The war of Honce drags on, and the roads and seas are littered with bodies. To everyone’s stunned disbelief, Yeslnik the Fool has tipped the war’s scales in his favor. The reign of the newly self-appointed King Yeslnik is already distinguished as the most bloody and merciless in Honce history.

Trapped, Dame Gwydre and Father Artolivan concoct a desperate plot to join forces with Laird Ethelbert, the lesser of two vicious evils. But Ethelbert’s paid assassins slew Jameston Sequin and nearly did the same to Bransen.

Embittered by it all, Bransen seeks to extricate himself from the selfish goals of all of combatants. But in an odd twist of fate and crossed loyalties, Bransen sees in his old nemesis, Bannagran--the Bear of Honce and the man who slew his adoptive father - a darker image of his own heart. Allies and battle lines become tangled, motives indistinguishable as old friends become enemies and old enemies become allies.

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From Publishers Weekly

This final installment in the Saga of the First King series brings readers back to Honce, Salvatore's heroic fantasy locale. The war between wily old Laird Ethelbert and sadistic young King Yeslnik rages on with almost too many characters for comfort. Bransen the Highwayman, defeated by the mystic woman warrior Affwin Wi, feels his life is pointless and slopes home to his wife, while former monk Cormack struggles to broker a new alliance between old enemies. Salvatore piles interminable grisly action upon nefarious conniving, centering Honce's only hope on the Bear, Laird Bannagran, whose courage in battle and "some measure of honor" at last give Bransen a new sense of purpose and Honce, the decent rulers its suffering people deserve. This long fable of good and evil, spiked with blood-and-guts combat, closes the series with a hint at generational continuation--though readers may find new permutations of his faux medieval sex-and-violence hard to digest. (Aug.)
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From Booklist

In this fifth volume of the Corona saga, the war in Honce has brought Yelinik the Fool to the throne. He has promptly started killing everybody who looks cross-eyed at him. This drives Dame Gwindre and Father Artolivan to seek an alliance with Laird Ethelbet, although he is at blood feud with their friend Bransen Gaibond. He in turn washes his hands of them (for now) and seeks alliance with one of his old enemies, the dark mage known as the Bear of Honce. All of this shifting of alliances at a breakneck pace may slightly confuse new readers, but followers from the beginning will enjoy themselves. Salvatore’s career has already taken him from entertaining game-related fantasy to state-of-the-art high fantasy and he hasn’t even finished this saga! --Roland Green

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