They called him the Terror of the East. Hidden beneath a suit of enchanted black armor and wielding a demon-forged axe, Corvis Rebaine carved a bloody path through Imphallion, compelled by a desire to see the land governed with some degree of honesty. Yet just when victory was in his grasp, Rebaine faltered, then vanished, taking a single hostage--a young noblewoman named Tyannon--to guarantee his escape.

Seventeen years later, Rebaine and Tyannon are married and raising their children. Rebaine has given up his dreams of conquest. Not even news of the upstart warlord Audriss can stir the retired warrior to action--until his daughter is assaulted by Audriss's goons. Now, to rescue the country he once tried to conquer, Rebaine once more dons the armor of the Terror of the East. But does he dare reawaken the part of him that gloried in destruction? With the safety of his family at stake, can he dare not to?