Fighting as hard as he can, Lieutenant Donnar of the Kentarian Vanguard watches as the village of Kentara is torn down despite the best efforts of its soldiers. Donnar sees friends and comrades killed by the beasts called Olmak, a troop of enraged eight and nine foot tall apemen. For years, the Kentarians have hunted the beasts for sport. Nineteen year-old Donnar soon realizes fighting the beasts head up is futile, the Vanguard cannot win. But the creatures' rage is justified, Donnar concludes and he offers this: we should never have hunted them. Then, one night, Donnar and his squad of Vanguard lead over two thousand people out of the village to temporary safety in the nearby Grinder Crags, a series of jagged mountains rising thousands of feet above the permanent snow line. There, they face a choice: travel over the mountains and into the unknown or die at the hands of man-eating Olmak. Donnar leads the people over the mountains and into a valley of untold beauty and fertility. The animals are virtually unafraid of the newcomers. Fish can be fed by hand and easily caught for food. The valley is almost an island, surrounded by high mountains on three sides and the ocean to the west. Here they begin rebuilding what Donnar calls New Kentara. But another man, Jama, the driving force behind the priests of the Zaharian faith, splits the people into those who follow Donnar and those who believe in Zarah, goddess of Nature and fertility, and are willing to do as Jama counsels. Jama preaches they should make peace with the Olmak, but Donnar suggests that creatures who have developed a taste for human flesh are not to be calmed with witty bits of magic and soft words. The two men face off in a conflict that continues long after they are dead. For the next two hundred years, this conflict simmers till an astonishingly beautiful girl, her handsome Kentarian lover, and a commoner, the young Utrek and his sweetheart, Princess Selura, immerse themselves in the tangled forces that traditionally war against each other - the spiritually faithful and those of a more worldly base. Jama and his wife Valinya develop and practice the ancient magic and are cast out of New Kentara because of it. Elected to be their king, Donnar instead names the office the Donnarship, and himself as the First Donnar. He defines the office as a position for men of principle who will serve the people and not themselves, men who are in service for the benefit of the people. He helps create a democracy to replace the corrupt oligarchy as governed in Kentara and a new military based on excellence and not the privilege of birth. The people then rebuild their community, found a civilization on new ideals and reach out to the rest of the world with a merchant navy. Their future seems assured and they have new lives living openly and honestly with each other. After a hundred years of peace, the first Olmak finds the valley. The new society and its military, the New Kentarian Scouts, prepare to defend themselves. After another hundred years, The old conflict reemerges and Zhon, an orphaned boy with enormous inventiveness and friend of Brayel, prince of New Kentara, becomes a force unto himself willing to combat the Olmak in defense of New Kentara. He meets and falls in crazed love with Merla, a skilled sorceress and descendent of Jama's. She has sworn to destroy New Kentara.