“Thwarting Straelish spies is my interest, not yours.”

“When they seek to capture and drag me back to Straeland so that animal can torture me, I have every interest.”

“Granted. But it distresses me that so many of them have died recently. Were they all trying to kidnap you? And did you kill them all?”

Thus the dangerous dance begins between a Straelish outcast and the Dark Prince, the notorious spymaster who keeps his brother safe on the Polgati throne . . . because he fears Korgash Hasselmann.

Korgash has become the overlord of North Straeland and he rails against Polgatia for harbouring necromancers and Thorn People who spread evil in Straeland. He calls for war, but will he defy his Queen and call in his bannermen? When events spiral out of control, with assassins and armies unleashed in one fell stroke, a war band led by some Fjordlanders arises to confront the menace.