STORY DESCRIPTION

Giulia pulled on the manacles at her wrists. She had been on her toes for hours -- praying, pleading...cursing. Nothing helped. There was no relief from the doge’s hideous tortures, no escape from his dungeon. She was a prisoner of the worst tyrant Venice had ever known. His cruelty was legend even in these most merciless of times. She had no future other than pain.

But she wasn’t alone, thousands were suffering.

Europe’s last line of defense, the Venetian navy, had been defeated at the Battle of Doriak. The gates to the continent were open. Moorish pirates were raiding cities, killing their defenders, and harvesting slaves in enormous numbers. Young, beautiful girls were being sold in the Eastern markets for hugely inflated prices, funding the Moor’s unprecedented reign of terror.

The only man capable of organizing the opposition and stopping them, Duke Titus of Crikvenica, had been captured and was now slowly going mad in the darkest, deepest cell in Constantinople.

The end of civilization was at hand in this fifth and final chapter of the Slaves of the Knight series.