Jonathan Zundel

Searching for his long-lost father, Bransen Garibond is tricked into journeying across the Gulf of Corona to the wild lands of Vanguard, where he is pressed into service in a desperate war against the brutal Samhaist, Ancient Badden. On an Alpinadoran lake, just below Ancient Badden's magical ice castle, several societies, caught in the web of their own conflicts, are oblivious to Ancient Badden's devastating plans to destroy them.

Bransen Garibond, the Highwayman, had little interest in the politics of Honce. To him, the two powerful warring lairds were the same sides of the same coin: The outcome for the people would be no different either way. A journey north, however, teaches Bransen that his views are simplistic at best...and that some things truly matter.

The war of Honce drags on, and the roads and seas are littered with bodies. To everyone's stunned disbelief, Yeslnik the Fool has tipped the war's scales in his favor. The reign of the newly self-appointed King Yeslnik is already distinguished as the most bloody and merciless in Honce history. Trapped, Dame Gwydre and Father Artolivan concoct a desperate plot to join forces with Laird Ethelbert, the lesser of two vicious evils. But Ethelbert's paid assassins slew Jameston Sequin and nearly did the same to Bransen.

It is God's year 54, many years before the Demon Wars, in the land of Corona. The roads are unsafe to travel; goblins and bloodthirsty Powries search out human prey. Two religions struggle fiercely for control. Bran Dynard, a monk of the fledgling religion of Abelle, returns from his mission in a faroff land with a book of mystical knowledge and a beautiful and mysterious new wife. But he soon realizes that the world he left behind has changed, and his dream of spreading the wisdom he learned to his fellow monks is crushed.