Blood-Eagle Saga

Book excerpt: Deep frozen midwinter in a Viking warlord’s longhouse. From the snow emerges a white-haired saga-teller, Snorri, who offers to entertain the drunken warband. Sven Ravenfeeder agrees – but drops a noose around Snorri’s neck and tells him: “If we like your story, you will live...” So begins the Blood-Eagle Saga – a tale of greed and betrayal, courage and cowardice, that takes rival Viking longships across the Atlantic to a new world of depravity. In the menacing forests and on the vast bison-rich plains, Viking enemies Grim and his former right-hand man Asgeir battle over honour and treasure. Along the way, they find themselves in another equally proud and brutal warrior culture, that of the native Americans. Throughout Asgeir is helped by his muse, Mary, a shape-shifting former Irish slave who has every reason to hate Grim. At the heart of the saga is one burning question that sends Sven and his men into a frenzy – who will be the victim of the Vikings’ favourite torture – The Blood-Eagle?