Heroes from all corners of the Earth join forces for the first time to battle the Hunter's minions. But with blood in the air, the Hunter himself is drawn out of hiding. In desperate hope of killing the creature once and for all, Kalfu opens a Crossroads doorway to the Hunter's lair.

The world is thinnest at The Crossroads, a mythical plane that serves as a doorway throughout the universe. It is here that a band of adventurers throughout the Wild West gather, brought together by Gord Cantrell and Abigail Redmayne with a singular purpose: to fight back against the creatures that would endanger the sanctity of all creation. SHADOW ROADS, a stand-alone story, is the set in the world that remains after the conclusion of Cullen Bunn, Brian Hurtt, and Bill Crabtree’s critically-acclaimed series, The Sixth Gun. Collects the first arc, issues 1-5.

Presented for the first time in one complete collection, the action-packed expansion of the Sixth Gun universe starts here in the ultimate collection for fans and new readers alike! In the world that remains after the conclusion of The Sixth Gun, the thinnest veil between reality and the mystical plane that serves as a doorway throughout the universe lies at the Crossroads. A band of disparate outsiders in the Wild West are brought together here to defeat the Hunter, a creature of apocalyptic power that endangers all creation. This volume collects The Sixth Gun: Shadow Roads #1–10 from master storytellers Cullen Bunn (Harrow County, The Empty Man), Brian Hurtt (The Damned, Manor Black), and illustrator A.C. Zamudio.

Shadow of the Silk Road records a journey along the greatest land route on earth. Out of the heart of China into the mountains of Central Asia, across northern Afghanistan and the plains of Iran and into Kurdish Turkey, Colin Thubron covers some seven thousand miles in eight months. Making his way by local bus, truck, car, donkey cart and camel, he travels from the tomb of the Yellow Emperor, the mythic progenitor of the Chinese people, to the ancient port of Antioch—in perhaps the most difficult and ambitious journey he has undertaken in forty years of travel. The Silk Road is a huge network of arteries splitting and converging across the breadth of Asia. To travel it is to trace the passage not only of trade and armies but also of ideas, religions and inventions. But alongside this rich and astonishing past, Shadow of the Silk Road is also about Asia today: a continent of upheaval. One of the trademarks of Colin Thubron's travel writing is the beauty of his prose; another is his gift for talking to people and getting them to talk to him. Shadow of the Silk Road encounters Islamic countries in many forms. It is about changes in China, transformed since the Cultural Revolution. It is about false nationalisms and the world's discontented margins, where the true boundaries are not political borders but the frontiers of tribe, ethnicity, language and religion. It is a magnificent and important account of an ancient world in modern ferment.

When a blight threatens Byzantium's silk industry, Alexandra, the sister of the Emperor, journeys across Tibet to the Empire of Ch'in, in hopes of smuggling live silkworms back to Byzantium

Push your watercolor painting to the next level by mastering the use of color, light, and shadows. Go beyond trying to copy what you see by designing with shapes, shadows, and highlights. Deepen the expressive nature of your paintings as you capture the subject's luminosity. Master painter William B. Lawrence offers hands-on techniques and insights for intermediate to advanced artists. Light and color take the viewer on a journey. Properly harnessed, they can convey emotion, create a mood, or tell a story. Whether your work is realistic, expressive, or abstract, the options are unlimited. Lawrence explores pattern, hue, contrast, and texture in this treasured classic. Using a combination of theory, demonstration, and practical suggestions this new arsenal of tools, will help you grow as an artist. Other techniques covered include: How to design with light and shadow The use of overlapping patterns How light can express movement Learning to use light and dark to add drama and intensity to your work Discover how to guide the viewer's eye through floodlights, spotlights, and other advanced light-manipulation techniques. Painting Light and Shadow in Watercolor will help you create radiant watercolor paintings and give you greater painting pleasure as you develop new skills which bring your imagination to life.

Long before China promulgated the official One Belt One Road initiatives, vast networks of cross-border exchanges already existed across Asia and Eurasia. The dynamics of such trade and resource flows have largely been outside state control, and are pushed to the realm of the shadow economy. The official initiative is a state-driven attempt to enhance the orderly flow of resources across countries along the Belt and Road, hence extending the reach of the states to the shadow economies. This volume offers a bottom-up view of the transborder informal exchanges across Asia and Eurasia, and analyses its clash and mesh with the state-orchestrated Belt and Road cooperation. By undertaking a comparative study of country cases along the new silk roads, the book underlines the intended and unintended consequences of such competing routes of connectivity on the socio-economic conditions of local communities.

Set in an alternate nineteenth century, muskets and magic are weapons to be feared in the first “spectacular epic” (Fantasy Book Critic) in Django Wexler’s Shadow Campaigns series. Captain Marcus d’Ivoire, commander of one of the Vordanai empire’s colonial garrisons, was serving out his days in a sleepy, remote outpost—until a rebellion left him in charge of a demoralized force clinging to a small fortress at the edge of the desert. To flee from her past, Winter Ihernglass masqueraded as a man and enlisted as a ranker in the Vordanai Colonials, hoping only to avoid notice. But when chance sees her promoted to command, she must lead her men into battle against impossible odds. Their fate depends on Colonel Janus bet Vhalnich. Under his command, Marcus and Winter feel the tide turning and their allegiance being tested. For Janus’s ambitions extend beyond the battlefield and into the realm of the supernatural—a realm with the power to reshape the known world and change the lives of everyone in its path.

The world is thinnest at The Crossroads, a mythical plane that serves as a doorway throughout the universe. It is here that a band of adventurers throughout the Wild West gather, brought together by Gord Cantrell and Abigail Redmayne with a singular purpose: to fight back against the creatures that would endanger the sanctity of all creation. SHADOW ROADS is the set in the world that remains after the conclusion of Cullen Bunn, Brian Hurtt and Bill Crabtree’s critically-acclaimed series, The Sixth Gun.

When the gods are stripped of their powers, Elminster must carry the weight of Mystra’s magic upon his mortal shoulders It was the eve of the Time of Troubles. The chaos of spilled blood, lawless strife, monsters unleashed, and avatars roaming Faerûn was still to come. Unbeknownst to mortals, the gods had been summoned together—and among them was Mystra, grown proud and willful in the passing eons. With the others, she was about to be stripped of her godhood. The secret of her power gave her an idea. She made certain preparations, looking always for one who would be her successor . . . But until that person's ascension, her power must be preserved. A lone mortal must carry the greater share of her divine energy until the power could be reclaimed, and it was the fate of this mortal to risk being destroyed or driven wild, involuntarily and without warning. This was the occasion of Elminster's Doom.