THEN For 800 years, the grand monastic complex at Nalanda (in present-day Bihar in India) was the epicentre of knowledge and wisdom in the ancient world. In 1193 AD, a Turkic warlord destroyed it. Legend says its three great libraries burned for months! Half a world away, Europe's colonial powers race to locate the fabled city of gold and knowledge, Timbuktu. By the time a European arrived in Timbuktu in 1826, the Moroccan sultan had plundered the city... but Timbuktiens hid, buried or scattered their private manuscript collections among nomadic tribes for safekeeping.

NOW Timbuktien antiquarian Abdel Haidara is on a mission to recover Timbuktu's lost manuscripts. Deep in the Sahara, one manuscript carries a tantalising provenance: the seal of Nalanda. Under the auspices of the National Archives of India, the Chancellor of the New Nalanda University and ex-paratrooper Izak Kaurben head to Timbuktu to repatriate the manuscript. Before the expedition can achieve its objective, terror group Qanun ad-Dam - The Law of Blood - kidnaps the chancellor and Abdel, and leaves Izak for dead. Qanun ad-Dam demands a ransom for its prisoners, but the price for Abdel's release - the destruction of every Timbuktien manuscript - is something the Malian government will never concede to. If Abdel is executed, the Nalanda Manuscript will be lost forever, because only he knows where to find its nomad caretaker in the desolate expanse of the Sahara. With the clock ticking, an injured Izak and a ragtag team of Timbuktiens must find the Qanun ad-Dam lair and rescue Abdel before it is too late.