Uhtred recognizes one as his old comrade-in-arms, the Welshman Father Pyrlig. Uhtred ponders this offer while Sigefrid invites him to watch the crucifixion of some Christian prisoners. Torn between his oath to Alfred, whom he dislikes, and the temptation to become a king in his own right, he listens to Haesten and the Thurgilson brothers proposition: if Uhtred convinces his foster brother Ragnar of Northumbria to bring his men to join them in attacking first East Anglia, then Mercia and finally Wessex, then Uhtred will receive Mercia, while Sigefrid gets Wessex and Haesten East Anglia. Haesten takes Uhtred to a graveyard, where a corpse rises from the earth to tell Uhtred that the Fates have decreed he is to be King of Mercia. Haesten invites him to a meeting across the Temes in Mercia. When he informs Alfred, he is given the task of collecting a force strong enough to take the city back, then handing it over to his cousin Æthelred.

After ambushing a band of raiders, Uhtred learns that two powerful Norse earls, Sigefrid and Erik Thurgilson, allied with Uhtred's treacherous former friend Haesten, have occupied nearby Lundene. This novel was used as the basis for the second half of the second series of the BBC's The Last Kingdom.Īlfred, King of Wessex, has Uhtred of Bebbanburg build one of the fortified towns that make up Alfred's system of defence. Uhtred leads battles against the Danes, as King Alfred strengthens the defences of his kingdom of Wessex. Sword Song is the fourth historical novel in The Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell, published in 2007.

Sword Song by Bernard Cornwell