In the frozen tundra of northernmost Norway, Alrik Olvirsson and his family live a life loyal to the Old Gods, far from their Christian persecutors. When a plague ship wrecks on the shores of his village, and the disease threatens his family, he is forced out of exile and into Christendom in search of a cure.
He finds a dying world on the brink of oblivion. Aided by a German doctor, a Venetian swindler, and an enigmatic monk, Alrik races to the one city mysteriously free of the Black Death: Milan.
Pursued by an order of fanatical knights, into the realm of a warlord renowned for devil worship, he is dogged by omens of Ragnarok – the end of the Gods, of man, and of the nine worlds.
Can the cure be found?
Can the end of the world be prevented?
The answers lie in prophecies whispered by the ancient Norse oracles.
