Ikta and his soldiers are sent to deliver supplies to the struggling imperial armies as the war continues. Unused to fighting in the high mountains, and led by incompetent leaders the imperial soldiers suffer heavy casualties. Ikta devises a brilliant stratagem to retake an enemy fortress, but when a messenger begs him for help in saving his allies, he's forced to choose between risking his own soldiers life, and bringing another imperial force to certain doom.

The Sinack have been subdued, but the Imperial Army finds that it's been caught in a trap! A huge army from the Aldera nation has crossed the supposedly-impassable northern mountains, and threatens to overwhelm the exhausted Imperial forces. Ikta's only way out is to force a peace treaty with the Sinack and ask for their help, which means going to their defeated leader and abasing himself. Will she respond to his pleas, after the Imperials burned her village and killed her people? How far is he willing to go earn her forgiveness?