The city had fallen. Once the great stone walls were breached, order dissolved into chaos—a tangle of smoke, screams, and steel. In the narrow lanes where men grappled hand to hand, the Norsemen held the advantage: tall, broad-shouldered, unyielding. Their axes rose and fell in tireless rhythm, carving a crimson path through the last of Mercia's defenders. By the hour of mid-afternoon, the streets ran thick with blood. The garrison was shattered; most had either perished or laid down their arms. Only a few hundred desperate souls remained, barricaded within the royal palace, clinging to their doomed defense.
Half an hour later, Rurik rode up through the smoke and rubble to the foot of the palace hill. There, among toppled statues and charred banners, he found Halfdan in one of his characteristic rages. The younger son of Ragnar had stripped off his helmet, his fair hair matted with dust and sweat, his eyes blazing.
