Octavia Randolph · 2017 · sea

It is the last decade of the ninth century and the Peace between Wessex and the Danes settled in the Danelaw is wearing through. Ceric of Kilton, grown now, rides across kingdoms to his friend Hrald of Four Stones - and to Ashild, whom he wants for his wife - while renewed war threatens the very ties he is riding to make. Hundreds of leagues east, on Gotland, Hrald's father Sidroc must defy his Gods. The book is the Hammer against the Cross, two beliefs and two war-chiefs set against each other with three young people caught between, and its map is the saga's two worlds held apart: a road across Angle-land, and an island in the Baltic.

1. 1
   Kilton

   The Saxon hall on the Somerset cliffs, where Ceric has grown to be a young man of Wessex. He sets out east and north across kingdoms, carrying his hopes for a marriage that would bind Kilton to Four Stones.

2. 2
   Cirenceaster

   The old Roman town on the road north, marked on Randolph's England sheet for this book. Beyond it the Danelaw begins, and a Saxon riding to a Danish hall rides into a peace that is already failing.

3. 3
   Four Stones

   Hrald's stronghold in Lindisse. Ceric comes as a friend and a suitor; but a new onslaught of Danes is loose in Angle-land, and the Danish warriors long settled under the Dane-law are tempted to join them. What Ceric wants and what the times allow are pulling apart.

4. 4
   Gotland

   The island in the Baltic, hundreds of leagues from Lindisse. The saga's second world, reached by the long haul round the Skaw and through the Danish islands into the Baltic proper.

5. 5
   Tyrsborg

   Sidroc's hall above the trading town. Here the book's other half plays out: the Dane who has kept faith with Thor all his life is brought to the point where he must defy his Gods.