When Idren the hunter leaves his Atlas Mountains home to work as a mercenary in Andalusia, his grandmother warns that it's his turn to change the world. Barefooted, with only a spear and a bow? For this stranger coming to a strange land in 1190, it seems ancient magic is needed to help an innocent hunter survive in this embattled new world.

The Blue Door, a prequel novella in the Accidental Heretics adventure series, is the life story of a Berber tribesman who came to fight for the caliphate in Iberia, in the same era that El Cid fought the Almoravid invaders.

This collection includes an additional tale from the Accidental Heretics world, "Peire and Miquel Go to Sea," which recounts the initial meeting of two Catalan fighters when embarking a ship to join the Second Crusade. This collection also introduces Tomás of Morella, the great-grandson of Idren the hunter, in a preview from Bone-mend and Salt, Book 1 in the Accidental Heretics adventure.