face and even bit my cheek. I was slathered in the blood of her people and she must have tasted that blood in her mouth. I felt filthy to the soul, far worse than the lowest beast. And yet the self-disgust, the shame that burned in my heart, did not make me stop. If anything, it urged me on, blinding me to the tears that must have soaked the girl's face. When I had finished, I rolled on to the filthy earth and let the emptiness claim me. Exhaustion and loathing pulled at my deepest being, dragged me down like some malevolent shadow spirit from Satan's pit, and I let it take me.