The oath bound him to King Alfred. An oath bound him to Æthelflæd. Now the oath will tear him away from his ancestral home, which he won with such difficulty. Because Uhtred swore that if Edward died, he would kill two people. And now Edward is dying. Fate brings Uhtred with a small detachment of warriors to the south and throws him into the battle for the royal throne. In a world of unstable alliances and questionable loyalties, he will need strength and cunning to defeat his fiercest enemy. As two warring kings gather armies, fate draws Uhtred to London and into a power struggle that will grant victory to one king and death to the other. But fate - as Uhtred has already learned - is inexorable. Wyrd bið ful ãræd. Uhtred's destiny is to once again stand in the thick of the shield wall... The twelfth novel in the Saxon Chronicles series.