Out on the far northern border of a failed state, Makepeace patrols the ruins of a dying city and keeps its inhabitants in check. Into this cold, isolated world comes evidence that life is elsewhere - a refugee from the vast emptiness of forest, whose existence inspires Makepeace to reconnect with human society. What Makepeace finds is a world unravelling, stockaded villages enforcing a rough and uncertain justice, mysterious slave camps labouring to harness the little understood technologies of a vanished civilization. But the journey also leads to unexpected human contact, tenderness, and the dark secrets behind this frozen world.