The field outside Dover was mud and ruin.
The banners of Scotland lay trampled in the muck, their red lions torn to rags.
Norse shields, too, were shattered across the ground, split boards smeared with blood, broken spears jutting like a forest of splinters.
Ravens circled already, their harsh cries mingling with the groans of the dying.
Svein stood in the wreckage, helm dented, his gilt circlet bent and bloodied.
His sword dripped red as he leaned on it like a staff, his chest heaving.
Around him his huscarls gathered, fewer than when the morning horn had sounded, their eyes hollow with exhaustion.
But the Scots were gone.
What remained of Duncan's host was retreating north, shields on their backs, their king carried on a litter after a wound to the thigh.
The field was Svein's, though it looked more like a graveyard than a victory.
"God is with us," a captain croaked, raising his axe.
Others tried to cheer, but it died quickly in their throats, hollow and thin.
