Ardneh's Sword

I quickly skimmed through Ardneh's Sword, by Fred Saberhagen. This book is a 17-year-later sequel to
Empire of the East. I loved the latter when I read it as a teenager, but Ardneh's Sword was really bad. As far as I could tell, the only reason for its existence is to tie the Empire of the East universe to the universe of the Twelve Swords. I'm glad I took this book out of the library, and didn't actually buy it.