The first bearer of godstone

I am thrilled to announce that The Final Warden is now available through Amazon.com as both a paperback and kindle ebook.

The blurb is very brief and mentions the gifted and Lorace, but I want to add a bit more here for those who are interested enough in my writing to visit my blog.

Lorace bears something that only the chosen heroes of the Old Gods are granted, godstone. He soon learns that godstone is forged by the dwarves of Vlaske K'Brak into the weapon of its destiny.

Much of the story of Elena, the first godstone hero, is told within the pages of The Final Warden and more about her fate is revealed in the second and third volumes. What I write here is that which is not told withing the pages of the Gifts of Vorallon.

The first godstone hero was Elena the hunter, whose destiny was fulfilled five hundred years before the events of Lorace's lifetime. She was a hunter of the hill country along the western verge of the Stormwall Mountains, a region which bore only a few small villages of men during her time. Elena was gifted with the ability to run down any quarry through fleetness of foot. It was while she hunted that the Old Gods chose her. The Warrior, in the guise of the tall stag she was hunting, came to her and stayed her hand, even as she had drawn back to loose her spear into his heart. She bowed to this stag, whose eyes were full of stars, and the stag struck at the loam of the forest floor, revealing a jagged stone of dull silvery hue. When Elena took up this stone, her heart raced in her chest and her body warmed to a singular sensation that clouded her vision and induced her into a trance.

How she arrived upon the slopes of Kur K'Tahn, the mountain in which the dwarves were still carving out their home of the heart, Vlaske K'Brak, she could not answer. That it was a journey of a moon or more and that she arrived without sign of privation was attributed to the workings of the Old Gods. Even the elves of the Keth, whose lands she had traversed, had seen no evidence of her passing.

The dwarves brought her before Yarkin, the first Forgemaster who was also their priest. None could hear the voice of Vorallon through the stone with more clarity than Yarkin. It was Yarkin who had guided thier hammers and chisels toward the Forge Stone in the heart of the mountain. It was to him had come the dream of a spider, who traced a design with her thread upon the floor before Forge Stone--a design that showed the dwarven priest the ways of the Ritual of the Forge.

For the dwarves, the coming of Elena heralded fulfilment of their heritage. The first bearer of godstone had come.