Sir Nigel raised his hand as the weapon spun towards him; the leather-wrapped hilt smacked into it with a comforting solidity, and he had a yard of double-edged, cut-and-thrust blade in his fist. It was his own, intimately familiar from eight years of practice and battle. He snatched up the heater-shaped shield as well; it had the five Loring roses on its face, and a diagonally set loop and grip on the rear. He slid his arm in from the lower left, took the bar at the upper right corner tightly and brought that fist up under his chin just so: He had the shield up under his eyes and the sword poised while the two hale Varangians hesitated. Another figure climbed and wiggled through the window, cursing the tightness-a man huge and familiar, grinning as well as he took his archer's buckler in his left hand and drew the great hand-and-a-half sword slung by his side with the other.

Little John Hordle, Nigel thought, grinning back. Well, the card's full and the dance may begin in earnest!

More Varangians crowded through the shattered door, bearing axes and the spike-blade-hook menace of a guis-arme on its six-foot shaft. There was a moment of silence as the three Englishmen stared at their foes-silence save for the moaning of the wounded man crawling out the door among his comrade's feet-and then it began. An ax swung at Nigel; he stepped into the stroke, sloping his shield to glance the battering impact away at an angle, stabbing around it at a face.

Steel rang on metal, thudded against wood; breath sounded harsh as men stamped and shoved and thrust through the great candlelit drawing room. Over it a roar of battle cries:

"Konung Karl! Konung Karl!"

"A Loring! A Loring!"

"St. George for England!"

"Ettu skit Engelendingur!"

Hordle's wild-bull bellow joined the cries as his heavy sword cracked into the shaft of an ax and through it and into a face: "Die, you sodding SID bastard!"