All the while Halldorr follows the drumbeat of history, he still desires a woman to be his own. The choice for battle or peace is not his own and he is left fighting, assuming the persona of a Berserker of yore, in events which today we find etched in the Vinland Sagas. Soon, with Helluland and Markland in his wake and Vinland under his feet, Halldorr again finds that his hopes for peace are washed away by the waves of history as two peoples separated by an ocean for eons, collide. The new jarl of Greenland is only too happy to comply and commands Halldorr to discover new lands and new peoples, to settle in a foreign wilderness. But returning home after so many years of killing, Halldorr finds he is a different man, so seizing upon his destiny is short-lived as he longs for journey. Now after watching so many of his countrymen slain in battle at the end of his last tale, Halldorr returns to Greenland with his adopted brother Leif to take revenge on the man who saw him wrongly exiled thirteen years ago. In his first adventure he became bodyguard to a king, brutally fighting in monumental battles such as Maldon and Swoldr which were to be handed down for centuries in skaldic verse. Instead, he found himself exiled, resigned to a life of raiding, killing for plunder and survival.

'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title.Paths of the Norseman is the second volume of the vividly-detailed historical chronicles of Halldorr, an orphan whose entire desire was to lay beside both a warm hearth and a plump wife, but the fate spun by the norns took a different thread.

Oath sworn men, golden Valkyries, and a grinding siege all have roles to play in deciding the fate of a kingdom. Norseman’s Oath is a magnificent tale, immersing the reader in a world of thrilling battle, vivid characters, Viking wit, and grand adventure. And just when Halldorr begins to curse it all, a dirty sea king arrives on the scene and inspires him and a city to greatness. Ireland’s High King Sechnaill gambles for power. The half-brother princes, Iron Knee and Silkbeard, each have something to prove. Everyone, Norse and Irish alike, desires to have a hand in running their own kingdom and the crumbling House of Kvaran. The truth hidden beneath the politics of Ireland is more sinister. The timber walls of King Kvaran’s prosperous city appear promising at first. They remain banished from the icy fjords of home and so must serve wherever a sword is needed. The year is 989 A.D., two years after Halldorr and his fellow Greenlanders limped away from the massacre at Dunadd. Halldorr finds himself in the renowned Norse city of Dyflin, defending a king long past his prime. Jason Born’s ill-fated hero, Halldorr, returns in this fifth stunning installment of The Norseman Chronicles.

Norseman's Oath by Jason Born