The Ring of Light

By GG Koe

This is a fantasy adventure in which a half elf, finds a ring, which binds to his finger and begins to deplete his life force. It is prophesized that in order to heal the land there are two rings, one to be found and one to be won; two must venture and one return. He and his brother, journey across the land seeking those who can teach him how to control the ring. They have many adventures along the way and encounter strange creatures and interesting peoples. This is the first of five exciting books in a new series, which follows Jarran and his companions in finding the ring of light, in order to save Azwyr.

• Language: English
• Publisher: GG Koe
• Release date: Jun 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311887269

GG Koe

GG Koe was born in Edmonton, AB and raised in Nelson, BC. This is where he came to love the outdoors and dreamt of adventuring. He has pursued an avid life of exploration and travel, and loves the wilds of British Columbia. He has an interest in folk lore, also reflected in his writings.His first novel, The Ring of Light, was published in 2014, and he is currently working on other books in this series. He has written numerous professional articles.Since his retirement, he currently lives with his wife in Mission, BC, where he pursues his passion in writing.

Book preview

Chapter 1

As Andor's red sun slowly made its descent over the great swamp of Andwyr and shadows stretched across the valley, Jarran crested a rocky hill, a fresh kill - a young roebuck - weighing heavily on his shoulders. He entered the edge of a small clearing, and crouched in the shade of one of the large trees, its intertwining branches spreading out and weaving together in the twilight sky to form a dense canopy across the barren forest floor. The raised ground of the clearing offered protection from the frequent flooding of the great swamp and the sparse foliage in its dry ground provided some refuge from the insects that relentlessly sought to feed on the juices of those who dared roam this forbidding forest. Jarran had left the Vale at dawn’s first light and traveled east along the northern edge of the swamp - deep into the Great Forest. The hunting here was no better to the east than to the west, but the urge to explore eastward had been with him almost from birth, and Jarran found himself drawn by the light of the rising sun, like a moth to a candle’s flame, seeking his roots.

It was here, in the eastern forest, that Natal had found him twenty years earlier. When Natal was a young man, the swamp fever had swept through the Vale with the Stealer of Souls decimating his family and taking many of his friends. Following this dark time and the death of his wife, Natal started roaming the forest for days at a time, almost as though he were searching for solace amongst the trees. He often wandered amidst the private sanctuary of the ancient woods lost in his personal thoughts, taking small comfort in the renewing cycles of life and death.

On one particular day, Natal had been traveling along the boundaries of the escarpment, its bold rock face jutting from the earth and stretching east and west, as far as anyone from the Vale had ever traveled. Its sheer face reached up toward the sky, blocking passage to the north and the swamp extended to the south. He had been listening to the whispering winds of the forest, when he'd heard what he'd thought were the sounds of an injured creature. He'd hesitated when he first heard the whimper, as creatures of the forest were often dangerous if not deadly, but the pleading sounds came again and again, and he could not bear to leave an animal to suffer a slow and painful death.

His hand strayed to his belted axe, fingering the smooth wood of the familiar hilt, as he silently glided through the brush. As the whimpering stopped he brushed away the giant ferns, searching for movement, until suddenly an unseen twig snapping beneath his foot shattered the stillness of the forest, and the creature let forth a fierce howl.

Natal jumped back, drawing his axe as the howl diminished to a gurgle. He approached with caution, unsure of what he would find, drawing back the bush with his left hand and clutching his axe in his right. When he parted the leaves, he saw a tiny naked infant lying there on the mossy ground. The child looked sickly, with blanched skin, and bones clearly visible.

Natal scanned the forest, searching for any indication that someone was nearby.

Hello, he called out, Who claims this infant child?

In answer, the leaves rustled overhead, as a wayward wind passed by responding to his inquiry.

Hark! Who claims this child? he called again. Still the forest offered no response.

Natal bent over the child, examining him more closely. It seemed to him that the child was all mouth, his eyes were squeezed shut and his tiny hands tightly balled into little fists. The wisp of hair on his head had a white sheen and his ears, an odd point. The child’s eyes were unusually large. Natal thought of the tale spinners descriptions of the ancient elfish race. They had not been seen in the Vale for over a generation, but the tales lived on in stories told by the hearth. Although this child seemed smaller than a human infant, he seemed too large to be wholly elf - yet the ears, and the delicate boning bespoke that he could not be totally human. Natal assumed the child had to be some sort of cross breed.

He glanced once again around the forest, straining to pick out any noise or movement in the dense growth. The forest seemed unusually still as the wind died down and the foliage hung motionless in the still air. The day was warm and still with the only sound the annoying buzzing of insects accompanying the child’s feeble cries. It was then that Natal knew what he must do and removed his vest. Although it was coarse roebuck hide, it would have to do. Stooping down, he swaddled the squalling infant in his vest.

As he'd picked up the child, it quieted, closing its great wailing mouth and peeked up at Natal with deep purple eyes. The look it gave him was one that was hard to resist. That night there had been great rejoicing in the Vale as new life was welcomed in the aftermath of the swamp fever. Natal had found himself grinning from ear to ear, the proud new father of a unique little son. He'd vowed to teach him all he knew and more, if possible.

With the passing of twenty years, the frailty of age curtailed Natal’s adventuring spirit and the stiffness of his limbs confined him to the Vale, where he spent much of his time basking in the warmth of the sun and ruminating with his friends. It was rumored that he possessed knowledge of the forest equaled by none. Over the years, he earned Jarran's utmost respect and love and became the only father Jarran had ever known.

Yet Jarran could not help but wonder about his past. His miraculous finding - a wee babe in the forest - was not a kept secret in the village. In fact, the tale had grown to be almost folklore. So, like his adoptive father, Jarran was drawn to the forest, always driven toward the east, in the direction where he had been found. The hunt was never without lesson, but so far no hint of his past had revealed itself.

The great cataclysm, that left the escarpment in its wake, made hunting slightly more favorable - and much less dangerous - in the west. It was in this direction that men from the Vale generally hunted. But Jarran was drawn to the east and now watched as the horizon slowly swallowed the red sun and the last haze of scarlet blanketing the forest. Dusk would soon turn to night; it was past time for him to head back to the Vale.

He stood and stretched. He was tired and far from home and realized that he had been unwise to stubbornly track a roebuck this far. He lifted the dead weight of the small red deer across his aching shoulders and felt his tired muscles scream in protest as he shifted its weight, doing his best to stretch calves and thighs before starting out, towards the Vale.

Soon the sun dipped below the horizon and the dim light from Azwyr’s twin moons, temporarily held at bay by the monstrous cliffs of the escarpment, darkened the surrounding forest. Despite the deepening shadows, Jarran's keen elfish eyesight helped him easily traverse the land, even in the sparse light of the moon and stars. Still, he could not see as well as some of the creatures of the night, which he knew would be on the prowl.

He hadn't made it very far when he began to sense a presence. It was a vague feeling that he'd occasionally felt before, the hunter becoming the hunted. Except this time the feeling was stronger, growing into a tingle running down his spine and spreading into his flesh, until his entire being seemed to reverberate with it. Each step sent pins and needles racing up and down his spine. The voice of the wind blowing through the trees seemed to whisper to him that there was some ancient evil afoot, something seeking him. His pace hastened as he recalled the tale spinner's stories of soul suckers and crimson beasts, said to drain your blood, before you even knew you'd been attacked.

He sensed the entity was blocking his way to the Vale. A stout circadia tree lay in his path; he heaved the roebuck off his shoulders and wedged it into the lower branches of the tree as an offering. Perhaps now he could make better time while the carcass satisfied whatever stalked him.

He angled south through the forest to see if he could bypass whatever was pursuing him, moving more quickly now that he was free of the weight of the roebuck. The forest was full of game and the lost meat would easily be replaced. The loss of this meat seemed a worthwhile tithing, for his life. But he still had to be cautious.

The forest gave way to a shallow swamp and soon, the waters rose past his waist. Small buzzing insects assailed his face, seeking to suck the very juices from his tender flesh. The twin moons started to peer over the escarpment lighting the forest and he could now hear splashing in the water behind him and the sound of snapping branches suggested that something else was now moving toward him from the west.

His flesh burned with the sense of something evil. Its static-energy seemed to fill the air around him, and there was a stench of decay, as thick and stale as the water he waded through. Insects continued to circle and dive bomb for his flesh; which he ignored as welts began to form on his arms and back; there was no time to apply a repellent.

As the moons continued to rise, their light reflected off the glistening waters that stretched far to the south. The dark, sheer wall of the escarpment imposed an impenetrable barrier to the north. To the east lay dense forest beyond which he could not be certain. Behind him and from the west the strident pursuit continued.

Jarran turned north towards the escarpment. The swampy waters soon receded and he moved much faster on the dry land. The escarpment broke from the forest floor before him, seeming to rise out of nowhere amongst the trees. It was said by the tale spinners that this massive cliff had been raised by the king of the Old Ones, in an epic battle of ancient times, to block Malador's minions from the land of man. Its vertical cliffs were never to be ascended, though a brave few had tried without success. He thought of them now, as whatever chased him closed in behind him and scanned the sheer rock cliffs, straining to find a safe haven.

He glanced to the west, the direction of the Vale. But he knew that way was blocked by whatever followed him. The escarpment was well known for its sheer cliffs in that direction and he would be easily trapped, boxed in, when the creature caught up to him. He would have to turn east. At least, there might be a chance in that direction. As he ran he searched for a sanctuary or a place to scale the escarpment before he was caught. From the forest came a wailing sound, unlike any animal he'd ever heard before.

It was then he fully realized the gravity of his situation. Although he'd had little reason to doubt his elfish senses before, he'd secretly been hoping that this time they'd been wrong. The shrill cry sounded again and he remembered as a boy sitting by the Vale fire, with the wood smoke filling his nose, as he listened to the tale spinners tell of troggs, so called creatures of the Dark. A shiver once again ran up his spine as he remembered a tale spinner imitate a sound very similar to the one he now heard.

The tale spinners had spoken of a race of saurian creatures that walked upright like men. They told of slimy, webbed hands and toes, of acrid, slavering beasts of the night. It was said these creatures lived deep in the swamps of Azwyr. Once, the troggs had walked the swamps in droves, hunting anyone foolish enough to be out after sunset. These were dark times in the history of the Vale; with rumors of entire villages being slaughtered in the night.

But no trogg had been seen in Jarran's lifetime and the stories had faded into the stuff of legend and myth. Yet he was now being pursued and the strange, shrill calls kept getting closer and closer. He labored on, each ragged breath searing his lungs until his steps began to falter and his heart threatened to burst from his chest. He paused, catching his breath as he realized he would not be able to outrun his pursuer. There was no choice but to stop and fight.

It was there near the cliff that he spied a tall kylar tree, its slender trunk stretching half way up the escarpment wall. It appeared thick enough to support his slight frame and might provide some advantage in combat, if not an escape.

He glanced back towards the swamp and observed a man-sized creature emerging from the trees. Jarran instinctively pulled out his bow, notched and drew an arrow, and then hesitated as more creatures stepped from the cover of the trees. They appeared saurian, with scaled grey mottled skin, yellow eyes, and gaping maws, their webbed feet, and claw-like hands.

One creature took a hop-step towards him. Jarran loosed an arrow, which hit the trogg in its jaundiced eye. Then he turned to scramble up the kylar tree, expecting to feel clawed hands pulling him down, but he was out of their reach by the time they gained the trunk. When he was as high as the slender trunk would permit without bending, he looked down. From his vantage point, he watched as the creatures left their fallen comrade to continue pursuing him.

Finding his balance in the tree, he notched another arrow and took aim, then shot and shot again, striking two more of the beasts. They fell, and Jarran reached for a third arrow, but as his hand hovered over his quiver, he was horrified to see the troggs feeding on the fallen. They slurped, tore and snarled, fighting amongst themselves, while the dying troggs squirmed and whistled as the liquids drained from their bodies. Jarran fought back the urge to gag, feeling for his last two arrows. Soon, the dead troggs were nothing but husks on the ground, and the live ones were tearing at the trunk of the tree.

Jarran looked to the escarpment wall and judged it to be about half a dozen feet away - much too far to jump. But the rock was not as sheer from this height and there were some cracks in the rock face that might serve as handholds if he could somehow reach them. High above, a dark shadow suggested a possible opening into the rock face. All he needed was to get reach that crack, and he could climb away from the troggs.

Below, the troggs began to rock the tree back and forth, trying to shake him from his perch in the branches. Jarran let loose the last of his arrows, taking down two more of the troggs. This time, perhaps sated by their previous meals, the troggs ignored their dying comrades and continued to claw their way up the trunk towards him. They were clumsy climbing with webbed hands and feet and often pulled each other from the branches in their haste to be the first to reach him.

The tree's slender trunk now swayed violently under the weight of their assault and Jarran held the trunk with one hand to keep from being dislodged while trying to shoulder his bow with the other. The tree jerked and Jarran had to release his bow in order to cling to the trunk with both hands. He clutched the wood with his sweating palms and watched his bow fall through the branches. He still had his Vale knife, in his belt, but regretted the loss of his bow. Even without arrows, he could have used it to keep the troggs at bay.

The troggs now seemed to be making better progress through the branches and a pungent stench assailed his nostrils as they closed on his position. Jarran inched further up the kylar, but the top was far too slim to fully support his weight and it began to sway and bend. He guided the lean of the tree towards the edge of the escarpment and soon the trunk was curving at an alarming angle threatening to snap and send him plummeting into the arms of the troggs below. The troggs gazed skyward hissed in anticipation. However, the tree was young and strong and yielded under his weight like the wood of his bow, bending but not breaking.

As the tree swayed towards the escarpment, Jarran reached out and wedged one hand into the fissure, releasing his grip on the tree. The momentum of his body slammed him into the rock face and it felt like his shoulder would rip from its socket. He feared that his hand would slip from the fissure, but somehow, miraculously he was left dangling by one arm on the cliff face. He scratched the rock with his free hand trying to find another handhold in the fissure. Time stood still until he finally wedged two fingers into the crack. Above him the crack seemed to open up in a long, thin vertical line, stretching high up the rock face.

Beneath him, the troggs scratched at the rock, howling and shrieking, leaping towards his dangling legs. He jammed his hands successively into the fissure, one above the other, gradually inching his way upwards. Soon, his hands were dark with blood, which made them slippery and the climb even more treacherous. As the fissure opened, he found he had to turn his hand to wedge it into the opening. Soon he had to insert his entire forearm into the crack to get a proper hold. The rock's jagged edges peeled soft chunks of flesh from his elbows and his blood flowed more freely now, dripping down his arms and leaving red stains on the wall. The scent of fresh blood seemed to excite the troggs waiting below whose hissing grew louder.

When Jarran could bear the pain no more, he finally gained a foothold in the fissure and was able to relieve the weight from his arms. Using this purchase he propelled himself further up the crack into a larger rift in the cliff. What had appeared as a dark shadow from the tree was in reality a wide, horizontal crevice in the escarpment wall.

Grunting with the effort, Jarran crawled further into the crevice out of sight of the waiting troggs and collapsed on the sandy floor, his hands and arms pulsing in waves of excruciating pain. The last thing he remembered was the beauty of Azwyr's crimson sunset, the rush of his first hunt, and the coolness of the valley breeze on his cheek, before he drifted into oblivion and the trogg’s hissing faded from his awareness.

Chapter 2

As dawn's first light found its way into the crevice Jarran slowly opened his eyes and stretched. His entire body ached from the previous night’s exertion and, for a brief moment, he was startled not to find himself at home in his moss bed, nestled under the cover of his warm blankets. All at once, the prior night's events flashed before his eyes.

He scrambled to the crevice's edge and looked, searching the forest for any sign of movement. In his haste, he knocked several small bits of shale off the ledge that crashed on the rocks far below. For a brief moment the birds stopped singing and a startled doe glanced up from browsing on the new growth in the clearing beyond the escarpment and quietly stepped back into the trees before tranquility once again claimed the forest.

There was no sign of the troggs. Even the dead troggs appeared to have disappeared, perhaps dragged off in the night by hungry predators. The kylar tree still stood beside the escarpment, straight and true without even a hint that it had been bent almost to the breaking point, its branches reaching once again to embrace the warmth of the sun.

Jarran wondered if the tree might provide an exit from the crevice and eyed the distance between the fissure and the tree for some time before deciding that the slender trunk probably wouldn’t hold him if he took a running leap from the crevice. He looked down the side of the escarpment wall and noted that the drop from the bottom of the vertical crack was a long way to the ground - the sort of drop that portended a broken leg, or worse.

He sat back for a moment, taking a long, deep breath and admired the beauty of the forest in the warm morning sun. It seemed to him that all shades of green were present in the lush onslaught of summer and his thoughts wandered to the people of the Vale living to the west, a small group of stalwart folk, eking out their austere existence in the narrow arable tract that lay between the escarpment and the swamp. He strained his eyes to search the sky to see the thin wisps of smoke that rose from the breakfast fires in the small wooden houses of the Vale and the thought of breakfast made his stomach start to rumble.

He sucked in another deep breath of the fresh morning air, precipitating an ache in the sore muscles of his expanding rib cage, before turning to survey his refuge. He was surprised to see that the rift he'd found extended far back into the escarpment gradually angling upwards. The base of the rift was blanketed in sand covered with small pieces of broken rock that had fallen from the eroding walls.

Pangs of hunger began to knot his stomach. He had last dined on a light lunch during his hunt and had skipped dinner in his hunt of the roebuck. Now his stomach reminded him of his missed meals and his thoughts turned once again to the Vale, imagining a fat stack of waffle cakes smothered in circadia syrup with hot loaves of endoven bread smeared with salalberry jam. He was sure he could almost scent the sweet smell of freshly baked bread and the pungent aroma of strongly steeped salal tea in the fresh morning air.

He pushed this hopeless fantasy from his mind and focused on his surroundings as he wandered deeper and deeper into the rock crevice. His feet scuffed the sand and threw up little clouds of dust from the floor exposing the solid rock of the crevase floor. He marveled at the size and depth of the cut leading back into the escarpment. It appeared that the escarpment had cracked when it was thrust from the valley floor.

As he explored the rift, his foot struck something that gave way and he jumped back, hand on his hilt, ready to draw his knife, only to discover an old bleached bone, partially exposed where his foot had disturbed it; the rest of the remains still buried beneath the windborn sand in the rift.

Jarran retrieved the bone and gently set it back in place as he examined the remains, which appeared to those of some unlucky climber. He knelt, and carefully dusted off some of the sand so that he could see the slender bones posed with one arm extended holding a rope laying in a pile by its side and the rest of the body curled up, the other arm and leg tucked under, as though the climber lay sleeping, just as Jarran had, but the frayed end of the rope told a different story. He made the Vale blessing over the remains, and rose, careful not to disturb them any further.

Further back in the crevice, he heard the sound of trickling water, where the sheer rock glistened with moisture. Jarran threw himself to the ground, where the moisture collected in a small pool and dipped his mouth into the water, quenched his thirst in greedy gulps, relishing the cool liquid as it flowed down his parched throat. Then he sat back, exhausted anew from the effort of drinking, and leaned his back against the smooth stone while the water quelled the gnawing pangs in his stomach.

His breath caught at what he saw. Above him, the sun shone illuminating the steep walls reaching towards the escarpment plateau. He leapt to his feet, searching the walls for some way to scale the rock, but there were no niches or cracks suitable for handholds.

He groaned, glancing back towards the glaring light of the sun. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust, but when they did, he saw that part of the wall was not smooth and sheer as the rock face, but jagged, with stones jutting out where a section had collapsed, leaving a small stone pile on the fissure floor. If he could just reach those jagged rocks, he could climb right out and perhaps from there he would find a way back down from the escarpment plateau.

Ignoring the pain that shot though his muscles, he collected all the stones he could find on the fissure floor and made a large pile. When he climbed the pile, he found that he was still far short of the jagged rock face. He walked back, towards the crevice entrance, took a few running steps and sprung off the rock pile. But his foot slid and he lost his balance, coming down hard on his side and knocking the breath from his lungs.

He rolled onto his back, lying still on the stone floor, waiting for the pain to subside. It was then that he remembered the climber's frayed rope, which might provide a means of getting down from the fissure. With mounting excitement, he retraced his steps to the body. The rope was weathered and ancient, but it withstood the pressure when he pulled on various lengths as hard as his sore muscles could manage. He hooked the rope around his foot, and was about to test it one last time, when his eye caught a glint in the sand, just beyond the climber's bony hand.

He stooped, clearing away the sand and uncovered a golden ring. It was the most ornate thing he had ever seen, embellished with fine lines and swirling patterns shaped like the head of a cat. As he turned it in his hands, he saw the ring held a pair of almond shaped opalescent stones that looked like glistening cat's eyes bearing judgment on all they saw. Jarran turned the ring around and around in his hands. The opals sent a chill down his spine and he didn't want them looking at him any longer. But he wanted to keep the ring; it was too beautiful to leave just lying there in the sand. He searched for an open hem in his clothes, some place to store the ring. But the women of the Vale had