The battle for Orrins Fort is a fairly easy endeavor. Not one shot is fired and only Navee Ordor bloodies a blade. Taking this fort gives the Scarecrow, Jarl Hawkins, and his small force a warm base from which to operate and fight against the Glasseys. Hawkins, an ex-geographer from the planet Earth and ex-partisan from the planet Jubal, is marooned on Vanir-a backward world with sorcerers, black-powder weapons, and nomad raiders. In Book Three of the Vanir Trilogy, Hawkins continues to help his friend, Will James, the king, fight the invading Glassey armies. At the same time, he; the great wizard, Kvasir; his wife, Kiska; and the star reporter for his newspaper, Janis-begin to search for advanced technology left by the original colonists of the planet. This quest is interrupted by the return of the space empire, and now Jarl-with the help of his friends-travels into space, where he fights to save one of the great, golden colonization ships and a supercomputer named Sam. Jarl learns the secret of the smoky quartz crystals, and he struggles to prevent the subjugation of the planet by the brutal and all-powerful empire.