“So you lost,” I said to Enar. “How?”

He told me the tale as we rode into the darkness. The young warriors who had annoyed us abandoned their pursuit and turned back to join the larger war-band that seemed content to have chased us far away from the road across the moors. In the dying light and through the veil of hard rain I saw they had stopped. I suspected they would demand shelter in the steading we had passed.

Enar grudgingly told me that Sköll’s best hope of capturing Eoferwic had been to move quickly, to cross the wide plain about the city as fast as possible and so take the garrison by surprise, but he had paused before he left the hills. “Where?” I asked.

Enar shrugged. “Just a settlement,” he said. “There was a cave there.”

“Why did he stop?”

“Weather. It was cold. It wasn’t so cold when we left home, we thought spring had come, but winter came back. It closed in fast.”

“You took shelter?”

“We had to! You could hardly see through the blizzard.”

“How long did you wait there?”

“Just a day.” A day was not long, but the pause must have been fatal to Sköll’s hopes. “They knew we were coming,” Enar continued bitterly, “so someone must have warned them. And the sorcerer told Sköll not to attack the city. At least that’s what men said afterward.”

“Doesn’t Sköll take his sorcerer’s advice?” I asked.

“Usually,” Enar spoke abruptly, as if talking about Sköll’s famed sorcerer troubled him.

“So why did Sköll attack?” I asked.

“We’d come so far,” Enar said, “and Snorri . . .” his voice faded away.

“Snorri is the sorcerer?” I asked.

“He is.”

“And he told Sköll not to attack?”

“Men said so,” Enar spoke hesitantly, evidently reluctant to discuss the sorcerer. “But you can’t always understand what Snorri says. Sometimes he speaks in riddles.”

“But men fear him?” I pressed.

“Snorri is terrible,” Enar said in a low voice. “When he looks at you—”

“I thought Sköll blinded him?”

“He did, but Snorri still sees you! He sees the future. And in battle . . .” his voice trailed away again.

“In battle?” I asked.

“He gazes at the enemy,” Enar’s voice was touched with awe, “and they die!”

“That didn’t work in Jorvik,” I said scornfully.

“Snorri didn’t go into the city. Some days he’s too weak to summon the gods, but when Snorri is strong then Sköll always wins. Always! The blind man stares and the living men die.”

A blind sorcerer who could see the future and kill with a glance? So had Snorri seen me in his dreams? And had he cursed me? I touched the hammer and felt the emptiness that suggested the gods had abandoned me, and I could find no omen in the darkness to give me hope. Most of us had dismounted by now and were leading our horses. The night was thick, wet, and miserable. There was no chance of a pursuit in this foul darkness, even if the men behind us had a mind to keep going, yet still we stumbled on, finally stopping where some winter-bare trees offered an illusion of shelter. I was tempted to light a fire, but dared not. We would just have to suffer through the wet cold darkness.