Snorri screamed back, calling on the frost-giants of Niflheim to tear his rival from limb to limb with their dread axes of ice. “Let the gods hear his screams!” Snorri shouted as he raised his empty eyes to the sky. “He is pus from the arse of the Corpse-Ripper, so let him be destroyed. I call on you, Odin! I call on you, All-Father! Kill him now! Kill him!” He held his wolf skull toward Ieremias, and for a heartbeat I held my breath, thinking to see the mad bishop fall.

He did not fall. “I live! I live! I live!” Ieremias called triumphantly. He was capering again, the ram’s skull teetering on the crook of his crozier. He went closer, much closer to Snorri, still screaming. “May worms gnaw your bowels and swine feed on your flesh! May cockroaches shit on your tongue! I curse you in the name of the Father, I doom you in the name of the Son, and I banish you from the living by the power of the Holy Ghost!” And on the last word he jerked his crozier fast forward, swinging it down from high above his head until it pointed toward Snorri. I think the gesture was simply meant to point the ram’s skull at Snorri, but such was the force of the swing that the horned skull flew from the crozier’s tip and struck the pagan sorcerer on his breast. The blind Snorri staggered back, more surprised than hurt, and as he staggered he let go of the rope leash, and the little dog, yapping happily, ran to Ieremias, who seemed just as amazed as his rival. “I win!” he called, unable to hide his astonishment, “God wins! The heathen is smitten!”

And Ieremias had indeed won. Snorri had been driven backward, and instead of responding with a curse of his own he was stooping and groping for his dog, but the dog had deserted Snorri and run to the mad bishop, who was cackling in triumph, and it was the dog’s treachery that seemed to anger the watching Norsemen. They knew they were victorious that day, but Ieremias’s triumph over Snorri was an insult to their pride, and suddenly the gate opened again and a stream of warriors came across the causeway while others leaped down from the wall, and almost every one of those warriors wore the gray wolf skin cape of the úlfhéðnar.

“Shield wall!” I shouted, and pain seared through my head. “Shield wall, now!”

Ieremias might have been half-crazed by the henbane ointment, but he retained enough sense to flee when he saw the enemy warriors coming for him. He ran toward us with the small dog scampering beside him. “The stone of David, lord,” he panted as he got nearer, “throw the stone now! For the living Christ’s sake, throw the stone!”

I kicked the soil and a scrap of stone, probably a chip from a block of Roman masonry, skidded away from my toe. I bent, picked it up, tried to ignore the stabbing pain in my head, and hurled the stone toward the enemy.