Conn Iggulden is back with the spellbinding second instalment in the Empire of Salt trilogy.

The city of Shiang stands at the edge of a shattered empire. A single family keeps order with soldiers and artefacts, spies and myths, clinging to a peace that shifts and crumbles. The people of the city endure what they cannot change.

Ambitious leaders sense a chance to carve out empires of their own. Men nearer at hand speak in whispers of war and the destruction of a great city to the west - Darien.

And on the great road between Shiang and Darien, mercenaries and deserters wait restlessly for the time to attack the empire's land.

One city will stand. One will fall. But who will control the Empire of Salt?