Evil has come to a distant land high among the snow-capped mountains of Midkemia, as anexterminating army wearing the colors of theDuke of Olasko razes village after village, slaughtering men, women, and children without mercy. And when the carnage is done, only one survivor remains: a young boy named Kieli. A youth no longer, there is now but one road for him to travel: the path of vengeance. And he willnot be alone. Under the tutelage of the rescuerswho...

Saved by a mage's intervention from certain death, Kaspar, the evil Duke of Olasko, is lord no more -- reduced to an exile's existence and forced to wander the harshest realms of the world he once enslaved. Merciless deserts, forbidding mountains, and vast oceans now separate the once powerful despot from his former seat of power -- his dark dreams of vengeance overwhelmed by the daily struggle for survival. But there is a larger drama that will entangle...