Isranon's challenges become greater as his world grows darker. He is faced with the task of becoming not just a leader of his disparate peoples, but of becoming a lawgiver who can weld them all together, hemovores, lycans, and humans, into a force strong enough to change their world and fight the armies of the hellgod Gylorean Galee. On a more personal level, Isranon attempts to win Stygean and Jingen, two thirteen year old sa'necari boys, over to the side of the light despite the dire predictions of his friends that one of them will kill him if he doesn't kill them first. And sure enough, the boys have more than enough reason to hate Isranon, and adolescent sa'necari appetites for blood and lives are often keener than mature adults. Meanwhile the Armies of Galee are on the move at last and her demonic hosts ravage the countryside as they march toward the conquest of the continent of Merezia where they can open the Gate of the Hellgods.