Eleventh-century Iceland. One night in the darkness of winter, two friends set out on an adventure but end up killing a man. Kjaran, a travelling poet who trades songs for food and shelter, and Gunnar, a feared warrior, must make a choice: conceal the deed or confess to the crime and pay the blood price to the family. But their decision leads to a brutal feud: one man is outlawed, free to be killed by anyone without consequence, the other remorselessly hunted by the dead man's kin.

Set in a world of ice and snow, it is an epic story of exile and revenge, of duels and betrayals and two friends struggling to survive in a desolate landscape, where honour is the only code that men abide by.