An exceptionally dangerous woman was betrayed by her employer. Her brother was killed and she herself was crippled. She wants to take revenge on her former master and his six accomplices, and to that end she hires a group of not entirely reliable, and moreover poorly compatible, helpers: a young northerner trying to leave behind a former life full of violence and failure; an ex-convict (a monomaniac obsessed with the magic of numbers); an utterly insufferable master poisoner with his impossible assistant; and the most famous condottiere (chiefly renowned for his mercurial temper), ready for heroic deeds for the sake of a single sip of spirits. Very soon the most dangerous hired killer in all the Circle of the World sets off on the trail of this colorful group.