Kutath was an ancient world and dying one. In ages past, its best sons and daughters had gone to the stars to serve as mecenaries in the wars of the aliens.

Now the survivors of its star-flung people, the mri, had come back - in the form of a single woman, the last princess-queen Melein, and a single man, the last warrior, Niun. And the other - the human Sten Duncan who had deserted the Earh's military to swear service to the foes of his own species.

Here is the grand climax of the highly praised novels of the Faded Sun, candidates for Hugo and Nebula awards. Complete in itself, it is a science fiction novel of the highest caliber, an in-depth study of the last stands of an alien culture confronted with the devastating vengeance of two star-conquering races.