SWORDS OF HAVEN contains the first three adventures:

• In Hawk & Fisher, Captains Hawk and Fisher are assigned as bodyguards for a powerful, reform-minded (and therefore very endangered) City Councilman. Things get very bad when the Councilman is murdered mysteriously, in a situation where there are far too many suspects for comfort.
• In Winner Take All, Hawk and Fisher again draw bodyguard duty, protecting another Reform politician during his election campaign. Elections can get bloody in Haven, both figuratively and literally. This one involves mercenaries, magic, double-crosses, double-dealing, and something from the Street of Gods which may be a long-lost god -- or may be something more. Or something less.
• In The God Killer, Hawk and Fisher are assigned to the God Squad, a small and elite unit of Guards that patrol the Street of Gods and keep the peace there. Their immediate job: solve the murders of three gods, before the others lose control of their followers and a God War starts. What happens in a God War? You really don't want to know...

GUARDS OF HAVEN contains the second trio of stories:

• In Wolf in the Fold, Hawk and Fisher are assigned to ferret out a spy who has gone to ground in an estate owned by one of Haven's oldest noble families. Their assignment is made considerably more complicated by the fact that they have to work undercover . . . and it just so happens that impersonating a noble is a capital offense. And they also run into a murder mystery that involves an old family secret. Among other things, this story is a very nicely done conversion/adaptation of an old Scottish ghost story.
• In Guard Against Dishonor, Hawk and Fisher break up a distribution network for a new and incredibly dangerous drug, then find themselves in deep trouble with their superiors because they did a lot of incidental damage in the process. Hawk is sent to find the hidden drug, while Fisher is assigned to guard some super-secret negotiations between Haven and its old enemy Outremer. Before long, though, both of them find themselves on the run, accused of treason and selling out to Haven's underworld.
• In The Bones of Haven, Hawk and Fisher are assigned to work with the Guards SWAT (Special Wizardry And Tactics) team to put down a riot in the city's largest prison. The riot turns out to be a cover for something much more elaborate and dangerous, involving a renegade sorcerer, the Kings of Haven and Outremer, a terrorist who will stop at nothing to achieve his goals, and an ancient magical secret older than Haven itself.

As a separate project, in 1993 Green wrote a stand-alone swords & sorcery story called DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN. A team of Forest Kingdom Rangers are investigating an abandoned border fortress. They find traces of an incredible slaughter, but no bodies and no sign of either who did it or what happened to the bodies. At the same time, the Rangers are being followed by a band of outlaws: a highwayman who is also a wizard, a renegade Guard who is a master of the bow, and another renegade who carries a cursed sword. Together, this unlikely band must defeat the ancient, evil creature that sleeps below the fortress and instigated the murder of the garrison.

In 1999, Green returned to the world of Hawk and Fisher. BLUE MOON RISING is a conventional swords-and-sorcery fantasy starring Prince Rupert of the Forest Kingdom. Rupert is an expendable second prince of the Forest Kingdom whose father the King has sent him on a mission that by all rights should kill him: to find and slay a dragon. His quest leads him through the mysterious and deadly Darkwood. He finds a dragon, and even a princess to rescue. But the dragon proves uninterested in fighting, and Rupert decides he'd rather have the dragon as a friend than an enemy. Which turns out to be a good thing. Because the Darkwood is suddenly spreading, and the legendary Blue Moon is coming, and the whole Forest Kingdom is facing a lot more trouble than it can handle. This is the story behind the various references to 'the Blue Moon' and 'the Wild Magic' in the Hawk & Fisher stories and in DOWN AMONG THE DEAD MEN.

BEYOND THE BLUE MOON caps off the whole Hawk & Fisher series. It's ten years after the Blue Moon, and trouble has come to the Forest Kingdom again. The King is dead, murdered in his private chambers; the cursed Inverted Cathedral has reappeared within the Forest Castle; and all the magical omens point to something awful about to happen. The Queen has dispatched a messenger to find the long-lost Prince Rupert and his wife Julia, and bring them back to save the Forest Kingdom again. But Rupert and Julia don't want to come back. So instead, the messenger returns with Captains Hawk and Fisher of the Haven City Guard. And neither they nor the Forest Kingdom will ever be quite the same again.

SWORD-DANCER tells of how they first met, and how Del hired Tiger as a guide to help her in her search for the man who murdered her parents, raped her, and sold her brother into slavery.

SWORD-SINGER describes their return to Del's homeland and Staal-Ysta, the place where she learned her swordsmanship, so she can face judgement for the crime she committed of murdering her master and instructor during a duel. Along the way, though, they rouse ancient powers better left alone. And Del has ideas of her own about how to win her freedom from the death-mark that has been placed on her.

In SWORD-MAKER, Tiger and Del leave Staal-Ysta behind. An evil sorcerer seeks the power of Del's jivatma, and Tiger and Del must face him in his own lair. But the challenge of the legendary master sorcerer Chosa Dei may be more than the Southern sword-dancer and the Northern sword-singer can face.

In SWORD-BREAKER, Tiger and Del must travel south, returning to Tiger's homeland in search of Chosa Dei's brother and enemy, Shaka Obre. For only Shaka can remove the curse that Tiger unwittingly invited on himself: a jivatma that hosts the soul of a dark wizard. And even as they seek Shaka Obre, Tiger and Del must avoid the pursuers who seek to collect the bounty on their heads, placed there by maddened tribesmen after Del killed the man the tribes believed to be their messiah.

In SWORD-BORN, Tiger and Del leave their old lives behind. Hunted in the South, banished from the North, they turn to the open ocean and set sail in a merchant ship seeking an island which may be Tiger's original homeland. There they find pirates, political schemes, and a plan to make Tiger the heir to a wealthy noblewoman's estate. And one thing more: a heritage of magic which may make Tiger into something he never wanted to be, before it finally kills him.

Finally, in SWORD-SWORN, Tiger and Del return to the Southern Desert. Tiger has a price on his head: for betraying the code of the sword-dancers, his life is forfeit to any sword-dancer who can take it. Tiger has a mission of his own, though, and dying isn't part of it.

THE BLACK COMPANY begins the saga. Centuries ago, the Dominator, his wife the Lady, and the ten dark wizards known as the Ten Who Were Taken ruled an empire in the north. Then they were defeated by the legendary rebel general called the White Rose. But they could not be killed, only imprisoned in a charmed barrow and guarded for all time. When the Black Company is betrayed by its current employer, the mercenaries must flee the city they were guarding. To make good their escape, they take service under a new employer. Unfortunately, they don't find out until too late that their new employers are the Lady and the Ten Who Were Taken, recently released from their magic prison. Now the Lady has two goals: first, to rebuild her empire; and second, to prevent her husband the Dominator from also escaping that same prison. The Black Company has little choice but to obey the Lady's commands, until they hear a rumor that the Lady's nemesis, the master general known as the White Rose, has also been reborn to fight her ancient enemy.

SHADOWS LINGER concerns the Black Company's work in the far west of the Lady's reborn empire. Here the Dominator has set into motion a plan to release him from his prison. However, a new factor has entered the equation: even as the Company works to defeat the Dominator, some of them have also begun to think of becoming rebels themselves. For they now know that the rumors are true, and the White Rose has indeed been reborn.

THE WHITE ROSE tells of the final fight against the Lady and the Dominator. The remnants of the Black Company have gone to ground on the bizarre Plains of Fear, where they help the White Rose direct her rebellion against the Lady and the remaining Taken. At the same time, the Dominator is being brought ever closer to freedom by the random workings of nature. Events are rapidly approaching the final battle, in which the Lady, the Dominator, the Black Company, the White Rose, and an evil that is ancient beyond history will all come together in one great confluence of power and destruction.

THE SILVER SPIKE is a branch off the saga of the Black Company. After the Company's few survivors depart the North, a trio of thieves plot to steal the silver spike which contains all that's left of the Dominator. At the same time, a demon called Toadkiller Dog is working to find the still-living head of the insane Taken called the Limper. All these threads converge in a last fight for the power of the Dominator.

SHADOW GAMES resumes the story of the Black Company. As the Company's new Captain, Croaker is determined to return the Company's Annals and its standard to the city of Khatovar far to the south, from whence the Company originally came. As the Company travels south, it finds new recruits and new enemies (and some old ones too), while a number of mysterious events begin to indicate that far more is going on than Croaker thinks. Eventually, the Company finds an employer again: the leaders of the city of Taglios, who need the Company's help against the evil wizards called the Shadowmasters. It seems a good arrangement, since the Shadowmasters control land the Company needs to cross to reach Khatovar. . .

DREAMS OF STEEL is the first book to be told by someone other than Croaker: the Lady, once a sorceress supreme, now Lieutenant of the Black Company and Croaker's lover. Croaker has apparently fallen in battle, much of the Company is dead or besieged, and Lady is engaged in rebuilding the Company and finding a way of getting revenge for Croaker's death. In this task she chooses some very unsavory allies: the society of assassins called the Deceivers, sworn to the service of the dark goddess Kina. At the same time, she finds her powers of sorcery returning -- something which should be impossible.

BLEAK SEASONS is the first book of a series-within-the-series called Glittering Stone. It parallels the events of DREAMS OF STEEL, but from a different point of view. Murgen, the new Annalist of the Black Company, tells the story of the remnants of the Black Company besieged in the city-fortress of Stormgard. But things are never what they seem where the Company is concerned, and somehow, Murgen's narrative includes things he shouldn't know. Kina's power is growing, and an ancient prophecy known as 'the Year of the Skulls' is moving closer to fulfillment.

SHE IS THE DARKNESS is Book 2 of Glittering Stone. Again narrated by Murgen, it describes the Company's final great assault on the remaining Shadowmasters. All the stops are pulled out as the Company deploys a gigantic army against the Shadowmasters, and attacks repeatedly in Croaker's determined effort to defeat the Shadowmasters and win through to the Plain of Glittering Stone, beyond which lies their destination Khatovar. At the same time, Kina's followers continue their scheming to have their new priestess, who is the daughter of Lady and Croaker, summon their dark goddess and bring on the cataclysm called the Year of the Skulls.

WATER SLEEPS (Book 3 of Glittering Stone) brings up another new narrator: a girl who goes by the name 'Sleepy.' It's been fifteen years since the events of SHE IS THE DARKNESS, and much of the Black Company, including Croaker, Lady, and their chief advisors, are trapped in stasis beneath the plain of glittering stone. The remnants of the Company, including Sleepy, the aging wizards Goblin and One-Eye, and a handful of others have been plotting for years to free their trapped leaders and also start a rebellion against the sorceress called Soulcatcher, the Lady's sister, once one of the Taken and now the dictator of Taglios. Their plan will lead to a series of revelations about the Black Company's nature, its history, its mission, and the being called Kina.

OATH OF SWORDS begins the story of Bahzell Bahnakson. Bahzell is a hradani, a member of a race of humanoids who are tall, powerful, technologically backward (for this world) and given to outbreaks of insane fury, an ancient curse which they call the Rage. Bahzell is also an honor hostage, sent to live in the court of his father's mortal enemy. When Bahzell discovers the enemy prince's eldest son raping a servant girl, he intervenes and then must flee for his life, taking the injured girl with him. Unable to go home, he instead becomes a wandering mercenary and caravan guard, trekking across the land to escape the assassins on his trail. But more than assassins have taken an interest in Bahzell Bahnakson. Hradani may have no use for gods, but the gods definitely have a use for hradani. Rather to Bahzell's dismay, Tomanak the God of War has decided he wants Bahzell as one of his champions, while Sharna the Lord of Demons simply wants him dead.

In THE WAR GOD'S OWN, Bahzell ends his wanderings and decides to return home, there to use his new status as a champion of Tomanak to confront his enemies and end the dark god Sharna's influence among the hradani. Along the way, he must contend with Tomanak's Order of knights, some of whom have trouble believing that their god would take a hradani as a champion. He also has to deal with more assassins, various plots by the dark god Sharna, and finally an attempted invasion by the hereditary enemies of the hradani, the Sothoii Windriders. Fortunately, he has two newfound allies: Vaijon of Almerhas, a knight-probationer of the Order of Tomanak; and Kaeritha, a fellow Champion of Tomanak and a swordswoman of phenomenal skill.

WIND RIDER'S OATH picks up where THE WAR GOD'S OWN ended. Bahzell and Brandark are now living on the Wind Plain as "guests" of a senior Sothoii nobleman. Kaeritha is off to deal with a strange conflict over land that pits a powerful and prejudiced young Sothoii baron against the semi-religious order of woman warriors known as the "war maidens." Bahzell soon finds himself with a task of his own: a rescue mission to save a herd of the huge, semi-magical horses called coursers. These coursers were the victims of an attack by one of the Dark Gods. Bahzell must try to heal the wounded coursers of the magicked venom that is eating them alive -- without being killed by either the venom or the coursers, whose hatred of hradani rivals that of the Sothoii themselves. What neither champion knows is that their two missions are two parts of a complex plan by the Dark Gods to cripple Tomanak's Order by killing two of His champions in one bold stroke. While Bahzell hunts the one who attacked the coursers, Kaeritha is sucked into a long-building plot to corrupt both the war maidens and the temple of the goddess Lillinara, with the ultimate goal of causing a civil war on the Wind Plain.