How do you win a battle lost 6,000 years before you were born? How do you make sure winning that battle doesn't lose you the war? The 21st Century is dead, killed by a runaway designer plague. Only two people survived the century. 2nd Lieutenant Launa Obrian and her sole subordinate, Captain Jack Walking Bear. There mission, travel back 6,000 years and help a peaceful band of farmers fight off the horse raiders from the steppe and maybe, just maybe, turn human history from death and conquest to cooperation and construction. They've won their first battle, but they know there is more to come. Some of the farmers walk after the soldiers. Some refuse to consider killing, even to protect themselves. Most of the farmers just wish the horse raiders would go away. It is among these that Launa and Jack must find enough soldiers to stand between the lances of the raiders and the farms and herds of these people. But is just winning the battle enough? Is the changes they must bring to harden muscles, harden weapons, and harden hearts something that may destroy from within the very lives they were sent to save? Ride with Launa and Jack as they seek to start a Second Fire that will burn out the poison from the steppe without burning up the way of life that may be humanity's only hope.