Parno Mcleod has enough problems for three people. A brother trying to steal the throne. A former fiance who has ripped him apart emotionally, and an enemy army twice the size of his own camped out on millions of acres of prime farm land he needs to feed his people.

The last thing he needs to add to all that are assassination attempts, his surrogate mother meddling in the relationship, or lack thereof, with his "fiance", and word that his traitorous brother, unaware of the death of his twin, is trying desperately to reach the Coastal Province government for "help" in "restoring" him to the throne.

But he gets all that and more as he faces off against perhaps the biggest military challenge of the war when the northern army finally seems to have had enough of just sitting there, occupying southern farm land.

It's always a gamble any time Parno makes a move. Every time he moves any troops under his command he risks needing them somewhere else to prevent a disaster. He doesn't have enough anything except trouble, and those he has aplenty. And none of those causing his troubles seem to care that they are distracting him from his most important duty of all.

Like, you know, protecting the kingdom from invasion and takeover.

Such is life for Parno McLeod. The son everyone loves to hate.