Librarian Note: Alternate Cover Edition for ISBN-10: 1622875788 / ISBN-13: 9781622875788. We rarely consider the reputation of our age. An ordinary one, for most of us, would suffice. You might be an Empress too concerned with the affairs of State, a soldier focused on your duty, a former rascal trying to find redemption, or even a great warrior too busy with your command to know that there are whispers being spoken in late-night taverns. But what happens when your ordinary age stops being so ordinary? What happens when dark, twisted things step out of the mists of legend to walk the world again? Strange, black ships have been spotted far out at sea. People are disappearing from towns without a trace. Cordovan, a member of the Watchmen of Alexandria, knows something is wrong, as he races toward the capital, hoping he will make it in time. Meanwhile, far to the north, two of the ancient Sages of the West, the Ki'gadi, know that the darkness is coming. While the rest of the world carries on, unaware of the danger, they search for the place where the darkness is taking root. Heroes will be needed to face what is coming. Alexandria is home to one. His name is Bantu, the Commander-General of the Peoples Company. He will be needed, when night falls.

A Lion That Walks has emerged in Kal'ada'abassa after nearly three thousand years. While some rejoice, others find his arrival disturbing, even as Bantu tries to make sense of it all. Far out on the Macca Deep, on the bridge of the Leviathan, Captain-Commander Basil Noruba Mandraggan chases down black ships as chaos erupts on the high seas, while another Captain-Commander of the Peoples Company, Onya Onoto, makes her way to the ancient city of Saladon, wondering what a once in a lifetime meeting of the Compact will bring. The Watchman, Cordovan del Allegressa, looks for a way into the Hallowed Place of Horrors in the hopes that Mino din’ Darksbane yet lives, while their apprentices race headlong toward Palladawn with the message that evil lives. From Al'akaz to Mees, the portents of an oncoming storm rise as an ancient evil reaches out from the darkness, spreading its influence like a pestilence across the Twelve Nations. Little do the warriors, who stand in the Light, realize - though they are spread across the known world, they are all faced with the same onslaught of a plague they cannot escape - a plague of shadows.