Matthew Harffy · 2022 · sea

AD 794, and the Norse come back. The king of Northumbria orders longships of his own built under the oath-sworn Norseman Runolf, and sends Hunlaf across the whale road to buy an alliance with the king of Rogaland - though Runolf and Hunlaf have their own reasons for going, involving kin, old scores and a heretical book.

1. 1
   Uuiremutha

   Northumbrian shipwrights building longships to a Norse design under a Norseman's eye - the kingdom finally understanding that whoever rules the sea rules the coast, one raiding season too late.

2. 2
   Rogaland

   Across the North Sea to south-western Norway, where the embassy is a pretext: Runolf is looking for a wife and a brother, Hunlaf for a forbidden text, and both of them walk into a slave uprising that is already burning.

3. 3
   Uuiremutha

   Home across the whale road with what is left of them - and a monk who set out to copy books having become, by the end, something the abbot at Lindisfarne would not recognise.