The Paper Blade's Journey West

In the tenth year of the Tianbao era, the blood-soaked sands of Talas stretched to the horizon. Tang prisoner of war Du Huan, carrying a secret technique for improving papermaking and dragging heavy chains, entered Baghdad, the new capital of the Abbasid Caliphate, a magnificent crucible of ambition and knowledge. The cold iron chains could not extinguish his determination to return home and deliver a warning, but they drew him into a shadow war far beyond anything he had imagined.