Darkness of the Light (The Hidden Earth Chronicles)

On the Damned World, it’s every man for himself. Only it’s not just mankind who inhabits this crumbling, desolate world. Twelve very different species, creatures out of Earth’s mythology that live on the land, in the sea, and underground, vie for survival in a hostile land. While the bloodsucking Piri fight the one-eyed Ocular, the aquatic Merks exploit their cousins the Markene and the Sirene, and the Trulls fight among themselves as they, like the other races that unwillingly share the world after having been thrust there by a fate they don’t understand, battle for survival. But amid the chaos of the ravaged earth there are signs of hope for a brighter future. A human woman is about to be carried off by two pug-ugly Mandraques who think she’d make a cool battle prize. But one of a motley tribe of bottom-feeders can’t bear the thought of what would happen to her if she’s captured, so he gathers his courage and saves her, much to his own surprise. Leading a precarious existence and making bad deals with powerful people, the bottom-feeders manage to survive until they are forced to return a favor once done for them by the king of the Ocular. They must find and bring to him the legendary Orb of Light, fabled to be the key to the world’s salvation. But as their quest for the Orb begins, none of its seekers realize that the fabled Orb, once known by a much more ominous name, could lead to the utter destruction of the only world they’ve got...