The Sorrow Song Trilogy - E-book - ePub

The Sorrow Song Trilogy includes the separate novels, The War Wolf, For Rapture of Ravens, and The Blade's Fell Blow, in one volume. The Saga of 1066 is recounted from the opening battle at Fulford Gate, to the greatest victory of the Anglo-Saxons against their ancient enemy, the Vikings, at Stamford Bridge, and ends with their final encounter, against the Normans, at Senlatche Ridge, near the town of Hastings. Follow Coenred, Captain of Huscarls to the brothers, Eorl Edwin of Mercia and Eorl Morcar of Northumbria, as he strides across the battlefields to serve his king, defend his people, but most of all to protect Mildryth, the woman he has come to love. Desiring only to retire to his estate at Holderness, The War Wolf finds Coenred's loyalty tested as news of King Harald Hardrada of Norway's huge Norse army invading Northumbria breaks.
His young lords, Edwin and Morcar, see only an opportunity to rival the military glory of their brother-in-law; King Harold Godwinson of Wessex. The young eorldermen's decision to fight before the walls of York takes the Anglo-Saxon world to the lip of an abyss from which it might never return. For Rapture of Ravens sees Coenred meeting King Harold at Tadcaster, prior to marching to Stamford Bridge and liberating the City of York from Viking rule.
King Hardrada has brought the largest Norse army ever to invade England, but King Harold has defied all expectations, marching north and calling Saxon warriors from all the lands to come and fight their oldest enemy. With the remnants of the force that fought with him at Fulford Gate, Coenred throws himself into the fray with an iron determination to seize victory from a Viking King who has never known defeat before. While the Saxons celebrate in York, Guillaume, Duke of Normandy, arrives in the south.
He is desperate to provoke a conclusive battle before winter arrives, but he has no knowledge of where to find King Harold. Coenred's dream of living with Mildryth at Holderness is stalled once more; all able warriors are called south to meet this new enemy and, as a man of honour but a huscarl without a lord, he cannot help but answer his King's summons. At Senlatche Ridge he joins the Saxon shieldwall, dressed in heavy armour, carrying a large round shield, and armed with a spear, a Dane-axe, and his grandfather's sword, Coenred of Holderness fights the longest battle of his life, standing until the last as the sun goes down on a civilisation over 500 years old.
The last days of the Anglo-Saxons suffer The Blade's Fell Blow.