In the heart of the ninth century, ferocious men wielding swords and gleaming axes dare face a massive Crusader force. And in Giles Kristian’s thrilling series, history comes alive as vividly as the crash of clashing steel. The Norsemen have come across the Channel, up a winding river in the land of the great Frankish emperor. In the belly of their fearsome dragon ship, beneath warriors and weapons, is a book wrapped in cloth, guarded by an English monk who alone knows the true worth of his prize. And by the side of their leader is Raven, with a blood spot in his eye and magic in his soul. Accompanied by the woman he loves, Cynethryth, runaway daughter of an English king, Raven is plunging into an epic clash of men and faiths. "A brilliant story, beautifully told.”— Sunday Express “Impressive ‘world-building’ . . . The pace of the novel is unrelenting. . . . The series is among the best adventure historical fiction today.”—Fantasy Book Critic “An excellent read which compares favourably with writers like Bernard Cornwell and Conn Iggulden.”—Historical Novels Review “Gripping . . . splendidly conjures up the sounds, sights, and smells of Dark Age Britain.”—Harry Sidebottom, author of the Warrior of Rome series, on Raven: Blood Eye "A brilliant story, beautifully told."--"Sunday Express" "Impressive 'world-building' . . . The pace of the novel is unrelenting. . . . The series is among the best adventure historical fiction today."--Fantasy Book Critic "An excellent read which compares favourably with writers like Bernard Cornwell and Conn Iggulden."--Historical Novels Review "Gripping . . . splendidly conjures up the sounds, sights, and smells of Dark Age Britain."--Harry Sidebottom, author of the Warrior of Rome series, on "Raven: Blood Eye" Having Viking ancestors himself, Giles Kristian believes that the story of Raven has always been in his blood—waiting, like the Norsemen, for the right time to burst upon the world. The Raven series has been published to great acclaim by Transworld in the UK. Giles Kristian currently lives in Leicestershire, where he writes full-time, though he enjoys nothing better than working in his family cottage that overlooks the mist-shrouded Norwegian fjords. Chapter One You do not betray a Fellowship and live to see your hair turn white. For a Fellowship is an honor- and oath-forged thing, as strong as a bear, as fast as a dragon ship, and as vengeful as the sea. If you betray a Fellowship, you are a dead man, and Ealdorman Ealdred of Wessex had betrayed us. With the sail up and the spruce oars stowed, the men looked to their gear. They took whetstones to sword edges, patiently working out the notches carved in battle, and the rhythmic scraping was to me a soothing sound above their murmured conversations and the wet whisper of Serpent’s bow through the sea. Men laid mail brynjas across their knees, checking for damaged rings, which they replaced with ones taken from brynjas stripped from the dead. Two of the Norsemen were throwing a heavy-looking sack back and forth, grunting with the effort. The sack was filled with coarse sand, and if you put your mail in it and threw it around, the sand would clean the rust from the mail and make it like new again. Other men were smearing their brynjas with sheep grease, winding new leather and fine copper wire around sword grips, mending shield straps, and stretching new hides across the limewood planks. Dents were hammered out of helmets, spear blades were honed to wicked points slender enough to skewer a snail from its shell, and ax heads were checked to make sure they would not fly off at the first swing. Silver was weighed, furs were examined, and men argued or grumbled or boasted about the booty they had piled in their journey chests. We combed fleas from our beards and hair, relived fights, exaggerating our deeds and prowess, played tafl, checked Serpent’s caulking, and laid leather strips in boots to fix holes. We nursed wounds, exchanged stories about friends now sitting at Ódin’s mead bench in Valhöll, watched gulls soaring high above, and reveled in the creak of the ship and the low thrum of the rigging. And all the while we believed that Njörd, god of the sea, who is kind to those who honor him, filled our sail and that we would soon spy our quarry, Fjord-Elk, as a speck on the sunlit horizon. For we were blessed with a lusty following wind and were making good progress so that the land of the West Saxons was soon little more than a green ribbon on the horizon to the north. If Njörd’s favor held, Sigurd would sail Serpent through the night to try to shorten the distance between us and Fjord-Elk, and when we came across her and the treacherous men who sailed her, our swords and our axes would run red. Asgot the godi produced a hare from an oiled sack. It was a mangy thing that must have been kicking and scratching furiously ever since we set off, for its fur was sweat-soaked, its mouth was bloodied, and its