The Great War was supposed to be the war to end all wars-and maybe it would have been, had an even greater, otherworldly foe not arisen to extinguish the conflict. Overnight, as guns blazed away in France and Flanders, village after village in the quiet British countryside were swallowed by the Forest. And within the Forest lurk the Huldu-an ancient fae race, monstrous in their inhumanity, who have decided that mankind's ascendency over the world can endure no longer.

Enter Duncan Silver. Scarred by the war, fueled by a rage deeper than the trenches in which he once fought, Duncan is determined to show the Huldu that the world is not theirs for the taking. Armed with a cut-down trench gun filled with iron shot and a deadly iron knife, Duncan will stop at nothing to return the children the Huldu have stolen from the arms of their families. No matter how many Huldu he may have to slaughter along the way.

But when he is hired by a mother to return her four-year-old daughter, Miriam-taken by the Huldu six months past and replaced with a Changeling-all hell breaks loose. Miriam is a pawn in a much bigger game for dominance than Duncan ever expected, and several long-buried secrets from his past are about to be violently resurrected.