Only days ago, Kaspar, the powerful Duke of Olasko, had great armies at his command and was feared by nations. Now, half a world away from home, he is separated from his former seat of power by merciless deserts, forbidding mountains, and vast oceans. The fall of the tyrant is complete, his dark dreams of vengeance overwhelmed by the daily struggle for his very survival. But Kaspar's prodigious skills and cunning provide him the opportunity he seeks, guarding merchant travelers returning to the other side of the world and back to his homeland.

Yet there is a larger drama that will entangle the broken dictator. An evil more devastating and deadly than any encountered in Midkemia for centuries seeks entrance to the land -- the mystical tool of a dark empire hungry for conquest and destruction -- and Kaspar has inadvertently discovered the key.

The man responsible for the slaughter of countless men, women, and children must now assume a far stranger and most unlikley role -- that of hero --if his world is to survive. For dire peril is advancing daily, and a long-slumbering malevolence is awakening to wreak havoc on the unsuspecting and unprepared. Suddenly, Midkemia's last hope is a disgraced and exiled duke whose history is written in blood, and who now must wield his sword as her champion...if he so chooses.