The Hispartan armies on the horizon are bolstered by divine champions, dread sorcerers, and gunpowder. Oats has won impossible battles before. He is more orc than man, and he will stack the bodies high for his chief and his brethren, if that's the price of freeing the Lots from human tyranny. But he soon begins to fear that this war will lead the Lots not to freedom but to ruin. When another path to peace beckons, it will mean betting the Lots' fate, and his own, on the promises of the Bastards' wiliest adversary-- and a journey into the heart of Hispartha itself. -- adapted from jacket