Bernard Cornwell

"Uhtred of Bebbanburg is a man of his word. An oath bound him to King Alfred. An oath bound him to �thelflaed. And now an oath will wrench him away from the ancestral home he fought so hard to regain. For Uhtred has sworn that on King Edward's death, he will kill two men. And now Edward is dying. A violent attack drives Uhtred south with a small band of warriors, and headlong into the battle for kingship. Plunged into a world of shifting alliances...

After his time as a mercenary archer in France, young Nicholas Hook returns to England, despite the warrant for his arrest, where he is discovered by the King of England--Henry V--who recruits Hook into his army and marches back into France where he becomes the army's--and the King's--only hope.

The Danes of East Anglia and the Vikings of Northumbria are plotting the conquest of all Britain. When King Alfred's daughter pleads with Uhtred for help, he cannot refuse her request. In a desperate gamble, he takes command of a demoralized Mercian army, leading them in an unforgettable battle on a blood-soaked field beside the Thames.

"At the onset of the tenth century, England is in turmoil. Alfred the Great is dead and Edward his son reigns as king. Wessex survives but peace cannot hold: the Danes in the north, led by Viking Cnut Longsword, stand ready to invade and will never rest until the emerald crown is theirs. Uhtred, once Alfred's great warrior but now out of favor with the new king, must lead a band of outcasts north to recapture his old family home, that great Northumbrian...

Uhtred, a dispossessed young nobleman, born a Saxon but raised by the Vikings, forms an uneasy alliance with King Alfred the Great to fight for Wessex when the kingdom is attacked by the Danish Vikings in the ninth century.