In this, the last of Charles Mackie's "Wolf Trilogy", a race against time brings Alastair Hogeston face to face with the grim handiwork of James Stewart, youngest son of the Wolf of Badenoch. He tangles with his enemy in the ice corries of Ben Alder and, with his irrepressible sister Jean, faces him in the Wolf's fortress of Castle Garth. Spurred by Bridget de Dreux, his now widowed French mother, Alastair leaves the love of his life and his home in the Laich of Moray to square an overdue account with James, "The Accursed Whelp". Mackie pulls you back into fifteenth century Scotland, where, in the company of clan chiefs, and assassins, and the intrigue which surrounded and infant king, he gallops you towards rape, and to war.