Hardrada: The Last Viking

He lost a kingdom at fifteen. He would burn the world to get it back. For the young Prince Harald Sigurdsson, the bloody mud of Stiklestad was not an end, but a brutal beginning. Exiled, wounded, and hunted after the death of his brother, King Olaf, he is stripped of his home, his title, and his honor. With nothing but his royal blood and a heart filled with a cold, simmering rage, he walks the ghost's road east to the court of Kievan Rus' and then south, to the glittering, treacherous heart of the known world: Constantinople. In the service of the Byzantine Emperor, he finds his true calling. He enlists in the elite Varangian Guard, and through years of relentless medieval warfare, he forges a new identity. On the pirate coasts of the Mediterranean, the sun-scorched plains of Asia Minor, and the blood-soaked hills of Bulgaria, he becomes a legend-the "Bulgar-Burner," the "Thunderbolt of the North," a commander whose tactical genius is matched only by his unflinching cruelty. He learns the language of power not in councils, but in sieges; not in treaties, but in terror. Amassing a king's ransom in gold, he is ready to return home. But the Norway he returns to is not the one he left. The throne is occupied by his own nephew, the pious Magnus the Good. Through a campaign of fear and a pragmatic, cold-blooded betrayal, Harald seizes a share of the crown, his ambition finally tasting the power it has craved. When Magnus dies, leaving Harald as the sole, undisputed king, his gaze turns to the ultimate prize. In the year 1066, with the English throne suddenly vacant, he sees his destiny. Forging an unholy alliance with the exiled brother of the new English king, he assembles the greatest Viking invasion fleet of the age to claim the richest kingdom in the north. This is his final, epic gamble. This is the story of the last great Viking king, a true and brutal Viking saga of an antihero's relentless rise and his final, catastrophic fall at the fateful Battle of Stamford Bridge-the bloody day that forever marked the end of an era. Exiled and left for dead at fifteen after the catastrophic Battle of Stiklestad, Prince Harald Sigurdsson's life of privilege is shattered. Fueled by a burning ambition, he forges a new path across the known world, becoming a legendary commander in the elite Varangian Guard of the Byzantine Empire. He amasses a vast fortune and a fearsome reputation as the "Bulgar-Burner," a man who has learned the brutal art of power in the world's most dangerous city. But the lure of his lost kingdom calls to him, and he returns to the north a harder, more ruthless man, ready to claim his birthright with the same cold iron he used to conquer for an emperor. Now, in the fateful year of 1066, the English throne is vacant, and Harald sees his final, ultimate prize. Forging an alliance with a bitter English exile, he gathers the largest Viking invasion fleet in a generation to make his last great gamble. But as he stands on the cusp of creating a great northern empire, he is unaware that his own hubris has set the stage for a single, bloody battle at a place called Stamford Bridge-a battle that will not only decide his fate, but will mark the violent, dramatic, and legendary end of the Viking Age.