You will need to find the missing parts of the sword - first the hilt, then the blade - in order to slay the coming True Magi, who were killed in the Blasting - a major cataclysm - six hundred years ago, and now want to rule the world on their return. Only the Blood Sword, the bane of the undead, can stop them. So you travel to the northern land of Wyrd, where the Warlock-King guards the hilt from inside his Palace of Eternal Dusk. Then your journey takes you south (book 3), to Crescentium - the main port of the Outremer. There you will find several allies - among whom the assassin leader Hasan-i-Sabbah - who will help you find the blade. But your old enemy Aiken - a Yamatese warrior, known in the lands of the West by the name of Icon the Ungodly - will eventually find you, and after you defeat him for the second time Icon falls down to Sheol, the realm of the dead, taking the Blood Sword with him.