To the witches, he is an anomaly. To the world, he is a ghost.
Hallr is the last of the dwarves—a 160-year-old survivor who exists in the tattered margins of human civilization. He doesn't fight for glory; he fights for his next meal, scavenging the bloody spoils of human battlefields with a double-bladed Mithril axe that has outlived his entire race. But Hallr has a secret that makes him the ultimate prize: dwarves are naturally resistant to magic, and the witches who rule the shadows will stop at nothing to eliminate the one creature they cannot control.
When Hallr’s path collides with a desperate band of seekers, his solitary life of scavenging ends. There is Milfred, a blacksmith obsessed with the lost secrets of dwarven steel; Agnarr, an apprentice hiding a dangerous magical talent in a land that executes magi; and Sheyla, a witch healer fleeing a dark past with three magical children in tow.
Their only hope lies in the legendary mountain city of Molgan. But the ancient fortress wasn’t just lost to time—it was abandoned in a bloodbath that the history books got wrong. As a royal hunting party led by the ruthless Tobias closes in, the group must penetrate the heart of the mountain to find the truth.
Inside, they will face a dragon guarding a treasure it cannot spend and a city that defies the laws of nature. They came to find a home; now, they must survive the dormant terror that drove the dwarves into extinction before history repeats itself.
How does a city inside a mountain feed its people without a single farm?
A dragon buys nothing, so why does it consider gold a treasure?
What dark truth was powerful enough to scare the greatest warriors in history into running away?
Perfect for fans of The Witcher and Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law who crave a gritty, high-stakes world where survival is a daily battle and magic is a weapon of the hunters, not the heroes. This story will resonate with readers who love the "found family" energy of Nicholas Eames’ Kings of the Wyld, featuring a pragmatic dwarven warrior and a blacksmith obsessed with lost secrets. It is an ideal pick for world-building enthusiasts who enjoy the logical depth of Brandon Sanderson—deconstructing classic fantasy tropes to explain the logistics of a dragon’s hoard and the survival of a subterranean civilization.
