Crown of Ash and Oak 2

A DYING KING. A STRANDED FLEET. A KINGDOM WON IN THE MUD.Summer, 896 AD. Eighty Danish dragon-ships choke the River Lea, pinning London beneath a siege of starvation and smoke. Behind their earthen ramparts, the Northmen wait for the coming winter to bleed Wessex dry.In Winchester, King Alfred lies dying on an ash pallet, his strength failing him when his people need it most. The defense of the realm falls to his untried heir, Prince Edward. But Edward does not fight with Latin prayers or gold treaties. He fights with ditch-shovels, grain tallies, and the brutal arithmetic of siege warfare.To break the Viking stranglehold, the young prince gambles everything on an audacious feat of military engineering: divert the River Lea, drain the channel, and leave eighty war-keels stranded like dead whales in the drying silt.Holding the line through the frost and timber are three survivors who ask for no glory:Cormac - An aging Northumbrian border veteran whose scarred joints throb with every freeze, swinging a broadaxe with bone-deep, quiet butchery.Bridget - A master of ledgers and salt-rations whose sharp mind keeps garrisons fed while the world burns around them.Osric - Their son, a stubborn carpenter forging bridges, timber palisades, and iron chains to choke the river’s throat.When the old king breathes his last and royal cousins turn their blades toward the vacant throne, Edward must prove that a realm hammered out of mud, oak, and iron can hold against the northern tide.