When the Duke of Bari suddenly dies, the neighboring nation of Algarve, long seething over its defeat a generation ago in the Six Years' War, sees its chance to bring Bari into the fold...an action which the other countries surrounding Algarve cannot, by treaty, tolerate. As nation after nation declares war, a chain of treaties are invoked, ultimately bringing almost all the Powers of Derlavai into a war of unprecedented destructiveness. For modern magic is deadlier than in years past. Trained flocks of dragons rain explosive fire down on defenseless cities. Massed infantry race from place to place along a network of ley-lines. Rival powers harness sea leviathans to help sabotage one another's ships. The lights are going out all across Derlavai, and will not come back on in this lifetime. Against this tapestry Harry Turtledove tells the story of an enormous cast of characters: soldiers and generals, washerwomen and scholars, peasants and diplomats. For all the world, highborn and low, is being plunged by world war...into the darkness.

Now Turtledove returns to the story of a World War in a world where magic works, with this moving second volume. Algarvian soldiers corral Kaunians to send them west, towards Unkerlant, to work camps. The Kaunians left behind are worried about what the work camps might mean, but are assauged by Algarvian lies. In Kuusamo, scholars race to find the relation between the laws of similarity and contagion. Rumors abound about the Algarvian work camps, rumors most cannot believe as true. But the mages know, for they can feel the loss of life in their very souls. Turtledove's cast of characters takes on its own life as the reader sees the war from all sides and understands how the death and destruction benefits no one, not even the victors.

A young Kaunian girl is forced to remain hidden while her Forthwegian savior braves the rough, Algarvian-controlled streets to earn their keep. The scholars of Kuusamo are no closer to understanding the bloodless magic that may win the war-and time is short. Kuusamo has joined into an unsteady alliance with Lagoas and Unkerlant. No one kingdom trusts another, but they must unite, for it is only together that they can defeat the Algarvian threat. The war is no longer confined to soldiers and sorcerers. Common folk are joining together to fight from underneath their oppressors, whether they be Algarve or Unkerlant. What those farmer soldiers lack in skill, they make up for in dedication. A dedication that will carry them . . . through the darkness.

Beginning with Into the Darkness, Darkness Descending, and Through the Darkness, bestselling author Harry Turtledove ("The master of alternative history"- Publishers Weekly ) has been telling an epic the story of a world war, comparable to the terrible world wars of our own 20th century, in a world where magic works. Imagine the drama and terror of the Second World War-only the bullets are beams of magical fire, the tanks are great lumbering beasts, and fighters and bombers are dragons raining fire upon their targets. Welcome to the world of the Derlavaian War, a world that is slowly but surely being conquered, mile by bloody mile, by the forces of the Algarvian empire . . . forces whose most terrible battle magics are powered by the slaughter of innocent people, the Kaunians, whom Algarve-like much of the world-holds in disdain. In this, the fourth volume of the series which began with Into the Darkness, the war for the continent of Derlavai builds toward its crescendo as the mages of Kuusamo, aided by their former rivals from Lagoas, work desperately to create a newer form of magic that will change the course of the war. But this is really a story of ordinary people-on all sides of the conflict-forced by fate to rise to their heroic limits . . . or sink to the level of their darker natures.

The grand conflict for control of the continent of Derlavai rages on in a battle with all the drama and terror of the Second World War—only the bullets are beams of magical fire. The tanks and submarines are great lumbering beasts, and the fighters and bombers are dragons raining fire upon their targets. Hope may be dawning at last. The terrible onslaught of the conquering forces of Algarve—who power their battle magics with the life energy of their murdered victims—has begun to founder. But though the tide has begun to turn, the conflict is far from over. As the deaths of innocent civilians on both sides continue to feed the flames of war, those who have struggled to survive and preserve their freedom have only their passions to see them through....

THE CLIMACTIC CONCLUSION OF A WORLD WAR As the Derlavian War rages into its last and greatest battles, allied nations maneuver for advantage over one another in the postwar world. But before that time can come, the forces of Algarve, Unkerlant, and their allies must clash a final time, countering army with army and battle magic with ever-more-powerful battle magic. In the midst of it all, the people the war has battered and reshaped must struggle to face their greatest individual challenges, as loves are shattered and found, terrible crimes avenged...and some journeys end forever. Nor will the end of war bring lasting peace...