It's obvious that Cletus Graeme - limping, mild-mannered scholarly - doesn't belong on a battling field, but instead at a desk working on his fourth book on battle strategy and tactics.

But Bakhalla has more battlefields than libraries, and Graeme sees his small force of Dorsai - soldiers of fortune - as the perfect opportunity to test his theories. But if his theories or his belief in the Dorsai lead him astray, he's a dead man.