The acclaimed twenty-first novel in the number one bestselling series featuring Richard Sharpe. In the winter of 1811, the war seems lost. All Spain has fallen to the French, except for Cadiz, now the Spanish capital and itself under siege. In Cadiz, Richard Sharpe discovers more than one enemy. One of them, a baleful priest, finds a weapon to break the British alliance and Sharpe must find ways to defeat him in a sinister war of knife and treachery in the dark alleys of the city. As a small British force is trapped by a French army, their only hope lies with the outnumbered redcoats who, on a hill beside the sea, refuse to admit defeat. And there, in the sweltering horror of Barrosa, Sharpe finds his old enemy Colonel Vandal once again.