Call them outcasts, call them savages--they've been called worse, by their own mothers--but Jackal is proud to be a Grey Bastard. He and his fellow half-orcs patrol the barren wastes of the Lot Lands, spilling their own damned blood to keep civilized folk safe. A rabble of hard-talking, hog-riding, whore-mongering brawlers they may be, but the Bastards are Jackal's sworn brothers, fighting at his side in a land where there's no room for softness....

The Hispartan armies on the horizon are bolstered by divine champions, dread sorcerers, and gunpowder. Oats has won impossible battles before. He is more orc than man, and he will stack the bodies high for his chief and his brethren, if that's the price of freeing the Lots from human tyranny. But he soon begins to fear that this war will lead the Lots not to freedom but to ruin. When another path to peace beckons, it will mean betting the Lots' fate,...