Croaker and company head south, and things go surprisingly smoothly and well in the African countries they travel through until south of the Nile, they discover an evil empire is in their path menacing an innocent Babylonian-style city. Naturally, _Dances with Wolves_ style, they'll help the hapless natives protect themselves. And we get not one but *four* of the old Taken coming back to life (Howler, Shaper, Stormbringer, and Soulcatcher) -_-. Oh and also a 'buried evil' a la the Dominator. Yes, another one. That's what, the third now? Good grief.

Like the previous book, my complaint here is that the plot is simple and straightforward, parts of it are very ham-handed (eg. once I got over my disgust at yes, another Taken was back, it was pretty obvious where the crows were coming from).

The upside is that it's fun watching Croaker becoming the Captain and growing still more.