The Dog at Bone Orchard

A swordsman from another world.

A vampire with a live bounty.

A dog who knows which promises bite. Former border-warden Merrit Vale falls out of a dying world and into 1883 West Texas with a sword, fractured oath-magic, and no idea what a rifle can do. His first friend is Biscuit, a thieving blue-heeler with better instincts than most men.

His first enemy is Celia Rusk, the vampire bounty hunter paid to bring him in alive.

But when Celia learns her employer means to feed the people of Bone Orchard through a stolen gate into Merrit’s old war, the hunt becomes a dangerous alliance. Railroad broker Silas Brune owns the water, the guns, and the night train carrying forty marked townsfolk toward the gate.

To stop him, Merrit must learn a frontier that punishes old certainties, trust a violent woman who keeps choosing his side, and turn his broken magic into a road people can walk only by choice. Fast, brutal, and darkly funny, The Dog at Bone Orchard is a weird-western progression fantasy about a good man who acts, a dangerous vampire who refuses to leave, and the dog who knew both of them first.

Tropes: reverse isekai / portal fantasy, oath magic progression, vampire bounty hunter ally, loyal dog companion, weird western frontier, hunter-and-quarry to allies (what these mean)