The Shadehunter Saga

001 — The Saga

Bone and Silver — Book I of the Shadehunter Saga by Lori D. Zë

A Trade That Hunts the Dead

Riverhold is a free city sworn to no king. Every morning the Guild of the Long Road pins fresh contracts to its great board, and the Heroes of the Continent ride out through the Iron Gate to answer them: beasts in the marshes, wraiths in the snow, things in the deep mines that the miners have stopped naming.

Thorak takes those contracts for a living. Lately he has been losing them.

The Shadehunter Saga follows him across six books and thirteen zones of a continent that bleeds at its edges, from the dwarven halls of Stonepeak to a citadel of black stone where something old is stirring. It is a working-tradesman’s dark fantasy of guild ranks and tavern brawls, blades forged in a sorceress’s tower and a grey horse with opinions, where the laughter is honest and so are the wounds.

Book I, Bone and Silver, is being written. Release date to be announced.

002 — Book I

Bleed Before You Hunt — a hunter crouched at the edge of a black marsh, drawing a small knife across his palm

Bone and Silver

Thorak is twenty-four, a beasthunter one rank short of the work that pays, and three contracts into a losing run. He owns a curved steppe-blade, an empty pouch, and a grey gelding that tolerates him on good days. The senior shadehunters drink in the Tavern’s darkest corners, and their gold eyes slide straight past him.

Then one of them stops at his table. She leaves him a small knife whose edge catches the lamplight wrong, and a single piece of advice: bleed before you hunt.

He laughs it off, and then he tries it anyway. The marsh contract goes clean. So does the next one, and the one after that, until a shade rises at a crossroads shrine and his good steel passes through it like smoke.

By the time a dwarven Thane posts a contract for something waking beneath Stonepeak, Thorak has begun to wonder what the trade has been charging him, and who decided he did not need to know. Down in the deep tunnels below the hold, something silver-backed has picked up his scent.

AuthorLori D. Zë

GenreDark Fantasy

SeriesThe Shadehunter Saga, Book I

PublisherZodiverse Publishing OÜ

StatusIn progress

003 — Riverhold

The Dark Tower — a leaning tower of black stone above fogged rooftops, one window lit near the top

Where Every Road Bends Back

Riverhold was built where three valleys meet, and it takes in whoever arrives without asking many questions. Cobbled streets lean between half-timbered houses, fog climbs off the river most evenings, and oil lanterns burn yellow in their iron cages. The city is dangerous, and for most of the people living in it, the nearest thing to home.

The Iron Gate: The threshold every contract leaves by, and the arch every survivor rides home under.
The Guild Hall: Seat of the Guild of the Long Road. Whatever goes up on the contract board decides who eats this week.
The Tavern: Properly the Lusty Tavern, though nobody calls it that. The dice game in the back corner has outlasted two decades of players.
The Dark Tower: Black stone, leaning slightly near the top. A dozen Sorceresses work inside, and shadehunters climb its stairs when they need a blade that can cut what ordinary steel cannot.
The Starlight Bazaar: An elven market under a silver-leaf canopy, where gold is accepted but considered crude.

The Trade

The Guild ranks its hunters by the work they can survive: trapper, hunter, beasthunter, shadehunter, and, for the few who last long enough, Shadowwalker. Beasthunters clear what ordinary hunters cannot. Shadehunters take the senior contracts, including the one job nobody else in Riverhold will touch — laying down the unquiet dead. That work needs an eldritch blade, and eldritch blades come from the Dark Tower at whatever price the woman who forges them decides to set.

004 — The Tavern

The Company Thorak Keeps

Most nights the same eight women can be found in or around the Tavern, each there for her own reasons and each open to Thorak only on her own terms. A few are within his reach. The rest he watches from across the room, for now.

Thorak — a lean young hunter in a high-collared coat and leather cuirass, lit by a single candle — Thorak Beasthunter Foundling of the eastern steppes, raised in Riverhold’s foundling ward and trained in the trade from the age of twelve. Dry, observant, and quicker to laugh than his face suggests. He pays his debts and holds firm opinions about wine.

Brynna Emberbraid — a broad-shouldered dwarf woman mid-laugh, tankard raised, lit by a forge fire out of frame — Brynna Emberbraid Dwarf of Stonepeak Laughs loudly, drinks deeply, and comes back from the Riverhold Forge smelling of smoke. Her stories grow a little longer with every telling.

Marielle Thorne — a bard leaning over a tavern table with her lute, lit by a single candle — Marielle Thorne Bard of Stormisle The Tavern’s resident bard, with a lute that carries rumour and truth in equal measure. Her ballads shift depending on who is listening.

Lythael Moonveil — an elf woman in sheer layered gauze, a slender band at her brow, lit by a low moon — Lythael Moonveil Elf of Aelmyr, in exile Forty years in Riverhold and still moving like moonlight. People notice her when she walks in and lose track of her the moment she leaves.

Lady Elowen Draeven — a knight in a battered pauldron and breastplate, both hands resting on an upright longsword — Lady Elowen Draeven Fallen knight Her order is gone; she kept the oath anyway. She tests people, with interest rather than malice, before deciding whether they are worth her time.

Sister Calis — a former priestess in a long veil, a pendant with its device filed off at her throat, lit from below by a votive candle — Sister Calis Former priestess She walked away from the eternal fire of the Flamebound Cathedral and now hears confessions from those who cannot take their burdens to any other priest.

Seraphine Vaelor — a sorceress holding a lit candle that burns brighter than it should, her head tipped back — Seraphine Vaelor Once of the Dark Tower A Sorceress until she stepped down. Candles burn brighter when she sits near them, and she laughs at jokes, which no Sorceress is supposed to do.

Velis Ardent — a woman with her arms folded, deliberately rendered a fraction less sharply than everything around her — Velis Ardent Trader in information Beautiful in a way that is hard to recall the next morning. She registers in a room without quite being seen.

Nyx Virelle — a weathered senior hunter of fifty-eight in hardened leather, hood pushed back, an old scar at the jaw — Nyx Virelle Shadowwalker Fifty-eight, which is old for the trade, with violet eyes most of Riverhold avoids meeting. Few people see her arrive, and fewer see her leave.

Beyond the Tavern

Ileena — a sorceress in a scarred leather apron inspecting a newly forged blade, lit by a forge mouth — Ileena Dark Sorceress of the Tower She forges the eldritch blades Thorak lays the dead down with, names her price, and watches the buyer pay it. Funnier than her reputation, when she is in the mood.

005 — The Continent

Thirteen Zones Beyond the Gate

The further a contract leads from Riverhold, the stranger the world becomes. The zones run from the snow and stone of Stonepeak in the north to the Obsidian Rift in the deep south, and the ordinary laws thin with every mile between.

Stonepeak Mountains — Dwarven holds, deep mines, and snow that lasts through summer. Book I’s hunting ground.
Moonvale Forest — Elven groves bound by a pact older than any human city.
Stormisle Coast — Cliffs, ruins, and lights beneath the surf that the fishermen no longer ask about.
Ashen Wastes — Half-buried cities in a desert where only thorn grows.
Black Sun Fortress — An obsidian citadel that throws its shadow across the valley at noon.
Northwatch Tundra — Frozen plains where frost wraiths wander between the drifts.
Duskfen Swamp — Mist, mire, and lantern lights that lead travellers the wrong way.
Redwater Ruins — A drowned city whose stones glow red under the moon.
Flamebound Cathedral — Eternal braziers and zealots who chant through the night.
Vale of Echoes — A hidden valley where every word comes back three times, deeper each time.
Sunscorch Dunes — Golden sand, nomads who vanish into the heat, bones in the drift.
Gallows Hollow — A ravine of deadwood posts, where nooses sway in still air and the crows never leave.
Obsidian Rift — A wound in the earth that hums like a heartbeat after dark.