The air in Kent smelled of smoke and salt.
Svein's men had dragged their tents inland, away from the blood-streaked beaches where Scotland's spears had torn through them weeks before.
The sand still bore the stains of that first clash, a battle won, but only barely.
Too many lay buried in shallow graves, their shields rotting beneath the tide.
Now the Danish banners fluttered above half-abandoned English towns. Some had opened their gates without resistance, weary of war, their folk too cowed to lift a sword.
Others had resisted and paid dearly, their halls burned, their men cut down, their women and children driven into the fields.
Svein took no pleasure in it, but neither did he weep. An army could not live on hunger.
In a commandeered hall at Rochester, Svein sat brooding over a map spread across a rough-hewn table.
The flicker of tallow candles cast long shadows over the lines of ink.
He was young still, not yet even twenty, but the scars of battle had hardened his face.
