Plot

In the autumn of 573 AD, the civil war that divides the Celtic nations in the Post-Roman Britain ends at the battle of Arthuet. The Celtic armies disband and the warriors return to their homes, but the losses to the combined Celtic forces are so great that the immigrants from Germania - the Angles who settled along the North Sea, boldly send raiding parties into the Celtic homelands. Fingal, a Celtic mercenary soldier, is returning home to his Roman wife, Lillian, who lives with his people of Caledon. Weighed down by his travel bags full of the treasures of war, he rescues a slave, Jessica, from her Angle captors, to become his servant to carry his valuables homeward. Meanwhile, Angle raiders capture Lillian, and in a confrontation with Fingal, the Angle dullard Ulph kills Lillian, thus destroying any hope of peace making. The Angles flee taking Jessica with them. After burying his wife, Fingal pursues the Angles. Meanwhile Ida, the Angle leader realises they are lost when they encounter the Picts, the playful bandits of the high hills. Fingal makes a bargain with the unruly Picts, paying them to defeat the Angles. Fearful of having to spend the winter in a hostile land, the Angles begin to panic and fight among themselves.—Anonymous

Fingal finally returns hone after eight years fighting and has to defend himself against a lone Angle warrior whose Hebrew slave attempts to save her master by throwing a spear at Fingel. He kills the Angle and then overpowers her, forcing her to help him to bury his vanquished foe. He ties her up to prevent her running away and forces her to carry his war booty but his attitude softens when he learns that she was captured by Angles who boarded the boat belonging to her trader father and eventually killed him for his money. Fingal is keen to return home to his Roman wife and learns from his daughter that she has been captured by Angles who intend to use her to extort a ransom. Jessica, as this Jewess calls herself, offers to allow herself to be used in an exchange with the Angles since she has no desire to remain in the Celtic homeland and thinks that if she goes with the Angles, she will eventually be able to make her way to Judea to visit the tombs of her ancestors. Some time later, Fingel finds the murdered body of his brother hanging in his own tent, who was slain by the same Angles who abducted his wife. He now swears to take his revenge on them and his rage is fuelled when one of them kills his wife during the exchange after he brings them her ransom. He challenges them and they make him agree to fight one of them, a champion who has never been defeated in hand-to-hand combat. After he kills this man, the Angles decide that it would be best for them to leave the area but he tracks them doggedly, picking them off one by one and stopping to bury each warrior whom he kills, in accordance with his own code of conduct. Along the way, he meets three Picts whom he pays to help him pursue the Angles, who wander aimlessly and are unaware that they are moving in circles. Jessica, helps him to track them, by leaving pieces of torn cloth on bushes, to show that they have come this way. The movie ends with the last remaining Angle, who has been wounded, being allowed to leave in a small dingy. Jessica and Fingal are reunited and he takes her home with him to be his wife and a mother to his daughter Ethne, who was raised by his deceased brother. Followed in 2003 by The Bone Hunter.