Dray Prescot has recently given up the job of being Emperor of Vallia, only to be pitchforked into the task of uniting all the varied continents and islands of Paz to resist the reiving onslaughts of the Shanks. People are beginning to call him the Emperor of Emperors, the Emperor of Paz. During the battle, to his horror, he sees Delia being carried off by a group of the whiptailed Kataki slavers, galloping off astride zorcas. Frenziedly he charges after them... Although previously published in a German translation, Scorpio Drums has never before been published in English.