He was hired to repel a fearsome enemy. He was worse. The Thirty Years' War, 1643—the French have taken the Duchy of Lorraine, and the Saint-Empire of the Austrian Habsburgs is in ruins. But the fighting rages on, and Lemuel Vachon, retainer of the ducal house, will do anything to help his lady, Christine de Guise, escape her fate. Outgunned and outmanned, he hires Joaquim Vanderas, a cruel and degenerate drunkard who is also a professional killer of the highest order.

Vanderas makes good on his infamy, cutting a gruesome path through the dangers that await. But the mercenary also has ideas of his own—and a gift for trouble just as uncanny as his knack with a weapon.