 The story starts about 3 months after the Dropsite Massacre, with the unexpected rescue of Corax and the remnants of his Legion (at less than 5% strength due to casualties in that battle).Arriving at Terra a few months after the events described in "The Outcast Dead" take place, Corax convinces the Emperor to impart to him the knowledge and material that may accelerate the rebuilding of his Legion.The second part of the novel describes the effort to reconstitute the Raven Guard, undertaken on (its home world in "Warhammer 40,000" fiction), and the pursuit of opposite objectives by the Alpha Legion.