The Fire of the Fallen (the Light of the North Saga)

Name: The Fire of the Fallen (the Light of the North Saga)
Rating: 4.6 (1428 reviews)

by J. C. Duncan Book 2 in the The Light of the North Saga series.

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4.6(1,428)

In the alternate year 1117, the crusading armies have devastated Denmark and now look east towards Sweden. Captured by a Norse warband, Ordulf is taken into slavery and forced to forge weapons for the people he once regarded as enemies. At the same time, the surviving Norse leaders gather after the deaths of kings and the loss of a kingdom, seeking a ruler capable of meeting the next invasion.

Ordulf’s captivity forces him to live among people he had understood only as enemies, while the northern leaders must reconstruct authority after military disaster. The alternate-history setting turns crusading ideology northward, imagining Scandinavia as a contested religious frontier. Survival depends on rebuilding communities before the next invasion reaches a region already exhausted by war.