The villages of the Saxony burned beneath a pale summer moon.
Thatched roofs collapsed in sparks, and the smoke of granaries rolled into the night like storm clouds.
Cattle lowed in panic, women wailed, and children were driven ahead like livestock, bound to the ropes of Danish warriors who strode through the fields with torches and steel.
The host had crossed the Elbe in force, more men than the local garrisons could dream of mustering.
Harthacnut's captains had left Copenhagen in the hands of their younger jarls and taken ship across the North Sea.
They struck with precision, not as raiders but as an army.
Their banners, marked with the serpent and the axe, rose like black sails above the burning settlements.
Local levies had tried to stand.
A handful of mailed knights and farmers pressed into arms, drawn from scattered castles in the marches.
But they were too few, too unready.
One by one, their shield-walls buckled.
