Three hundred years after the War of the Ring and ten years after the invasion of Olmer the Great, war breaks out again in Middle-earth. War for the sake of war, blood for the sake of blood, armies advance one after another, everyone takes up arms against everyone. The hobbit Folko Brandyback is one of the few who feels in this an echo of the coming end of the world. And he is the only one who connects the new war with the mysterious Light that has shone in the south. No one yet knows what this Light is, or who directs it, or where it came from. Folko and his dwarven friends have to find out. to prevent the onset of the Last Battle. The magicians of the hidden Middle Principality, and the warrior Sandello, wielding an ancient sword, and the nine Nazgul, and even the mysterious Blue Mist contribute to the overall picture. And in the end, as in all stories about Middle-earth, it turns out that the road led Folco not where he expected when he stepped on it...