In this medieval dark fantasy action novel we follow thieves Maskan and Sand in their quest to survive the wrath of a king. The Nine Worlds have been sundered from each other and the gods during the goddess Hel’s War thousands of years ago, but in the land of Midgard the years have passed relatively peacefully.
For Red Midgard, times are changing, however. The harsh, freedom-loving northern land faces the animosity of the mighty High King, but also a threat of war with its few allies, as King Morag is rumored to look for any reason to go to war with his allies. Maskan and Sand, thieves of Dagnar, discover a web of conspiracies to topple the king before it is too late, and soon, they have a good reason to tie their fates with those who would fight the king.
But not all is as it seems, and layers of truths and lies make the road dark and dangerous. Our heroes must navigate very murky waters of betrayal, elemental magic, love, and loyalty to save their land and to find revenge.
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Alrik, the rogue, was choking to death.
His back was arched in hopeless panic and excruciating pain, and his face was a reddish mask of horror. His tongue flapped on his chin as he wheezed for breath. Then he wet himself. That indignity was not lost to most of the crowd as his legs began kicking around in the air, seeking something tangible to save his life. There was nothing. He was being executed. He was dying very slowly and with no mercy.
‘Bastard,’ Sand breathed. ‘She’s a rotten piece of gristle, isn’t she?’ He nodded at the woman in charge of the hanging.
I nodded in full agreement. The fat executioner was called the Harlot, and she was a brutal, fat woman who got rich off her former husband’s profession; one she had perfected. Now she was squinting up at the victim, as if she was sorely disappointed by the gruesome death and the ineptitude of the principal actor hanging from the thick rope.
‘She should pull on his legs,’ I said softly and supported my rough-faced friend, Sand, who was being shoved around in the thick crowd. It was an apt name for the wide boy of seventeen. He was much like the hung man was, I thought, blond, rough, and tough. Many young men in the north looked like Sand, for the north bred men of dour, harsh disposition, and perhaps it was the long winter that made it so. I gazed around at the crowd. The large group of rogues and the poor, stinking and starving people were the usual specimens of northern dregs. Family. They were that. Of sorts, I thought. Most were thieves, swindlers, smugglers, and just petty criminals. All were sullenly watching the execution.
