By the beginning of the 9th Century, the "Hounds from Hell" came out of Scandinavia and sailed to the East, West, and South in their longships. The Vikings plundered, raped, killed, and took slaves everywhere they raided. Meanwhile, in the northwest corner of Spain, Asturias, the last stronghold of Christianity, Asturians still fought the Moors to keep their independence. It was a matter of time before Pagan, Christian, and Muslim confronted each other, with unintended consequences, when a Christian, novice Princess, Isabela, was taken from a convent as a slave, and an Asturian nobleman, Alfonso, volunteered to find and bring her back for a price: the return ownership of his father's land that had been taken by the Moors. Isabela and the nuns were abducted by Viking raiders and forced into slavery, losing their religious faith as they suffered and were sold in the eastern slave markets, far from Asturias. And for Isabela, hopelessness, she was pregnant. Alfonso faced overwhelming obstacles in his search for Isabela. However, a Viking leader's decision against Alfonso and Alfonso's reaction to it changed the fates of most of those involved, with repercussions in the eastern slave markets, Constantinople in the Byzantium Empire, Alexandria in Egypt, and with the return of Isabela, a civil war in Asturias for control of the monarchy. Isabela's perception of life changed, and as Queen of Asturias, she had to listen to her heart to know whether she was still in love with her former fiance, now King of Galicia, or in love with Alfonso, who was leaving her kingdom. Alfonso was like a single, rolling boulder that dislodges others in its downward path, causing an avalanche that changes the landscape forever, and no one knows where or how it will end.