Orcs and goblins have been pushed back into their northern lands beyond the Border Mountains—but there is no joy. Martin has lost his kin: his mother, his wife, his son, and there’s nowhere for him to go home. Under his command there is an army. But what to do with it in peacetime? Disband it? Then the soldiers will replenish the ranks of the bandits, whom he’ll have to hunt later himself. The king is still worried—his army might be sent for a forceful disbandment of Flokhart’s soldiers at any moment. But a solution has been found. In the south, mercenaries are needed to defend the kingdom’s borders against steppe nomads… The trouble is that it’s not only with nomads they have to fight. Because almost no one even believes in the prophecy’s falsity—including the dark magicians.