Searching for his long-lost father, Bransen Garibond is tricked into journeying across the Gulf of Corona to the wild lands of Vanguard, where he is pressed into service in a desperate war against the brutal Ancient Badden. On a lake just below Badden's magical ice castle, several disparate societies - dwarves, monks and barbarians - are caught up in the web of their own conflicts, and thus oblivious to his devastating plan to destroy them by releasing a tidal wave to wipe their island clean.

Bransen finds himself becoming the link between these turmoils, and if he fails, all who live on the lake will perish - and all of northern Honce willl fall under the shadow of a merciless and vengeful oppressor.