Zarsthor's Bane

It bound them all in a mystic web of ancient peril: the man whose madness drove him to seek it; the boy who followed him; the girl and her cat who crossed their path in the wild and lonely reaches of High Hallack - and the host of spirits waiting in lost An-Yak for the final confrontation of magic with magic, power with power. Brixia, who was once the lady of a Hall in High Hallack now hunts and scavenges the deserted, post-invasion farmland of the Dales. Her only companion is the cat Uta. Brixia and Uta are drawn into Waste where Light and Dark Magic still exist, on a search for Zarsthor's Bane. Brixia discovers a place of Green Magic while under attack by one of the many loathsome packs of creatures that inhabit the Waste. Ultimately, she rescues her companions (a wounded lord and his squire), but not before Brixia survives combat between the forces of Light and Dark.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.