The Freya Stone

The Freya Stone burned with dragon-fire for a thousand solars—until the night Evad the Horrible stole it.

With its power, the ancient troll summons an army of wicker soldiers and enslaves every gnome they seize. Villages fall. Gnomes vanish into his crystal mines. And the quiet settlement of Grapfell lies squarely in his path.

Knor, a village elder, never aspired to heroics. Nor did Itsirk the baker, Darb the butcher, or Finn the innkeeper. Yet when Evad's sorcery twists their Harvest Festival into a waking nightmare and endangers everyone they hold dear, the four embark on a perilous quest to reclaim the stone—before their world is swallowed whole.

Their journey will try them in ways they cannot begin to imagine: knife-edged mountain passes, a sprite whose riddles may save or undo them, and a dragon who demands a dreadful price. Armed only with an enchanted hammer that chooses its own battles and the courage they'd never credited themselves with, four ordinary gnomes must confront an enemy who has never once been bested.

Because some legends aren't born. They're forged in fire.