Odin's Betrayal

Donovan Cook

Description

Two kingdoms destined for war. One boy caught in the eye of the storm...

'A fabulous Norse tale of family secrets, betrayal and conflict right up until the very last page - I loved it!'- MJ Porter

'An action-packed scintillating thriller. Pacy, raw, violent fayre, with a cast of characters you'll swiftly loathe or admire - you'll think you're in the shield wall' - Ross Greenwood

Francia AD853
After a failed Viking raid on the Frankish coast over 20-years-ago, Jarl Sven the Boar is forced to leave his only son, Torkel, as a hostage and warned never to raid Francia again or his son will die.
In Hügelburg, a small town in East Francia, Torkel and his 9-year-old son Charles are ambushed at home.
Before dying, Torkel thrusts a package into young Charles’s hands and tells him to flee Francia for Denmark in search of his grandfather Sven the Boar’s protection.
But the man Charles eventually finds is not who he expects, and Charles must put his fate in the hands of a man betrayed by Odin.
Together they must uncover the significance of the package and why the Kings of Francia want Charles dead.

Sujets

• Mashups
• Historical Fiction
• World Literature
• Religious
• Historical
• Coming of Age
• Friendship
• General officer
• Ancient history
• Norse
• General
• Ancient
• Francia
• French
• Saxon
• War
• Fiction
• Viking
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Boldwood Books
• Date de parution: 11 avril 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781804838075
• Langue: English

Extrait

ODIN’S BETRAYAL


DONOVAN COOK
To my readers, none of this would have been possible without you.
CONTENTS



Characters

Historical Note

Map


Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25


More from Donovan Cook

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Donovan Cook

Warrior Chronicles

About Boldwood Books
CHARACTERS

FRANKS


Charles – son of Torkel and grandson of Sven the Boar
Gerold – slave
Bishop Bernard – bishop of Paderborn
Duke Liudolf – duke of Saxony
Lothar – chatelain of Hügelburg
Prince Louis – son of Emperor Louis I and future king of East Francia

DANES


Sven the Boar – former jarl of Ribe, grandfather of Charles
Thora – former shield maiden
Sigge – young warrior from Hedeby, nephew of Ketil
Torkel – son of Sven the Boar and father of Charles
Jarl Bjarni – jarl of Ribe and brother of Sven
Oleg – hirdman of Jarl Bjarni, former hirdman of Sven the Boar
Amund and Egil – Danish warriors of Hedeby
Ketil – uncle of Sigge and friend of Jarl Torgeir, jarl of Hedeby
Oda – wife of Arnbjorg
Rollo – son of Arnbjorg
HISTORICAL NOTE

After three years of civil war over who would be the next emperor of Francia, the surviving sons of Emperor Louis I (also known as Louis the Pious) signed the Treaty of Verdun in ad 843. The Frankish Empire was divided into three kingdoms, Charles II (Charles the Bald) received West Francia, Lothar I received Middle Francia and Louis II (Louis the German) received East Francia. But the peace brought by the Treaty of Verdun was fragile and did not prevent the brothers from coveting each other’s kingdoms. In ad 854, King Louis II seized his opportunity and sent his son, Louis the Younger, to invade Aquitaine in West Francia after a group of nobles opposed the rule of Charles II and appealed to Louis II for help.
Meanwhile, in Denmark, Francia’s troublesome neighbour to the north, King Horik was struggling to control his rebellious jarls who were eager to take advantage of Francia’s inner turmoil and raid her fertile lands. King Horik had signed a peace treaty with Emperor Louis I in ad 834, and was desperate to avoid a war with the mighty Frankish Empire. But this did not prevent some of his jarls from raiding in Francia, which strained the relationship between King Horik and the three Frankish kings.

PROLOGUE
AD 834, OFF THE COAST OF NORTHERN FRANCIA

Sven the Boar rubbed the Mjöllnir pendant around his neck as he stared at the small Frankish army between him and his two ships hauled up on the beach. Behind him stood his eighty men and the women and children they had taken as captives from the farms they had been raiding over the last few days, and the carts filled with whatever plunder they had found. The money from selling the captives would make him richer than the king of Denmark. Sven let go of the pendant as the clouds drifted in the blue sky above, the summer sun soaking the tunic he wore under his brynja in sweat. He knew Odin would not help him. The All-Father was a bastard and would kill Sven just to amuse himself.
‘Jarl Sven, what do we do?’ Arnbjorg, his champion and one of his hirdmen, towered over him. Sven was shorter than most men, but he had broad shoulders and a barrel-like chest. His arms were the size of most men’s legs, and his legs were even thicker. Sven’s head was shaved, and he had convinced himself it had nothing to do with losing his hair, even though he had only seen twenty-seven winters. He had a raven tattoo on his scalp, something he had done so that Odin could always find him. His blue eyes were full of violence and his red beard was neatly combed with three thick braids, each one with a golden ring tied at the end. The ring in the middle had belonged to Sven’s father, the other two to two of his brothers. Sven had killed all three of them to become the jarl of Ribe, a large trading town in Denmark.
Sven glanced at his remaining brother, Bjarni, wondering why the larger man was so unusually quiet, before turning his attention back to the Frankish army. Behind the small army, a nobleman wearing a tunic as green as the first grass in the spring and a cloak fastened by a large golden brooch sat on a white horse. His dark hair and beard were short and tidy, while dark eyes scrutinised Sven. The Frank had more men than Sven, but most of them were part of the levy: local farmers and men of fighting age who were summoned to defend their lands when needed. They had round shields and spears, a few even had swords, but none wore any armour apart from the helmets on their heads. Sven wasn’t too worried about them; they were usually the first ones to run. But he was concerned about the thirty or so household warriors. Like his hirdmen, these were elite fighters, and all wore chain mail and helmets. They had round shields and spears like the levy, but these warriors all had either swords or axes. Sven glanced over the Franks’ heads towards his ships and saw the men he had left to guard them lying dead as their blood seeped into the sand. His heart pounded in his chest as he searched for Torkel, his son of nine winters. He had left the boy with the ships, believing he would be safer there than with him during the raids, but there was no sign of him amongst the dead men. Sven took a deep breath as he fought to calm his nerves. The boy was smart; he would be hiding somewhere.
Sven glanced at the forest not far from the shoreline, unable to ignore the unease he felt, and wondered if there were more men hidden amongst the trees. He had not wanted to beach his ships here. He had raided here the previous summer and did not like to raid the same place twice. But his brother and some of his men had convinced him to do it.
‘Jarl Sven?’ Arnbjorg tried again.
A growl escaped from Sven’s throat as he put his helmet back on his head, feeling the heat of the metal against his bare scalp. He gripped his Dane axe as his men prepared themselves for the fight. ‘Orm, take your group and protect the captives and the plunder,’ Sven ordered, not bothering to look back to see if Orm did what he asked. His eyes never left the Franks. Sven saw the smile on the nobleman’s face, before glancing at Bjarni. He was still surprised by how quiet his younger brother was as one of his men handed him his shield.
Sven struck the rim of his shield with his axe and heard his men do the same behind him. The sound echoed around them like thunder and he smiled when some of the women they had captured cried out. In front of them, the Franks were forming a shield wall with the household warriors in the centre and the levy spread out on either side of them. The Frankish lord stayed on his horse behind his troops, the large animal pawing the beach as Sven spat in disgust at the leader who would not fight with his men.
The Danish warriors formed their own line, which stood forty men wide and two men deep, with Arnbjorg on Sven’s left and Bjarni on his right. Sven lifted his head to the clouds, looking for a sign from the gods, but saw nothing to tell him of his fate. He shrugged and, with a glance to either side of him, punched his Dane axe into the air.
‘Odin!’ he roared, and charged at the Franks, his men keeping pace with him as they screamed their own war cries.
The Franks held their line with the nobleman sitting silently on his horse as his more experienced warriors called the orders. The household warriors stood strong, their faces grim, but Sven saw the spears wavering from the levy forces. He knew they would break as soon as his men struck.
They were about five paces from the Franks, close enough to see the whites of their eyes, when Sven shouted. ‘ Svinfylking !’
Sven expected his brother to come in closer on his right, just as Arnbjorg was doing on his left, while the rest of his men fell back to form an arrow point that would punch through the Franks’ wall. But then Bjarni cried out and fell. Sven had seen no bows, nor had he heard any arrows, so this caught him and his men by surprise.
But he had no time to think about that as he barged into the large warrior facing him. The force of their charge broke through the Frankish men, splitting their line and allowing Sven and his hirdmen to get behind them. The nobleman’s horse whined and took a few steps back as Sven swung his axe and split the helmet and skull of the man in front of him. To his side, Arnbjorg caved a man’s head in with the rim of his shield before cutting an arm off another. Sven lifted his shield to block a spear thrust and as soon as the spear point lodged into his shield, he turned it and chopped down hard with his Dane axe. The Frankish warrior tried to block the blow with his shield and Sven’s axe caught the top of it, tilting it back onto the Frank’s shoulder. The man screamed as the axe blade cut through the rim of his shield and broke his collarbone. But before Sven could free his axe from the shield, he heard a new noise. A noise he was hoping not to hear, but also expected. Sven freed his axe from the Frank’s shield and looked towards the forest to see the small Frankish cavalry force erupting from the trees. Growling, he looked for his brother but could not see Bjarni amongst the fighting men and remembered he had fallen just before they reached the Franks. Sven knew Odin was laughing at him then. He could hear it in the hooves of the horses as they galloped towards his men, most of them too busy fighting the Franks to notice the new threat approaching their rear. He turned to the dark-haired nobleman astride his powerful steed, who smiled as he saw the same thing Sven had seen. That the Danes were about to lo