Norsemen Saga

852 AD. For centuries, the Vikings have swept out of the Norse countries and fallen on whatever lands they could reach aboard their longships, and few could resist the power of their violent onslaught. They came at first to plunder, and then to settle, an encroachment fiercely resisted where ever they went. Such was the case in the southern lands of Ireland. Enroute to the Viking longphort there, known as Dubh-linn, Thorgrim Night Wolf and Ornolf the Restless stumble across an Irish ship that carries aboard it a single item: a crown. The Vikings eagerly snatch the prize, unaware of its significance to the people of Ireland and the power granted to the king who wears it. Soon the Norsemen are plunged into the violence and intrigue of Medieval Ireland, where local kings fight with each other and with the invaders from the north for rule of the island nation. With enemies at every hand, and loyalties as fickle as the weather, Thorgrim must lead his men, the white invaders, the Fin Gall, in the fight of their lives, with both Irish and Dane eager to see them dead.

Coming in the wake of Fin Gall, Dubh-Linn continues the story of Thorgrim Night Wolf and his band of Viking warriors as they plunder the Irish coast. Eager to return to his native Norway, Thorgrim agrees to participate in one last raid under the command of a man he does not trust. But the Northmen, he finds, are no longer simply invaders on foreign soil. They have become a part of the Irish kings' ongoing struggle for power, and far from securing a means to return home, Thorgrim and his men are plunged into a battle for the throne of Tara, a battle that will test their strength and loyalty as none has before.

In this riveting follow-up to Fin Gall and Dubh-linn, Thorgrim Night Wolf makes ready to leave the Viking town of Dubh-linn for the long journey back to his home in Norway. Having recovered from the wounds of battle and having won for himself a fortune, a crew, and a longship, he is ready to return to his farm in Vik and go a'viking no more. But the gods have other plans, and Thorgrim and his men wash up in the small Viking longphort of Vík-ló. Thinking themselves among friends, they soon learn that the opposite is true, that Grimarr Giant, the Lord of Vík-ló, has reason to want Thorgrim and his son Harald dead. In a world where they cannot tell friend from foe, a world of violence at sea and on land, Thorgrim, Harald, Ornolf, Starri and their band of Norsemen find themselves once again fighting not just for plunder, but for their very survival.

Spring has come to Ireland, where Thorgrim Night Wolf, new-made Lord of Vik-lo, and the three hundred Viking warriors under his command have suffered through a brutal winter. Despite having accomplished much during the months of cold and rain, the patience of the men has worn thin, and anger and frustration threaten to tear the ships' crews apart. But just as the men are turning on one another, a local Irish lord arrives with a proposal, a plan for Irish and Norse to join together in a raid using Ireland's rivers to float their longships far inland. The plan, however, soon turns into a nightmare of massacre and betrayal, and Thorgrim and his band must fight both the skilled commander of the local forces as well as enemies in their own camp. It's a fight in which victory or defeat will mean the difference between riches or death.

With their ill-fated raid on the monastary at Glendalough torn apart by betrayal and defeat, Thorgrim Night Wolf and his handful of survivors from the crew of Sea Hammer find themselves in desperate and tenuous straits. Stranded far from the safety of Vik-lo, surrounded by enemies, and with barely enough men to work the longship's oars, the Norsemen must make their way back through a dangerous and uncertain country. Thorgrim, however, is not interested in mere survival. His one thought, his one desire, is to take revenge on those whose treachery led to the slaughter of so many of his men. Assembling an ad hoc army of unlikely allies, Thorgrim leads his warriors to a final showdown that can end only in his enemies' death or his own.

After the treachery and slaughter they met during the raid on Glendalough, Thorgrim Night Wolf and his small band of surviving Northmen have returned to Vik-lo, where Thorgrim again sits as lord of the Viking Longport. But the Northmen are a restless lot, and soon they find themselves eager to put to sea. Loading weapons and supplies aboard the four long ships under Thorgrim's command, they set out in search of the rich merchant ships that now ply Irish waters. But not all cargoes are the same, nor all merchant captains' easy targets for the Norse raiders. Crossing wakes with a Frisian shipmaster who could be Thorgrim's equal in seamanship and cunning, the Northmen soon find themselves seeking vengeance even as they fight to keep from a watery grave.

Driven ashore on the coast of Ireland, their longships nearly wrecked by the gods who seem unwilling to let them leave, Thorgrim Night Wolf and his band of Northmen once again face a fight for their survival. Helpless without their ships, they must find some refuge in that hostile country and begin the laborious work of making the vessels seaworthy again. But for all the shipbuilding skills that Thorgrim and the others possess, there is one thing they cannot do-weave cloth to replace the sails shredded in the gale that drove them ashore. For that they must strike a bargain with the Irish, the very people who most want them dead. But no such bargain can last for long, and soon betrayal and deceit have the Northmen trapped by an enemy determined to crush them once and for all.

Summer comes to Ireland and an uneasy peace holds at Loch Garman. The Northmen, eager to get to sea, work relentlessly on their ships, with the aid of their unlikely allies, the Irish, who are just as eager to see them go. But not everyone is willing to just let them sail away. Certain that God demands the heathens be punished, the one-eyed warrior-turned-monk Brother Becc is determined that Thorgrim and his men will not simply go free. And when another band of raiders arrives, Becc finds the excuse he needs to take action. Meanwhile, in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Wessex, murder leads to a violent struggle for the seat of ealdorman, ruler of the shire of Dorset. Desperate as each side is to tip the balance of power their way, no one imagines that the upper hand might come from the direction they least expect-from the sea.

With their longships storm-blown to the southern coast of Engla-land, Thorgrim Night Wolf and his men find themselves rich with plunder and safely ensconced in a priory called Christchurch. But that cannot last. Thorgrim, in a wolf dream, has seen the enemy armies closing in, and he knows that their peace will soon be at an end. The gods do not go so easy on him and his men. He has learned that through experience and hard use. Nor are the gods the only threat they face. As Nothwulf, brother of the murdered ealdorman of Dorset, and Cynewise, his sister-in-law, fight for rule of the shire, each seeks to make the raiders unwitting pawns in their game, maneuvering toward a final battle that each hopes will spell the end of the other and crush the Norse strangers who have invaded their shores.

Thorgrim Night Wolf, now somewhere on the south coast of England, may be closer to his goal of returning home than he has been since reaching Ireland years before, but he is still very, very far away. His son Harald, however, has ambitions beyond just getting home. Given command of one of the ships in the fleet, Harald sees a chance to put his courage on display, unleashing consequences that will lead Thorgrim into a fight against the powerful armies of Wessex, a fight he does not want. As Thorgrim struggles to keep his men alive, his eldest son Odd leads the resistance to King Halfdan's ruthless attempts to expand his rule over Norway. When a plan to bring Halfdan to heel goes terribly wrong, Odd alone is taken prisoner, and brutally punished as an example to those who would defy their king. But Halfdan's brutality does not cow the freemen: rather it stokes their anger into a red-hot rage that only freeing Odd and extracting further vengeance can cool.

Thorgrim Night Wolf and his men, hunkered down behind their ad hoc defenses and facing off against the powerful army of 'thelwulf, king of Wessex, must find some means to continue their voyage home. But 'thelwulf, too, is trapped, unable to set sail on his pilgrimage to Rome while the powerful fleet of Northmen remains at his doorstep. It's only when the enigmatic Felix proposes a solution, acceptable to both sides, that the impasse is broken. It is a solution that will take them across the narrow seas that separate England from Frankia, one that will take Thorgrim and Louis de Roumois that much closer to their homes, and into even greater danger on the other side. As Thorgrim fights for his survival, his son Odd, leader of the nascent rebellion against Halfdan the Black, takes his first tentative steps out of hiding. Odd and his brothers-in-arms, still outlaws and wanted men, must gauge the threat that awaits them as they make their secret way toward their former homes. The truth, however, is soon revealed; Halfdan's fury has not abated, and he and his men will stop at nothing to run Odd to earth and crush him and his rebellion once and for all.