6Marrakesh 1893: Two former army officers are offered a small fortune to help the Sultan of Morocco quell a rebel uprising. It seems like the easiest money they'll ever make.

But they couldn't be more wrong.

They are forced to battle the wild bandit armies of ruthless prophet-warlord, Bou Hamra, through the snows of the Atlas Mountains and the baking deserts of the Sahara.

They are traded, kidnapped, and used as pawns in high-stakes political rivalries. They encounter women who worship cannons for fertility and magician-warlords who talk to the dead and play bloody games of chess with living slaves.

And the muzzle-loading cannon the Sultan has hired them to command are antiques that could explode in their faces at any moment.

Then there is the Lord of the Atlas, Amastan el-Karim, who harbours a shocking secret that will change everything.

This is adventure on a breath-taking scale, evoking the beautiful and the barbaric of nineteenth-century Morocco, and transporting the reader to a now-lost world.