Episode 10: Ragnarok

Denmark's blockade of London has frozen in place because the young prince issues no commands, and the surrounding warriors sink into boredom. Restless for a fight, Thorkell lobs boulders and insults at the besiegers to goad a charge, but Ragnar rebuffs the soldiers who beg to answer him, promising that a winter withdrawal will come in time. Canute keeps to his tent in prayer. When Thorkell finally learns that the second heir to the Danish throne sits behind the walls, his listlessness sharpens into delight.

Elsewhere, Thorfinn slips into a vision of childhood. He crosses a meadow of blossoms toward his mother and sister, then fetches Thors for supper and hears his father urge him to lay down thoughts of revenge and shield the family. The dream sours as raiders descend on the village and arrows pierce Thors, and the young man wakes gasping. Nearby, near Bath in late 1013, Askeladd's plunderers bicker over how much more looting the closing war will allow.

At first light Thorfinn climbs a rise, studies the rich farmland that echoes his dream, and mourns his father anew. Askeladd joins him, and Thorfinn repeats his oath to end the mercenary one day. Askeladd replies that time favors the younger man, since even the strongest eventually die. Gesturing at crumbling Roman stonework, he recounts how the Saxons once toppled a more advanced Britannia and predicts the Danes will now do the same to the Saxons, all beneath rumors of an approaching judgment.

A lone horseman then rides up, a survivor of Ragnar's guard bearing a plea for help. He explains that Thorkell shattered the London siege with five hundred men, crushed the four thousand defenders, and carried off Canute. The four hundred stragglers who remain hope to free the prince and would welcome even a hundred more swords. After a pause, Askeladd draws his sword and takes the messenger's head, then orders both the corpse and its horse buried out of sight.

Askeladd rouses his band toward a rescue of his own devising, reasoning that a prince so close to Denmark's throne can be sold to whichever side pays best. He confesses to Bjorn that he holds no strategy against Thorkell and frames the whole reckless venture as a last blaze before the dark, an ending fit for what he calls an age of twilight. His men, whipped into excitement, prepare to march against impossible odds.

This installment leans on anime original material, staging Thorkell's break of the siege and his abduction of Canute while giving Asgeir added definition. It also revises a manga beat: here Thorfinn leaves the barn merely because the rowdy band keeps him from sleep, rather than because raiders drag a captive girl inside. The broadcast slipped one week to September 15, 2019, after coverage of a typhoon striking Japan preempted the earlier date.