The Hawk of Essex looked out toward the sea and thought for a moment that he had stepped back in time. As it had more than two years before, a Viking war fleet was bearing down on his shore.
He called to his wife, who was, after all, Norse and whom he knew had a good grasp of things. "Would you agree that Wolf and Dragon are reasonable men?"
Krysta lifted their son from the basin in which she had been bathing him, grinned at the baby's eager kicks, and wrapped him snugly in a blanket before joining Hawk at the window. "Eminently reasonable."
He looked again over the sea. "Something has stirred them." Buckling on his sword,he went to find out what it was.

Autore: Josie Litton