Warrior of the Three Moons is the first book in the God Wars of Ithir series.

Ciarán groaned. Each jarring step Graystar took sent a spike of pain coursing through him. His wound and a weariness that seemed to go all the way to his bones made it hard to keep going. He blinked his eyes, focusing his attention on the road ahead to try and stay awake. It worked for a time, but his battle ravaged body finally had its way. He slumped forward, asleep before his head came to rest on the arch of Graystar's neck.

He came awake in a place with no light. Sucking a hissing breath between his teeth, he reached out with his hands. He exhaled a relieved sigh when they touched rough, uneven stone. He was in a cave or subterranean passage. But how had he gotten here from the steppe? He grimaced. There was only one way. He was in the Land of Dreams.

Placing his hands on the walls, he took a tentative step and almost fell. The floor was uneven and steeply inclined. He turned to go the other way, but it seemed even darker in that direction. Turning back, he saw a faint light coming from below. Wariness seeped into him. Something was down there waiting for him, drawing him to it. He hesitated, but he was a creature of light. The dim glow drew him moth-like to its flame. Moving ahead, his world became bound by the task of keeping his feet beneath him. Immersed in this task, he was unaware of the cave’s gradual widening until he could no longer touch the walls. Only then did he notice the shadows cast from a sickly orange glow—shadows that seemed to take on a life of their own, flickering and dancing on the walls.

He tried to move cautiously, but his feet had a will of their own, hurrying him in a shuffling run toward the light. As he went, the cave walls seemed to blur as they slid passed. He turned his head toward them and they became solid, but everything at the edge of his vision remained indistinct as though he was seeing them through water. An uneasy feeling came into his mind that only what was directly in front of him really existed and even then only while he was looking right at it. He shivered with relief when he rounded a sharp turn and found himself in the entrance of broad chamber. He had found the light.

It was like stepping into the sunlight from a darkened room. Blinded for a moment, Ciarán narrowed his eyes to slits to shield them from the brighter light of the chamber. When he could see clearly again, he saw his mistake. What he had thought was just a large chamber was in fact an enormous cavern. It was not the cave's size that made his dream-self’s chin drop though, but what was in it. A huge sphere glowed with an evil light in the center of a shallow circular pit cut into the dark stone of the cavern floor. At the four cardinal points, wide stone piers jutted out from the pit’s edge to the globe’s incandescent surface. Between the piers, broad steps led down from the surrounding floor, disappearing into a haze at the bottom.

An involuntary shudder racked his body. There was an alien wrongness about the sphere that made him want to howl with fear. Thin bands of black flashed jaggedly across it like dark streaks of lightning. Man-sized globules of yellowish light bubbled to the surface where they broke with a sizzling hiss, sending phosphorescent ripples racing across its ruddy surface. Over the sound of the iridescent spume, he heard a deeper roar coming from over his head. A thick column of the miasmic light swirled upward from the sphere’s top, vanishing through a hole in the cavern roof.

Ciarán swallowed. He started to step into the chamber when movement on the nearest pier froze him. A huge man dressed in black struggled across it on his belly. No, not a whole man, only half of one. The lower part of his body was missing. It was Naphtal Sûl. “You are dead. I am not afraid. This is a dream,” he whispered, pressing himself against the rough stone.

Before he realized what was happening, his rebellious feet carried him out of his hiding place into the chamber. He tried to return to the security of the darkened passageway, but his legs carried him forward, finally coming to a stop a few spans from the Ring Lord. Naphtal looked up at him. Rage and triumph battled across the Ring Lord’s face before it hardened into a mask of hate. He gabbled something in a language Ciarán did not understand. “You are dead. This is a dream,” he said again to reassure himself.

YES. BUT MY HOUND FOUND YOU FOR ME AND THAT DESERVES A REWARD.

The great voice whispered into Ciarán mind from above the Ring Lord’s shattered body. Ciarán’s eyes lifted toward it and his soul froze. A huge black head with large glowing eyes stared down at him. He stumbled back from the head, his breath hissing between teeth clinched tight with fear.

YOU CANNOT HIDE FROM ME. THAT WHICH GIVES YOU STRENGTH ALSO MAKES YOU VULNERABLE. YOU VANISH ONLY TO LIGHT A SIGNAL FIRE THAT LEADS ME TO YOU. YOU BELONG TO ME. SERVE ME AND RULE!

Ciarán tried to wet his lips, but his mouth had become a desert. “No!” he croaked. “I belong to Danu, not you. Never you! Battle Raven will sing my Soul Name first.”

FOOL! EVEN THE DEAD CAN SERVE ME. ALIVE OR DEAD, YOU ARE MINE. DEAD IS EASIER, BUT ALIVE IS BETTER. THE LIVING, YOU SEE, HAVE MORE CONTROL OVER MOST THINGS.

Naphtal gabbled something in the alien tongue and pointed at Ciarán.

YES, MY MOST LOYAL OF HOUNDS, IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO RECEIVE YOUR REWARD.

Two great hands appeared, cupping the Ring Lord in them, and carrying him up over the sphere.

THE GIFT OF IMMORTALITY IS YOURS, NAPHTAL SÛL.

The hands vanished and Naphtal fell headlong into the malevolent orb. His shriek cut off abruptly as he plunged through the sphere's roiling surface and disappeared into its depths. A moment later one of the yellowish globules of light rose up from its bowels. The Ring Lord was held rigidly within it, his arms spread wide. The light glob pressed him against the surface, but did not burst as those surfacing around it did. A thin harsh screaming, like a man dying under sharp knives came from him. Ciarán gagged. The globule turned red as Ring Lord’s flesh was torn in bloody strips from his bones and then reattached. Transfixed by the horror taking place in the sphere, he heard a voice chanting, "I serve the Light. Mother protect me. I serve the Light. Mother protect me. I serve the…" He clamped his mouth shut, cutting the chant off in mid sentence. The voice was his.

Naphtal gave one last hoarse scream and then slid limply down the sphere wall into the haze below, leaving a smear of glowing red ooze behind him. Ciarán’s eyes followed him down. Just when he thought the horror was over, a bulge appeared in the sphere's surface. There was a wet popping sound and a black shape was ejected to lie crumpled on the steps. After a moment it quivered violently and raised its head to look up at him. Silver eyes gleaming dully from a jet-black face, the huge, obese creature rose slowly to its feet. It was Naphtal Sûl. He was whole again.

SERVE ME.

The voice jerked Ciarán’s eyes from the reincarnated Naphtal Sûl to the great disembodied head. “No! I bear Danu’s mark over my heart. The Goddess will protect me.”

SHE HAS NO POWER IN THIS PLACE. BUT I CAN BE PATIENT. AS YOU BEAR HER MARK, SO SHALL YOU BEAR MINE.

A flaming trident flew from the eyes, striking Ciarán in the forehead, searing its way into his skull. He screamed, lurching backwards over the brink of a precipice. The Dark God’s laughter followed him into a maelstrom of darkness that swirled up to engulf him. He screamed again.