Stationed in Khandar, a remote desert outpost of the Vordanai empire, Captain Marcus d'Ivoire and his men find themselves on the front lines when the region's inhabitants stage a bloody uprising. As Marcus struggles to fashion his raw recruits into a functioning army, he promotes the most promising soldier, Winter Ihernglass, to a command post (complicating matters for Winter, who's secretly a woman in disguise). Meanwhile, the arrival of a brilliant military strategist may turn the tide of war against them as he pursues his own secret agenda.