The Brethren were the finest warriors of their time, and they never died. When fortune turned against them they were laid into an enchanted sleep in a hidden cave, to wake again when the land was in peril. Then they would go back to war, led by their captain Alar Redhand, his sword Hard Lightning in his hand. But when they wake it is six hundred years later, and the war they fought in has long been lost. If they are to have any place in this new world, where even the name of the land has changed, it will be beside their former enemies, the Haesci. For the land is indeed in peril once more, invaded by the barbaric northern Einhiar, and the Haesci kingdoms are falling one by one. Alar and his dwindling band must fight again, beside the enemies they once despised, if anything of the world they remember is to be saved.