It takes a remarkable writer to make an old story as fresh and compelling as the first time we heard it. With The Winter King, the first volume of his magnificent Warlord Chronicles, Bernard Cornwell finally turns to the story he was born to write: the mythic saga of King Arthur.

The tale begins in Dark Age Britain, a land where Arthur has been banished and Merlin has disappeared, where a child-king sits unprotected on the throne, where religion

Arthur Pendragon is king! Crowned and recognized as High King, Arthur is unchallenged on the battlefield, and he melds the country together in a time of promise, as Merlin works in the shadows.

But sinister powers plot to destroy Camelot, and when the witch-queen Morgause—Arthur's own half sister—ensnares him in an incestuous liaison, a fatal web of love, betrayal, and bloody vengeance is woven.