A disgraced warrior must navigate a course between honour and shame, his people and the Roman Empire, in the first of a new trilogy set in the second century AD, from the author of Smile of the Wolf.
AD173. The Danube lies frozen. On its banks gather the clans of Samartia, their riders winter starved by sickly herds and blighted crops. Petty feuds cast aside and their disparate numbers united in the face of a great enemy. For across the frozen waters stands the mighty Roman Empire, and its Legion marches ever closer.
But the Samartians are proud, and they are cast from the ice itself. They were trained from young to ride and fight and kill on its slippery surface. They cannot lose.
They charge...
Alone on a bloodied battlefield awakens Kai. Surrounded by the bodies of his people, fallen to the Legion, to have survived is a disgrace. In the aftermath of such defeat, he must navigate a course between honour and shame, his people and the Empire. It is a journey that will take him far to the West, beyond everything he has ever known.
'Superb ... This is a thoughtful, literary take on a world that is more often depicted in a boy's adventure way. The focus in Leach's book is not on the fighting, but on the strange, inescapable logic that makes the fighting inevitable' The Times, Book of the Year.
'A poetic, absorbing narrative with many of the same qualities as the medieval Icelandic sagas that it echoes and reimagines' Sunday Times, Book of the Year.
'Smile of the Wolf bares its fangs from the first page. Like a medieval tapestry, the storytelling is rich with imagery. Readers will be lured spellbound into this lyrical and evocative Icelandic saga. It deserves huge success' David Gilman
