Except I knew of no way to win. We had been fools to assault the fort, and now we must take the bitter consequences. Sigtryggr knew it too. “So we make the shield wall?” he asked bleakly.

“If Sköll sees men slipping away,” I pointed out, “he’ll send horsemen after them. They’ll ride around our shield wall and kill the men we send away.”

Sigtryggr knew I was right, but knew, as I did, that we could do nothing about that threat. “We must try,” was all he could say.

And then the gate opened.

We were standing on the rising ground to the west of the ramparts and could look down the fort’s long side toward the northern corner that Ieremias had encouraged us to assault. Two-thirds of the way down that wall was one of Heahburh’s three remaining gates, and it swung open.

For a moment no one appeared there. We just stared, waiting, then there was an unearthly scream, and Snorri, the sorcerer, appeared on the earthen causeway that crossed the ditches. Sigtryggr and I both touched our hammers, while Finan and my son clutched at their crosses. Heahburh’s hill spur went silent after the scream because blind Snorri’s appearance had ended the jeering from the ramparts, and the defenders just watched as the sorcerer was guided across the ditches by his small white dog, then as he stopped and faced us. Snorri seemed to be gazing at us, while his small dog wagged its stubby tail. I remember that. It seemed so unnatural in that place of death, a little dog’s tail wagging. “Who is that?” one of Sigtryggr’s men asked.

“His galdre,” my son answered quietly.

“His sorcerer,” I translated the Saxon word.

Sigtryggr touched the hammer again, then clutched it as Snorri slowly raised his wolf skull and pointed the muzzle toward us. I could see his mouth moving, and I supposed he was cursing us, though he was too far away for us to hear the curse. A man shouted from the ramparts and was silenced by his companions. Sköll’s men wanted to hear the curses that the dreaded Snorri cast on us. “They say he can kill with a curse?” Sigtryggr asked.

“If he can kill with a curse,” I said, “why does Sköll need warriors?” Sigtryggr did not answer, but just kept holding his hammer as the small dog led Snorri closer to us. The sorcerer stopped a long spear’s throw away. “Sköll’s trying to frighten us,” I said. He was succeeding too, and I could see him watching and smiling from the long rampart. Snorri began howling, and in between the shrieks and howls he hurled more curses. He was in earshot now, and he cursed us by land, by the sky, by the earth, he cursed us by fire, by water, by air, he gave our bodies to the Corpse-Ripper of Niflheim, he promised us an eternity of pain from Hel the goddess of the rotting dead, and he raised the skull and his sightless eyes to the heavens and called on Thor to strike us and on Odin to blight us.