Drackore's Forge: Tome 1 - Darkness to Dawn Kindle Edition

Drackore Spyritfyst grows up in Clan Ironvein, a dwarven hold deep in the Forgeback Mountains. His father Bargore is a master smith who teaches him that steel and faith are the same thing shaped differently. His mother and siblings add to the perfect family life.Then one night the hold falls. An evil tartarean attack moves through Ironvein with ritual purpose, taking the clan and leaving silence. Bargore orders Drackore into hiding behind the forge and goes to fight. Drackore stays hidden for three days, listening to a hold that no longer answers. When the high priest Solarthar Brightstorm of Morning's Vow finds him, Drackore charges the man with his father's hammer before grief and starvation finally put him down. Solarthar carries him out. Behind them, somewhere on cold flagstone, crushed mountain daisies mark where teasing laughter used to live.Drackore grows up at Morning's Vow, angry and closed and relentlessly productive. He trains as paladin and as monk, deciding neither path is for him. He earns ranks he does not care about and develops skills he cares about entirely. Solarthar watches him with the patience of a man who knows exactly what he is watching and has decided to wait it out. The relationship between them builds in the space neither will directly acknowledge, one calling the other "old relic," the other calling him "my boy".His trials take him out into the world. The village of Ember Ridge is being slowly consumed by the Hunger, a tartarean presence that feeds on fear and despair. There he finds Korath, a knight paladin whose faith is as straightforward as a shield wall.The unlikely pair go forward to free Ember Ridge from the darkness slowly consuming them, and with unlikely allies end up back where it all started for Drackore - Ironvein Hold. Read more