In this, award-winning author Lavie Tidhar's 21st-century homage to pulp fantasy, guns clash with sorcery, faith with addiction, and love with betrayal.

Gorel of Goliris was born a prince. Now he's a mercenary, a killer-for-hire, and a slave to the Black Kiss - the narcotic distilled from the blood of gods. His kingdom is gone, his family slaughtered, and his only obsession is to find the path back home. But in a world where gods walk and magic infects the land, the road home is paved with betrayal, blood... and bullets.

From the scorched deserts of Meskatel to the drowned temples of Falang-Et, from necropolises where the dead refuse to sleep to cities ruled by frog-gods and hybrid spawn, Gorel's journey is a brutal odyssey of hallucinatory wonders and horrors. Only one thing's for sure: by the time this is over, there will be blood.