検索キーワード： "JC Duncan" 歴史

Alternate history—1121 AD. The last free warbands of the Norse are scattered in the forests and hills of central Sweden. Denmark has fallen, consumed by the crusades, coerced into loyalty to foreign lords. Norway has bent the knee, making peace once their mighty king was slain. Only in Svealand, the old heart of the Swedish kingdom and the Norse people, does the fire of defiance yet burn, and even there just softly, flickering in the long dark winter.

Reeling from the loss of three kings and a kingdom, the Norse gather in the home of their gods to choose a new ruler and prepare to meet the coming storm. The great host of the crusade will march again, and the people of the North will meet them with steel and shields and the death cries of their heroes.

On the walls of Jönköping, the men of the north made their stand and held the Crusade at bay, paying the price in blood and the death of kinsmen. The Norse jarls, shaken and bloodied, must rally around their wounded and weakened king or choose an alternative path to cling to power. As the icy grip of winter falls and the snow, mud, and blood bind the oath-sworn enemies together in a lethal contest, hopes of glory are cast aside in the desperate fight for survival. Two armies marched into the deep woods in winter. Only the Norns know who will emerge from the cruel embrace of the Frostforge.