Showing results by author "S.J.A. Turney" in All Categories

After years of voyaging around the world, the Wolves of Odin are going home. Far from the green crew led by an unblooded, wily lad that departed Sigtun, they return a renowned, feared war-band, led by Jarl Halfdan Loki-Born. They have come back to hunt down the last man responsible for the death of Halfdan’s father, the wicked Christian priest Hjalmvigi.

55 BC and Caesar's army gathers in the north of Gaul, preparing to drive away invading Germanic peoples and to traverse the dangerous northern ocean bringing punishment to the tribes of Britannia for their assistance of Gaulish rebels. But Fronto's troubles don't stop there. As his burgeoning relationship with Lucilia steps to a new level, so do his responsibilities at home, a situation exacerbated by the disruptive influence of the villainous Clodius in the city, causing trouble and endangering those about whom Fronto cares most.

It is 56 BC. As Fronto and his friends’ winter in Rome and Caesar in Illyricum, trouble is brewing in the north. The tribes of Armorica, driven to desperate action by the harsh rule of Crassus, raise their standards in defiance of the Roman eagle, causing a chain reaction that threatens everything the legions of Caesar have achieved. Meanwhile, in Rome, the conspiracies against Caesar take an unexpected turn, plunging Fronto and his friends into a world of crime, violence and intrigue that threaten everything the legate cares about.

57 BC. The fearsome Belgae have gathered a great army to oppose Rome, and Fronto and the legions assemble once more to take Caesar's war against the most dangerous tribes in the northern world. While the legions battle the Celts in the fiercest war of Caesar's career, the plots and conspiracies against him, both at Rome and among his own army, become ever deeper and more dangerous.

Anno Domini 1040. Christianity has swept unstoppably across Scandinavia, leaving few enclaves of the old ways clinging on to their fading world as King Olof of Sweden works to convert his people. A young warrior, Halfdan, has witnessed the ‘mercy' of the Christian lords, watched his people attacked, his village burned and the Odin stone toppled as heretical. Watched his father cut down by an ambitious Christian jarl and his zealous priest. Among the ashes of his world, he vowed an oath of vengeance before all the gods.

After many months of clandestine organisation, Vercingetorix, backed by the druids and leading an army of rebellious tribes, is ready to make his first moves towards independence for his people and the annihilation of Rome's presence in Gaul. Meanwhile, Caesar tends to business in Aquileia, unaware that he is cut off from the bulk of his army in the north by the rebellion. Fronto and his friends are heading for a clash of armies the likes of which the north has never seen, and the Tenth's legate is about to face his most trying year yet.

AD 101. Eleven years have passed since the emperor Domitian led a campaign into Dacia to chastise them for their incursions, meeting the enemy once again at Tapae, the site of an earlier battle. But Domitian is gone, now, and a new emperor sits on the throne: Trajan. This new leader of the Roman world is determined to succeed where Domitian failed: the total subjugation of Dacia.

The relics of Christendom have been plundered during the long Moorish conquest of the Iberian peninsula. Newly minted Templar Sergeant Arnau de Vallbona must recover one of the most elusive to save his priory at Rourell in Spain. Travelling to Majorca on a stealth mission to retrieve the bones of St Stephen, Arnau soon discovers the raid is more complex than it first appears: the mighty Almohad dynasty has laid claim to the island, and will fight them every step of the way.

As tensions build in Gaul and the druids manoeuvre the tribes towards general rebellion, Priscus and the diminishing senior staff of Caesar's army prepare to return to Britannia, this time with a vast army and a will to crush the tribes of that mysterious island. Meanwhile, Fronto contemplates a non-military future as he settles into the life of a married nobleman, socialising with Rome's elite and coming to terms with the decline in his fitness.

51 BC. In the aftermath of the dreadful siege of Alesia, the tribes of Gaul lie broken and sparse, and yet the fires of rebellion still burn in the hearts of a few. As Caesar and his army continue to pacify the land wherever revolt can be found, a new conspiracy is rising. Lucterius of the Cadurci, survivor of Alesia, seeks to raise a new great revolt, building an army in his homeland, while a small group of dangerous warriors embark upon a secret and dangerous mission to rebuild all that was lost in that great siege.

It is the eve of destruction. Gaul seethes and bucks more than ever in revolt against the Roman invader, with even Caesar's allies beginning to question their loyalty. A conspiracy of Druids and Kings move the pieces into position in their great game of independence, all led by the powerful exile Vercingetorix. The lands of the Belgae burn in the vengeful aftermath of a winter that saw countless Romans butchered by the Eburone King: Ambiorix.

Fleeing the machinations of William the Conqueror in France, the Wolves of Odin set sail for Britain. They make for the north of the country, heading to Jorvik–Viking York. Its earl, Sigurd, doesn’t believe they have arrived with peaceable intentions. To prove their good faith, he challenges them to fix a problem for him.

Winter, 48 BC. Caesar and his small force are trapped in the Egyptian city of Alexandria. Caught up in the dynastic struggles of the House of Ptolemy, the consul has sided with the clever and ruthless Queen Cleopatra. Her brother and fellow monarch, Ptolemy XIII, languishes in the palace, a hostage of Caesar's, while a huge army under the command of the Egyptian General Achillas closes on the city to free him. 

It is 58 BC, and the mighty Tenth Legion, camped in Northern Italy, prepare for the arrival of the most notorious general in Roman history: Julius Caesar. Marcus Falerius Fronto, commander of the Tenth, is a career soldier and long-time companion of Caesar's. Despite his desire for the simplicity of the military life, he cannot help but be drawn into intrigue and politics as Caesar engineers a motive to invade the lands of Gaul.

AD 1043. Having escaped Constantinople with their lives—barely—but not their ship, Halfdan and the wolves of Odin are now mercenaries in the Byzantine army, sailing to Apulia in Italy to help retake territory from the Normans. But cracks are beginning to show among the tight-knit wolves. Gunnhild, having forsaken the fate woven for her by the Norns in order to continue her journey with Halfdan, has lost her ability to communicate with the goddess Freyja, and so glimpse the future.

The war in Gaul is over, but the fight for Rome is only just beginning. Denied his consulship by the senate and nearing the end of his term as governor, Caesar waits at Ravenna with one legion, making a last attempt at reconciliation. Threatened with prosecution if he returns to Rome, just one path is becoming clear: war against the senate. Fronto and Galronus are bound to the service of the Proconsul, facing a war against other Romans, and able neither to prevent nor avoid it.

The war in Gaul is over. The rebels are defeated. Now the battle for Rome has begun.

AD 1041. After successfully avenging the death of his father, Halfdan and the crew of the Sea Wolf seek adventure in strange new lands, far from their Scandinavian home. They join the fleet of Harald Hardrada, the legendary Viking commander, sailing back to Constantinople from the battlefields of Georgia. There they join the Varangians, the personal bodyguard of the Byzantine Emperors populated almost exclusively by Viking warriors. But Constantinople has changed during Hardrada's long absence.

It is 50BC and Caesar winters with his legions in the north - all Gaul conquered but a triumphant return to Rome denied him by the senate who seek his blood. Yet unrest stirs in unknown lands, as the tribes of mountainous Aquitania rise under a terrifying new leader and drive out their Roman occupiers. Marcus Falerius Fronto, exiled from Rome, seeks out his former commander in an effort to build a future and soon finds himself in command of a most unusual legion with a remit to restore peace in Aquitania.

The empire is settled from its civil wars with a strong new ruler in Septimius Severus, and while the emperor campaigns in the east, a cohort of Praetorians has been left in control of Rome under Rufinus, now a tribune of the Guard. But adventure calls once more, as Rufinus receives a worrying letter that sends him on a quest in the north, which will take him and his new faithful companion to the edge of empire, where he will uncover a secret that puts the whole world in danger.