The sons of a saga warrior lead a tattered remnant of forest peoples to an unknown destiny. Seth, the leader, daring but calm, ruthless and humane. Woden, his brother, kind and raging, a forest oak. Both of unrelenting grit and valor run the narrow trail of redemption and hope. Enemy kingdoms will cast their oaths of death, slavery, subjugation, and humiliation until only one side stands.

Gathering to themselves their own, the brothers draw a line, in an arid sand of a frontier borderland, which sways on the pendulum of life and death. Little do they know that across the vast plains an unrelenting force of ballistae, catapult, and sword threaten the very existence of their people.

Within the heavy stone of the fortress walls, the brothers wait. With traitors around every turn paranoia, murder and resolve dissolves with the knowledge that no quarter will be given. The Empire of Light, the holy and the debauched, the castoffs of foreign lands, compelled by a life force and gathered by the whims of fate, the brothers must now choose to live free, or to die.