Winter, 1362. After years of successful campaigning in France, Thomas
Blackstone, a common archer knighted at Crécy, has risen to become
Edward III's Master of War. But the title is as much a curse as a
blessing. Success has brought few rewards: his family--bar his son
Henry--are dead, slaughtered; his enemies only multiply. Death, in so
many guises, beckons. As he battles to enforce his King's claim to
France's lands, Blackstone will assault an impregnable fortress, he'll
become embroiled in a feud between French aristocrats, he'll be forced
into pitched battle in the dead of winter... and he'll be asked to pay
an impossible price to protect something much more precious to the King
than mere land. All the while, a group of trained killers, burning with
vengeance, draw ever-closer.