Blood for Gold

They were the most feared warriors in the ancient world — and history has largely forgotten them.

From the Nubian archers who guarded Egypt’s pharaohs to the Catalan mercenaries who conquered Athens, from Mamluk slave-soldiers who became sultans to Viking warriors who carved runic graffiti in the Hagia Sophia — the history of hired war is far stranger, bloodier, and more consequential than most readers have ever imagined.

Blood for Gold: Swords of Antiquity is the first volume of a groundbreaking three-volume series that tells the complete global history of mercenaries across 4,500 years and every inhabited continent. This volume covers the ancient and medieval worlds — from the earliest documented mercenaries in Mesopotamia (2500 BCE) through the great military companies of the late Middle Ages (1500 CE).

Inside this volume, you will encounter:

• The Habiru — the first documented mercenaries in human history, operating across the ancient Near East for over 1,500 years
• Xenophon’s Ten Thousand — the original mercenary adventure story, a 1,600-kilometer fighting retreat through hostile Persia
• The Carthaginian army — the world’s first truly multinational military force, with Balearic slingers, Numidian cavalry, Iberian swordsmen, and Gallic warriors fighting under a single command
• The Mamluks — purchased as slave children, trained as warriors, who rose to become sultans and stopped the Mongol invasion of the Middle East at the Battle of Ain Jalut (1260)
• The Catalan Company — mercenaries who burned their way across the Byzantine Empire, defeated 24,000 knights with 3,000 men, and ruled Athens from the Acropolis for 77 years
• The Varangian Guard — Vikings who became Constantinople’s most elite bodyguards, later joined by Anglo-Saxon refugees after the Norman Conquest
• Begum Samru — the only woman in history to command her own mercenary army, ruling a principality in Mughal India
• The Qizilbash — Sufi warriors in red turbans who built the Persian Empire with up to 70,000 horsemen
• The Hussite war wagon — peasant warriors who defeated five papal crusades with revolutionary combined-arms tactics
• The Black Army of Hungary — one of Europe’s first standing professional armies, fielding 20,000 cavalry and innovative firearms units

...and dozens more groups from China, India, Africa, the Byzantine Empire, the Ottoman realms, and medieval Europe.

Blood for Gold is not a book of familiar stories retold. It uncovers mercenary traditions from every corner of the world — including groups that even dedicated military historians may never have encountered. Each chapter provides specific details: battle dates, troop numbers, tactical innovations, payment methods, battle cries, and the vivid personalities who shaped military history.

Volume 1 covers the period from 2500 BCE to 1500 CE in 22 chapters. Volume 2 (Knights of Fortune) continues with the Renaissance through the Age of Empires (1500–1900). Volume 3 (Corporations of Violence) concludes with the World Wars through the digital battlefield of 2025.