While reviewing Roc's galley proofs for Dragonsword, Baudino made several minor wording changes in the narrative and corrected one large error which she declines to elaborate on.

Suzanne Helling has been living a nomadic life since she went through the 1970 Kent State shootings, and she winds up in Los Angeles as a teaching assistant to history professor Solomon Braithwaite.

While comatose from his drug overdose, his unconscious mind took flight and created the land of Gryylth, which he patterned subconsciously on 5th-century Roman Britain, in a corner of the cosmos.

A new peril faces Gryylth: the Dremords, invaders from the sea, have taken the Tree of Creation from the Blasted Heath and are planning a new invasion.

This tree embodies uncontrolled change and chaos, and in the hands of Tireas, the Dremords' magician, it becomes a potent tool for war.

As the war with the Dremords grinds on, Alouzon makes friends and allies among the inhabitants of Gryylth and begins to see in it something worth fighting for and defending.

In this final standoff, Tireas and Mernyl wind up in a stalemate, with neither one able to gain a decisive victory and losses mounting on both sides.