This is the final book in The Faded Sun trilogy. "Kutath was an ancient world and a dying one. In ages past its best sons and daughters had gone to the stars to serve as mercenaries in the wars of aliens. Now the survivors of its star-flung people, the mri, had come back - in the form of a single woman, the last priestess-queen Melein, and a single man, the last warrior, Niun. And one other - the human Sten Duncan who had deserted Earth's military to swear service to the foes of his own species. Here is... an in-depth study of the last stand of an alien culture confronted with the devastating vengeance of two star-conquering races."