Exiles of the ashen tree

James Ericsson never felt like a hero. Overweight, shy, and haunted by his parents' divorce, the thirteen-year-old only dreamed of becoming the gallant knight from the stories he loved. But when a blinding light rips him from his quiet English life and drops him into a harsh Norse-inspired world of longships, ancient wyrd, and endless winter, his dreams become a brutal reality.
Taken in by a remote village under siege by an unending horde of skeletal warriors, James earns his place through sweat and scavenged bone. By day they smash the immobile undead; by night the horde marches ever closer. When food shortages force the boys of the village into exile, a flame-touched girl named Aelswith arrives to lead them west - straight into the nightmares spawned by a corrupted Yggdrasil.
Armed with salvaged weapons and fragile hope, James and his companions voyage across monster-infested seas and monster-haunted lands, where fallen leaves birth horrors from myth and every battle strips away another piece of who they once were. As the World Tree's poison spreads, James must confront not only the monsters without, but the darkness growing within - and decide what kind of man he will become.
A story of friendship, sacrifice, and transformation, Leaves of Ash is an epic journey from boyhood innocence to hard-won courage in a world where even the gods bleed.