From back of book: The glaciers came and covered the world with ice. Now they are in retreat. North of the city of Nidaros, north of the forest, north of the steppes where the nomadic Bizogots hunt, a gap has opened in the ice-wall. Through that gap come the men who call themselves "Rulers".

Their terrifying cavalry rides wooly mammoths. Their bows can shoot arrows farther than those of the southerners. Their wizards wield power that neither the shamans of the Bizogots nor the wizards of the Raumsdalian Empire can match, a magic that can melt the stone beneath a man's feet, call fire from the sky, or decimate a tribe with plagues that have no cure. Scattered survivors of the Bizogot tribes hide form the Rulers. The Empire shattered. Emperor Sigval II is in hiding.

Against the Rulers stands Count Hamnet Thyssen and his small band of friends. Jarl Trasamund of the Three Tusk Bizogots. The adventurer Ulric Skakki. And, most important, Marcovefa, the female shaman of a cannibal tribe that lives atop the glacier itself. Marcovefa has magic that the Rulers cannot counter.

(Source: Tor Books)