In the ninth century, as the lights of Christian civilization burned bravely in an England threatened by the dragon ships of the sea-devils, a girl called Astrid, torn between her Saxon upbringing and the wilder call of her blood, is plunged into the struggle between Saxon and Viking.
Kidnapped by raiders, forced to assume a male identity, she finds herself a vital link in the conflict for supremacy between two alien cultures. Set against a background of intrigue and violence, Astrid's search for the truth about herself is complicated by her growing passion for the gentle Krodin, the Viking leader, and the division between her twin loyalties. Moving from England to Norway, the story unfolds in a clash of roaring seas, heathen Vikings and the camp of King Alfred whose future is strangely bound up with the heroine at war with her own nature.