Morik the Rogue is an unscrupulous human who comes along as a traveling and drinking companion to barbarian hero Wulfgar, and is a close, but not necessarily trusted, friend.

Wulfgar's mighty warhammer Aegis Fang is stolen and sold to a notorious pirate.

They narrowly avoid the horrors of Luskan's prisoner's carnival, but through the intervention of the victim himself, they are spared.

As the book progresses, Wulfgar slowly climbs out of his despair, finally setting out to find the life he thought lost to the darkness.

They prove to not be very proficient at it, though, and soon become involved in the politics of a backwater town in which the peasant fiancée of the local lord bears an illegitimate child.