In the second part of the powerful trilogy, Gudrun has returned to the land of the Snow-Walkers, far in the North. From her domain of ice, she fashions a rune-beast from darkness and shadows and sends it to destroy her son, Kari. On its journey to the Jarlshold, it hunts and feeds and grows in strength. The people are thrown into panic. Surrounded by suspicion, fear and conspiracy Wulfgar, the new Jarl, must now confront this evil.