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Chapters (51)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright
  4. Dedication
  5. Epigraph
  6. Prologue
  7. Part I
  8. 1.
  9. 2.
  10. 3.
  11. 4.
  12. 5.
  13. 6.
  14. 7.
  15. 8.
  16. 9.
  17. 10.
  18. Part II
  19. 11.
  20. 12.
  21. 13.
  22. 14.
  23. 15.
  24. 16.
  25. 17.
  26. 18.
  27. Part III
  28. 19.
  29. 20.
  30. 21.
  31. 22.
  32. 23.
  33. 24.
  34. 25.
  35. 26.
  36. 27.
  37. 28.
  38. 29.
  39. 30.
  40. 31.
  41. 32.
  42. Part IV
  43. 33.
  44. 34.
  45. 35.
  46. 36.
  47. 37.
  48. 38.
  49. 39.
  50. 40.
  51. About the Author

Gunmar thrashed like a hog on the killing floor and lifted two fists over his shoulders to grab ARRRGH!!! by the head. But something was different. Gunmar sensed it and a quick exploration with his fingers revealed that the boulder, the one he’d implanted in his rival’s skull decades before, had been knocked free by the fragment of goal post. Before he could register what this meant, ARRRGH!!! removed her right arm from around Gunmar’s neck and in that fist was clutched the boulder, that forty-five-year-old symbol of good luck.

Her voice had reclaimed a tone that was intelligent and true.

“My name is Johannah M. ARRRGH!!!,” she said, “and I told you I’d get you.”

The boulder soared downward and cracked Gunmar’s cranium in half. The noise was like the rending of the planet, and it felt like that, too, when he collapsed to both knees. ARRRGH!!!’s grip weakened, the boulder dropped into the grass, and her lacerated body slipped from the quills. She crumpled to the turf, a limp pile of blood-soaked fur.

Gunmar’s body swayed and his six arms tried to push his skull back together to cover the exposed brain. His manifold hands, though, became confused and tussled with one another before giving up. Then the mighty lord of the Gumm-Gumms, the Hungry One, He Who Sups of Blood, the Untangler of Entrails, Gunmar the Black wavered in place for a long moment before dropping to his back with all the ceremony of a chopped tree.

40.

Jack left it to me to do what decades before he’d failed to do: deliver the killing blow.

Claire helped me over to the still convulsing body, and Blinky boosted me onto a thigh. Once there I found it simple enough to traverse the landscape: the tarn of blood gathered at midsection, the ravaged gut, the hills and valleys of the ribcage. I took a seat on the boiling red skin over his heart and felt myself lifted up and down with each uneven hiccup of his pulse.

Weariness, not victory or relief, engulfed me. I placed the tip of Claireblade over the throbbing patch of skin and felt a newfound sympathy for Jack. Defeated, the troll beneath me felt not as evil as he did obsessed, led by an inescapable hunger that consumed his every atom. I listened to the reedy breaths struggling up his throat and watched the shredded tongue loll from the corner of his mouth. His single eye stared upward into the night sky, while the Eye of Malevolence nuzzled the empty socket.