All his life, Collum has longed to become a Knight of the Round Table: to serve the great King Arthur, have heroic adventures, and go on glorious quests. Although a poor, illegitimate orphan from a backwater province of Britain, Collum has trained as a knight since boyhood and is determined to emulate his heroes, prove himself in combat, and be found worthy. But upon his arrival at Camelot, he finds only a handful of remaining knights. The rest, he is told, died with King Arthur at the Battle of Camlann, where Arthur and Mordred, the king's own son born of incest and his bitterest enemy, fought and killed each other.

Camelot, the knights who are left believe, is over — the age of marvels and quests is gone. And since Arthur and his wife Guinevere had no children, the throne of Britain is now anyone's for the taking. The Saxons are commandeering swaths of the country, the land ...