On crusade in the Baghdad caliphate, knights Jacob and Gallain tire of the endless bloodshed and disappear east, where 'nobody' goes, all the way to China.
Their the dying king plans to hand power, symbolized by the royal seal, not to his ever-victorious firstborn prince Shing but to wiser junior prince Zhao, to start an era of peace.
Shing murders his father and pans the same for his brother, who fled with his elder sister Lian.
Chased by Shing's black guard, the head for hopefully loyal generals in the mountains.
On the way, they find chivalrous protection with Jacob, now an opium-addict, but still a military genius, who leads them to the stronghold of Gallain, now a settled brigand baron known as White Ghost, where they make a stand against the far more numerous black guard while Shing arrives.