War has raged across the stars for decades. The Human Legion is in the ascendancy now, but its victories are hollow, impossible to defend against attack from all sides.

Is there any way for General Arun McEwan to secure the freedom of the liberated worlds? Or will he have to compromise with humanity's masters, the White Knights, who insist that his children must submit to the cruelest of all alien rituals: the Cull?

Arun prepares to gamble an all-or-nothing strike on the imperial capital. But nothing is as it first appears when you wage war against the White Knights …

**