After decades of warfare the tribes of the Tiste Edur have at last united under the rule of the Warlock King. But peace has been exacted at a terrible price
- a pact made with a hidden power whose motives are at best suspect at worst deadly. To the south the expansionist kingdom of Lether has devoured all of its less-civilised neighbours with rapacious hunger. All save one
- the Tiste Edur. But Lether is approaching a long-prophesied renaissance
- from kingdom & lost colony to Empire reborn
- & has fixed its gaze on the rich lands of the Tiste Edur. It seems inevitable that the tribes will surrender either to the suffocating weight of gold or to slaughter at the edge of a sword. Or so Destiny has decreed. A pivotal treaty between the two sides nears
- but unknown ancient forces are awakening. For the impending struggle between these two peoples is but a pale reflection of an altogether more profound primal battle
- a confrontation with the still-raw wound of betrayal & the craving for vengeance at its heart. War & confrontation magic & myth collide in this the stunning fifth chapter in Steven Eriksons magnificent Malazan Book of the Fallen sequence hailed as an epic of the imagination & a fantasy classic in the making.