Publisher, Harper Audio (July 2005)

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From Bernard Cornwell, the New York Times bestselling author whom the Washington Post calls "perhaps the greatest writer of historical adventure novels today," comes a saga of blood, rage, fidelity, and betrayal. In the ninth and tenth centuries, King Alfred and his heirs fought to secure the survival of the last outpost of Anglo-Saxon culture by battling the ferocious Vikings, whose invading warriors had already captured and occupied three of England's four kingdoms.

In A.D. 866, Uhtred, a boy of ten and the son of a nobleman, is captured in the same battle that leaves his father dead. His captor is the Earl Ragnar, a Danish chieftain, who raises the boy as his own, teaching him the Viking ways of war. As a young man expected to partake in raids and bloody massacres of the English, he grapples with divided loyalties, torn between Ragnar, the warrior he loves like a father, and Alfred, whose piety and introspection leave him cold. It takes a terrible slaughter and the unexpected joys of marriage for Uhtred to discover his true allegiance -- and to rise to his greatest challenge.

About the Author: Bernard Cornwell is the author of the acclaimed and bestselling Saxon Tales, which include The Last Kingdom, The Pale Horseman, and Lords of the North, as well as the Richard Sharpe novels, the Grail Quest series, the Nathaniel Starbuck Chronicles, the Warlord Chronicles, and many other novels, including Stonehenge and Gallows Thief. He lives with his wife on Cape Cod.