Britannia has been subdued - and an epic new chapter in Marcus Valerius Aquila's life begins.

Posted to the Second Tungrian auxiliary cohort's original home in Germania Inferior, Marcus finds a very different world from the turbulent British frontier - but one with its own dangers. Tungrorum, the center of a once-prosperous farming province, a city already brought low by the ravages of the eastern plague that has swept through the empire, is now threatened by an outbreak of brutally violent robbery. A bandit chieftain called Obduro, his identity always hidden behind an iron cavalry helmet, is robbing and killing with impunity.

His sword - sharper, stronger and more deadly than any known to the Roman army - is the lethal symbol of his unstoppable power. And now he has moved beyond mere theft and threatens to destabilize the whole northern frontier of the empire...