Eleven-year-old Max Sumner and the Grey Griffins continue to be tested and trained while the Black Wolves, commanded by Max's own father, and Morgan La Fey use the Spear of Ragnarok in their attempt to destroy the world.

“Dan Jones is an entertainer, but also a bona fide historian. Seldom does one find serious scholarship so easy to read.” – The Times, Book of the Year A New York Times bestseller, this major new history of the knights Templar is “a fresh, muscular and compelling history of the ultimate military-religious crusading order, combining sensible scholarship with narrative swagger" – Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem A faltering war in the middle east. A band of elite warriors determined to fight to the death to protect Christianity’s holiest sites. A global financial network unaccountable to any government. A sinister plot founded on a web of lies. Jerusalem 1119. A small group of knights seeking a purpose in the violent aftermath of the First Crusade decides to set up a new order. These are the first Knights Templar, a band of elite warriors prepared to give their lives to protect Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land. Over the next two hundred years, the Templars would become the most powerful religious order of the medieval world. Their legend has inspired fervent speculation ever since. In this groundbreaking narrative history, Dan Jones tells the true story of the Templars for the first time in a generation, drawing on extensive original sources to build a gripping account of these Christian holy warriors whose heroism and alleged depravity have been shrouded in myth. The Templars were protected by the pope and sworn to strict vows of celibacy. They fought the forces of Islam in hand-to-hand combat on the sun-baked hills where Jesus lived and died, finding their nemesis in Saladin, who vowed to drive all Christians from the lands of Islam. Experts at channeling money across borders, they established the medieval world’s largest and most innovative banking network and waged private wars against anyone who threatened their interests. Then, as they faced setbacks at the hands of the ruthless Mamluk sultan Baybars and were forced to retreat to their stronghold in Cyprus, a vindictive and cash-strapped King of France set his sights on their fortune. His administrators quietly mounted a damning case against the Templars, built on deliberate lies and false testimony. On Friday October 13, 1307, hundreds of brothers were arrested, imprisoned and tortured, and the order was disbanded amid lurid accusations of sexual misconduct and heresy. They were tried by the Pope in secret proceedings and their last master was brutally tortured and burned at the stake. But were they heretics or victims of a ruthlessly repressive state? Dan Jones goes back to the sources tobring their dramatic tale, so relevant to our own times, to life in a book that is at once authoritative and compulsively readable.

A highly readable look at the lifespan of the famous Knights Templar, who were warrior monks and the first disciplined, regulated, and uniformed standing army since antiquity throughout Europe and the Holy Lands—an economic force to be reckoned with and perhaps an institution guarding dark secrets. The origins of the concept of Holy War are explored, from Biblical times through the rise of Islam and the Christian movement, which inspired untold thousands to set out to recapture Jerusalem, as warriors and as pilgrims. This book explains how nine knights led by Hugues de Payens came from France to guard pilgrims in the Holy Land, how they gained the site of the Temple of Solomon, and what they did there, including a reevaluation of the historical evidence. Other topics discussed include how an unprecedented religious Order grew and pledged to bloodshed in defense of pilgrims, the territory conquered by the Crusaders, and the role and agenda of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux and other powerful backers. The Order's contribution to the ongoing Crusades is explained, as well as their military tactics and organization and the fortresses and bases they established. Discussion of the fate of the Order after the failure of the Crusades includes a detailed examination of the charges of occult rituals involving idol worship, spitting on the Cross, and obscene kisses, through to the burning of the last Grand Master Jacques de Molay in 1314.

1295 AD. The Christian empire in the Holy Land lies in ruins. Returning to Paris, Templar Knight Will Campbell is at a crossroads. He has sworn to uphold the principles of the Anima Templi, a secret brotherhood within the Order whose aim is peace -but peace seems ever more impossible. The Temple has forged an alliance with Will's enemy, King Edward of England, vowing to help him wage war on Scotland. This pact against his homeland strikes at the core of Will's faith and allegiances, while his growing estrangement from his daughter, Rose, leads her into a dangerous affair. Will now faces a bitter choice: to stay with the Temple and fight another war he doesn't believe in, or to break his vows and forge his own path to peace -even if that too means fighting - for the Scots. Soon caught up in bloody conflict, Will is unaware that an even more ominous threat is rising, for there is a warrior king on the throne of France whose desire for supremacy knows no bounds and who will stop at nothing to fulfil his twisted ambitions. The fight for the Holy Land has ended. The Temple's last battle has just begun.

A man in search of the truth-against an ancient brotherhood that uses secrecy as the ultimate weapon. In the 14th century, Templar knight Jean de St. Clair was tasked with piloting the order's treasure-laden fleets off the coast of France. To this end, he used the Jacob's Staff-a nautical instrument supposedly developed in his own time. But retired Army Ranger Lt. Col. John Holliday possesses a Staff he found in the hands of a 4,000 year-old Egyptian mummy. Holliday suspects that St. Clair may hold the key to unlocking the mystery of the ruthless, enigmatic Templars. But there are those who believe that some questions should remain unanswered. And that the answers Holliday seeks should go with him to the grave...

The definitive account of history's most infamous trial, following the doomed Order of the Knights Templar from scandal to suppression. The trial of the Knights Templar is one of the most infamous in history. Accused of heresy by the king of France, the Templars were arrested and imprisoned, had their goods seized and their monasteries ransacked. Under brutal interrogation and torture, many made shocking confessions: denial of Christ, desecration of the Cross, sex acts, and more. This narrative follows the everyday reality of the trial, from the early days of scandal and scheming in 1305, via torture, imprisonment and the dissolution of the order, to 1314, when leaders Jacques de Molay and Geoffroy de Charnay were burned at the stake. Through first-hand testimony and written records of the interrogations of 231 French Templars, this book illuminates the stories of hundreds of ordinary members, some of whom testified at the trial, as well as the many others who denied the charges or retracted their confessions. This is a deeply researched and immersive account that gives a striking vision of the relentless persecution, and the oft-underestimated resistance, of the once-mighty Knights Templar.

The first thrilling novel in Raymond Khoury’s New York Times bestselling Templar series. In 1291, a young Templar knight flees the fallen holy land in a hail of fire and flashing sword, setting out to sea with a mysterious chest entrusted to him by the Order's dying grand master. The ship vanishes without a trace. In present day Manhattan, four masked horsemen dressed as Templar Knights stage a bloody raid on the Metropolitan Museum of Art during an exhibit of Vatican treasures. Emerging with a strange geared device, they disappear into the night. The investigation that follows draws archaeologist Tess Chaykin and FBI agent Sean Reilly into the dark, hidden history of the crusading knights—and into a deadly game of cat and mouse with ruthless killers—as they race across three continents to recover the lost secret of the Templars.