"Now we shall go a-Viking," Harald Redbeard announced, and so it was that Jan and Brus, Harald's twin sons, found themselves on the dragon-prowed Raven of the Wind, its striped sails set for England. But storms, ancient enemies of the seafaring Norsemen, swooped down, and in their wake left disaster. Their mother's ship was lost and the Raven was wrecked on the Isle of Skye, stronghold of the giant Scot, Began Mor.

Then Jan and Brus met Gavin, the Black Fox of Lorne, and began the long journey that was to take them across half the wild land of Scotland, in search of their mother and father's murderer.

The story is like a panorama of tenth-century Scotland. Loyal clansmen at war with marauding Picts and invading Englishmen; staunch crofters and kindly shepherds; arrogant, powerful lairds—and among them the young Norsemen, practicing the clever deception that saved their lives. For no one in this strange land knew that there were two boys, identical in appearance, and by the time the secret was revealed, it had served its purpose, and the long quest was ended.

From the dust jacket