1010 AD: England is dying, its people brutalised and its lands ravaged by wave after wave of Norse invaders. King thelred does little but sit on his throne, haunted by his own troubled past and incapable of action. When the infamous "jomsviking", Thorkell the Tall, lands on his shores with an unprecedentedly vast horde, thelred predictably struggles to find a solution, preferring instead to fixate on supposed slights and schemes set in motion...