Newltwed Secca - Protector of Defalk - and her sorcerer husband, Alcaren, have come to realise that there can be no truce with the warlike Sturrinese. If peace is ever to come then the power of the Sturrinese lords must be utterly destroyed - and the only way to destroy the Sturrinese is to battle them ...
But in the war that follows Secca realises that the Sturrinese are merely the servants of a new and far more perilous foe ...