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The Dervan Empire has at last triumphed over Volanus, putting the great city to the torch, its treasures looted, temples defiled, and fields sown with salt. What little remains of Volanus is scattered across the empire, its wealth plundered and its survivors sold into slavery. It is an absolute victory for the Dervans in every way but one.

Hanuvar, last and greatest general of Volanus, still lives. He now travels the length of the Dervan Empire that conquered his homeland, driven by a singular purpose--to find what remains of his people who were carried into slavery across the empire, and free them from subjugation by any means necessary.

Against the might of a vast empire, he had only an aging sword arm, a lifetime of hard-won wisdom, and the greatest military mind in the world, set upon a single goal. No matter what the empire musters against him, no matter what man or monster stands in his way, from the empire's festering capital to its furthest outposts, Hanuvar would find his people, every last one of them.

And he would set them free.

Hanuvar had pledged to find the remnants of his people, scattered into slavery across the whole of the peninsula. This time he had no army to help him. His would be a stealthy war of liberation, buying the freedom of some and arranging for the escape of others, aided only by a young playwright, the daughter of a hated political rival, the tattered remnants of his old spy network, and the unlikeliest ally of all, the general who had once defeated him.

Arrayed against them were the mighty legions, the sorcerous Revenants, and the wily Metellus of the Praetorian guard, ever alert to seize advantage. To add to their troubles, someone was drawing unwanted attention to the helpless Volani slaves by murdering influential Dervans and leaving the sign of the sacred Eltyr corps beside their bodies. Someone who might well be Hanuvar's lost daughter, who'd fought her way from captivity and was even now being hunted through the countryside.

Worst of all, a magical attack had left Hanuvar with a lingering curse that might change him forever... or lead him to an early grave.

He had crossed half a continent, venturing into the heartland of his enemies to wage a secret war of liberation!

It almost seemed that the worst lay behind them. Hanuvar and his small band of allies had faced down warriors and horrors and sinister magics to free hundreds of their people from slavery. The emperor was dead, and his successor had so little interest in finding Hanuvar, he'd ordered his sorcerous revenants to cease their search and turn their sinister talents to other targets.

But as Hanuvar shifted his efforts south, where hundreds of his people still labored under the Dervan yoke, other forces were advancing agendas of their own. Determined to prove Hanuvar still lived, the revenant legate secretly sought him with dark sorceries. A band of gladiators had rebelled and now wandered free, threatening the innocent and calling down the wrath of the legions. And upon the slopes of an ancient volcano, an ageless warrior mage worked to unleash a spell that would doom them all...