Book 1

Time of the Dark

by Barbara Hambly

Published 12 April 1982

A whirlwind fantasy classic set in the richest world imaginable, with unforgettable characters and the highest stakes – The Time of the Dark is the first book in Barbara Hambly’s epic Darwath Trilogy.

Gil Patterson is a woman familiar with dark stories.

As a student of medieval history, she knows the Crusades, the Black Death, and the horrors of life in the Middle Ages. But it is another kind of darkness has begun to stalk her dreams: when she falls asleep she sees forces of evil assaulting a beleaguered kingdom, whose kind people are on the brink of annihilation, and awakes each morning in a cold sweat.

Gil dismisses the dreams until a wizard appears in her apartment. He has crossed into her dimension, passing through the fraying fabric of the universe, to ask her help. For mankind to survive he must protect an infant prince, whom he plans to hide in Gil's world. The student of history is about to get much closer to evil than she ever imagined.


Book 2

The Walls of Air

by Barbara Hambly

Published 12 February 1983

A whirlwind fantasy classic set in the richest world imaginable, with unforgettable characters and the highest stakes – The Walls of Air is the second book in Barbara Hambly’s epic Darwath Trilogy.

Once upon a time, Gil and Rudy lived simple lives.

Until they met Ingold, Gil was an ordinary PhD candidate and Rudy was a drifter, whiling away his life riding motorcycles under the California sun. But wizards have a way of complicating things. Ingold brought them across the Void, where an evil known as the Dark threatened to devour civilization whole.

Civilization’s hopes rested on an infant prince, and to protect him Gil and Rudy had to draw on newfound powers — she as a warrior, he as a wizard. With Ingold’s help they escaped the Dark, and led a hardy band of survivors to a far-away keep, where humanity could be safe for a time.

But now that time is past, they have been found, and there is nowhere to hide from the Dark.


Book 3

The Armies of Daylight

by Barbara Hambly

Published 26 August 1985

A whirlwind fantasy classic set in the richest world imaginable, with unforgettable characters and the highest stakes – The Armies of Daylight is the third and final book in Barbara Hambly’s epic Darwath Trilogy.

Since the Dark Ones returned, the world has been laid to waste.

The wizards have been slaughtered, cities destroyed, and people have scattered in terror.

Few have witnessed more of the destruction than Rudy and Gil — two ordinary Californians who found their way across the Void, and took up arms in defence of a strange and magical world. She learned the ways of war, while he found within himself the powers of a great wizard. Both of them will need all their strength to survive this final challenge. Ingold, the master wizard, has devised a spell to hide the user from the deathly stare of the Dark, and he intends to use it to strike at their very heart.

Finally, Rudy, Gil, and the rest of mankind’s survivors will take the offensive, bringing an end to this terrible war, for better or for worse.


Book 4

Mother of Winter

by Barbara Hambly

Published 15 October 1996
Five years after defeating the Dark Ones, the embattled inhabitants of the once-great Keep of Dare face a yet more deadly foe. An icy-cold force was spreading across the northlands, spawning strange creatures that killed everything in their grisly path . . .

Archmage Ingold Inglorion believed the source of this monstrous evil lay in the decadent lands to the south. With him traveled Gil Patterson, the scholar-warrior from Earth who had forsaken her own universe for love of the mage.  Determined to aid him in his quest, she was cursed to become the instrument of his death.

Ingold's apprentice Rudy Solis was left behind, the sole wizard standing between the Keep of Dare and the nightmare creatures besieging it. Rudy struggled tirelessly with wavering magic to ward off the virulent attacks of the ice mage's minions. But when someone attacked the widowed queen--the woman he loved--Rudy was forced to plumb the ultimate secret locked in the black crystal heart of the Keep of Dare . . . and so decide the fate of the world.

Book 5

Icefalcon's Quest

by Barbara Hambly

Published 1 March 1995
While chaos reigned in the Eastern Lands, the Keep of Dare stood as a bastion against war and bandits and the spawn of unnatural sorceries. Then twin blows rocked the citadel: the fearsome Alketch army mounted siege, even as young Prince Tir was snatched from the heart of the Keep. Behind the terror was the depraved, hook-handed general Vair na-Chandros. He had learned that the royal child possessed forbidden wisdom: a secret with which the bloodthirsty Vair intended to conquer the world.

One single man posed a threat to Vair's vaunting ambition: the legendary warrior known as the Icefalcon. Banished by his own people and scorned as a barbarian by others, only he could hope to free the boy from Vair's clutches. With his sister Cold Death--a sorcerer whose magic was as sharp as her tongue--the Icefalcon embarked on a dangerous mission of rescue and redemption.

Braving nightmare demons and the endless hordes of Vair's inhuman soldiers, he shadowed Vair and his small captive beyond the reaches of the known world. And when the boy led Vair to the forgotten Keep of the Shadow at the End of Time, the Icefalcon would face his greatest battle . . . for his prince, for his honor, and for all eternity.

Darwath Series

by Barbara Hambly

Published 1 January 2012