A renowned warrior, Brynhild Grimsdotter, and her biographer, William Barding, aid a young girl seeking vengeance for the murder of her father, a trinket-bearer and victim of the king's obsession with finding occult artifacts.When a madman resurrects from the shadows to exact revenge upon the land of White Cloud, they must join forces with a deadly assassin and a mysterious knight to save its inhabitants - and then kill the king.But the girl's desire for vengeance may very well aid the madman they are determined to stop.