The champion of a dead king has nothing left to lose... And nothing more to fear.
England, 1066: Styrkar the Dane stumbles wounded and delirious from the corpse-strewn battlefield of Senlac Hill, the Battle of Hastings still fresh in his mind. He has watched his king butchered at the hands of foreign knights, seen his countrymen defeated in battle, and he will not stop until there is a reckoning.
Styrkar embarks on a bloody quest to avenge his dead master, becoming an outlaw in the wilds and earning a fearsome reputation. When a Breton knight seeks to track down this fugitive and make his own name, he can little envisage the task he has set himself. For Styrkar, the Red Wolf, last surviving housecarl to King Harold Godwinson, will carve the story of his vengeance in Frankish flesh... or die in the attempt.
Young Styrkar, the victim of Norse raiders, finds himself a slave not once but twice over, his final master being Harold Godwinsson - or King Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon King of England. Following the defeat of Harold at Senlac, Styrkar vows to avenge the death of Harold on the Normans, becoming a figure of myth and terror - a boogeyman,preying on the unsuspecting and inspiring fear and dread in all. But there is one on his trail, one who seeks to capture, in the name of personal glory.
Styrkar's story is broken into four manageable parts: his life up to the sighting of the Normans; the invasion, battle and defeat of Harold; his vengeance against the Normans, and the cat and mouse battle with his nemesis.
We begin to get a feel for the character of Styrkar as the novel progresses, with the themes of loyalty and revenge ably explored. The author provides an atmospheric realism that will draw the reader into events that left their mark on the English landscape.
For those with an interest in the 11th century, this will make a nice detour and is only the beginning of a new series. Fans of Harrfy, Cornwell, and Hosker.
Looking forward to seeing how the series progresses.
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