Catwin is chosen to be a Shadow by the Duke of Voltur to his niece, the Lady Miriel DeVere. The ruthless Duke is using Miriel as a pawn to catch weak and sickly King Garad's heart. Catwin and Miriel must quickly learn who to trust and how to use all their skills if they want to survive at Court, including when to turn those skills against the very people who have trained them.

Employing survey archaeology, excavation, ethnographic study, and multinational archival work, the Shala Valley Project uncovered the many powerful, creative ways whereby the men and women of Shala shaped their world: through dynamic, world-systemic relationships with the powers that surrounded but never fully conquered them. The Shala Valley Project presents the highlanders, the malesore, in the full complexity of their lives, while also unveiling a new, deeper history for the region--a history that reaches back to an unexpected fortified Iron Age site. Light and Shadow tells many stories. Archaeologists, historians, and students of tribes, of empires, of imperial-indigenous relations, of blood feud, of kinship, of the built landscape, of world-systems theory and sustainability science, and more, will find much here to digest. The people of Shala, to which Light and Shadow is dedicated, may serve as an example in our modern age, one in which persistent, tribal peoples still fight for their survival, and seek to preserve some degree of independence from capitalist economies bent on their incorporation.

In 2010, U.S. special operations forces (SOF) in Afghanistan began a new and innovative program to fight the Taliban insurgency using the movement's structure and strategy against it. The Village Stability Operations/Afghan Local Police initiative consisted of U.S. Army Special Forces and U.S. Navy SEAL teams embedding with villagers to fight the Taliban holistically. By enlisting Afghans in their own defense, organizing the local populace, and addressing their grievances with the Afghan government, SOF was able to defeat the Taliban’s military as well as its political arm. Combining the traditions of U.S. Army Special Forces with the lessons learned in the broader SOF community from years of counterinsurgency work in Iraq and Afghanistan, this new approach fundamentally changed the terms of the conflict with the Taliban. However, little has been written about this initiative outside of the special operations community until now. In this first-hand account of how the Village Stability Operations program functioned, Daniel R. Green provides a long-term perspective on how SOF stabilized the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, the site of the Pashtun uprising against the Taliban in 2001 led by Hamid Karzai, future president of Afghanistan. In the Warlords’ Shadow offers a comprehensive overview of how SOF adapted to the unique demands of the local insurgency and is a rare, inside look at how special operations confronted the Taliban by fighting a “better war” and in so doing fundamentally changed the course of the war in Afghanistan.

Wardens. Selected for their strong, innate connection to the lifeblood of the world, these unique individuals were granted the gift of immortality and tasked with the protection of Kylir and its ancient Guardians against the Darkness. Where once they warred openly, raining unimaginable destruction upon the world, the centuries have seen their conflict shift to the shadows in the hope of gaining victory through the manipulation of the mundane instead of open, devastating conflict. For what victory is there in reigning over a dead world? On the continent of Triclose, war is life and life is war. For two-hundred years, the proud people of this land have battled for control of the long-empty throne - the Wardens and their war, lost to the annals of myth and legend. The children of this land are raised on stories of their ancestors and noble battles against life-long enemies; thus, with each new generation loyalties are sworn, hatreds renewed, and the wars begin anew. It is here, even as this never-ending cycle of generational warfare plays out, that events both unexpected and foreseen threaten to draw the ancient Wardens from the shadows and reignite a war with the cataclysmic potential to reshape Kylir for all time. . .