From the master of the sweeping historical epic comes the story of two heroes who reshaped and reconfigured the entire destiny of the kingdom of Scotland by defying the might and power of Edward Plantagenet, the king of England, Hammer of the Scots. Wallace the Braveheart would become the only legendary, heroic commoner in medieval British history and the undying champion of the common man. The other, Robert Bruce, earl of Carrick, would perfect the techniques of guerilla warfare developed by Wallace and use them to create his own place in history as the greatest king of Scots who ever lived.
In the spring of 1297, the two men meet in Ayr, in the south of Scotland, each having recently lost a young wife, one in childbirth and the other by murder. Each is heartbroken but determined in his grief to defy the ambitions of England and its malignant king, whose lust to conquer and consume the realm of Scotland is blatant and unyielding. Their combined anger at the injustices of the invading English is about to unleash a storm in Scotland that will last for sixteen years—and destroy England’s military power for decades—before giving rise to a new nation of free men.
Jack Whyte’s masterful storytelling breathes life into the rugged men who waged Scotland’s brutal wars of independence and shaped her future.