With Alfred the Great gone and Edward now king, Saxon Wessex faces its greatest threat yet—Viking warlord Cnut Longsword commands the Danish north and hungers for the emerald crown. Uhtred, once Alfred's formidable warrior but cast aside by the new king, rallies a band of outcasts on a perilous quest to reclaim Bebbanburg, his ancestral Northumbrian stronghold. As every Saxon kingdom teeters on the brink, loyalties shatter and blood flows in a struggle that will determine the fate of Britain itself.
